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Seriously Defective Macbook Pro with FOUR HDD Failures in 10 Months

mohsy90 said:
wait, you're still in your 1-year warranty period??? They should not have charged you $50, ask for a refund as well.....this is ridiculous.
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Yep! I said about ten months has passed since I got the laptop, so yeah! I'm pretty annoyed with them right now, I feel this is crude treatment for a so-called great laptop. They almost fail to acknowledge a manufacturer's defect.
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I'd pass it off with one or two HDD problems as a chance that maybe I downloaded something that caused trouble or I messed a setting, but three-four times I feel like I've been severely cheated. You guys think it's ridiculous? Yeah so do I lol. I SHOULD have every right to demand the replacement, as I have the year warranty, right?

What could I do if Apple tries to deny me? What can I say to get them to think differently?
 
Ryukouki said:
Yep! I said about ten months has passed since I got the laptop, so yeah! I'm pretty annoyed with them right now, I feel this is crude treatment for a so-called great laptop. They almost fail to acknowledge a manufacturer's defect.


What could I do if Apple tries to deny me? What can I say to get them to think differently?
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They have no right to charge you f you are in the 1 year warranty period. Also if you bought your mack with an education discount your warranty is extended by 2 years (1 year standard + 2 for education customers). However your telephone support is only limited to 90 days. If you have had 3+ failures within the warranty period it is your right to get a new macbook. It is called their lemon policy. Ask them about it.
 
Ryukouki said:
Yep! I said about ten months has passed since I got the laptop, so yeah! I'm pretty annoyed with them right now, I feel this is crude treatment for a so-called great laptop. They almost fail to acknowledge a manufacturer's defect.
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I'd pass it off with one or two HDD problems as a chance that maybe I downloaded something that caused trouble or I messed a setting, but three-four times I feel like I've been severely cheated. You guys think it's ridiculous? Yeah so do I lol. I SHOULD have every right to demand the replacement, as I have the year warranty, right?

What could I do if Apple tries to deny me? What can I say to get them to think differently?
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If they still fail to offer it to you, I would consider getting the AppleCare warranty to extend your coverage. Then call AppleCare support instead and tell them the entire issue. They tend to have a little more leverage and may end up sending you to the Apple store and will let the store know before hand to offer you a replacement.
 
I'll just show them my logs, which says four. Lemon policy? Never heard of this!

And guys, I'm sorry if this seems ridiculous. I can't believe it either. :(
 
eagandale4114 said:
They have no right to charge you f you are in the 1 year warranty period. Also if you bought your mack with an education discount your warranty is extended by 2 years (1 year standard + 2 for education customers). However your telephone support is only limited to 90 days. If you have had 3+ failures within the warranty period it is your right to get a new macbook. It is called their lemon policy. Ask them about it.
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2 years??? First time I'm hearing that for education customers, what's your source? It's only a 2 year extension if you purchase applecare.
 
mohsy90 said:
2 years??? First time I'm hearing that for education customers, what's your source? It's only a 2 year extension if you purchase applecare.
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I'd really like a source. To this day, I've never seen this extended education warranty thing. Even a colleague who managed to get a discount at the university store never got that! If it had two extra years I wouldn't have paid on Amazon.
 
I'll be heading in tomorrow, so I'll letcha guys know what happens after. Thanks for helping everyone! :)
 
hallux said:
Sure they did, you only get 90 days free telephone support. Only get more if you buy AppleCare.
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Umm no, any replacement that needs to be done for a defective/failing part within the 1-year manufacturer warranty is free. Apple should not be charging the OP anything! AppleCare is another thing, and I'm fairly sure that $50 charge wasnt for "extra" phone support.
 
eagandale4114 said:
They have no right to charge you f you are in the 1 year warranty period. Also if you bought your mack with an education discount your warranty is extended by 2 years (1 year standard + 2 for education customers). However your telephone support is only limited to 90 days. If you have had 3+ failures within the warranty period it is your right to get a new macbook. It is called their lemon policy. Ask them about it.
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The extended warranty is only in the UK, not in the US. Also, there is no lemon policy. Here in the US there is something that says that they have to replace it after a reasonable amount of repair attempts, but there is no exact number. It's not a given that they will replace it after three repairs.

OP, contact Apple. Be patient, and explain to them what's happened and how many times they've tried to fix it. Specifically request a replacement, and see what they have to say.
 
hallux said:
Sure they did, you only get 90 days free telephone support. Only get more if you buy AppleCare.
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IMO I always thought this was only if you required them to do moderate troubleshooting over the phone or something. I've called Apple up a couple of times regarding basic technical enquiries even though I'm out of support and they've always helped me out free of charge. Did you ask them to remotely access your computer and check on it or something, because that might have explained why they billed you.


Anyway take it back to the shop to get them to check it out again. Next time some "genius" tells you that they've ran the tests and it's fine, ask him back this question: "If it's fine as you claim it to be, then could you kindly explain to me why am I experiencing all these <list of problems that you've had> issues? Because there's obviously something wrong with it as it was beeping on me when I booted it up." Of course, start by asking them in a friendly, polite manner so they will be more willing to help you and don't be a jerk to them unless they're start being a douchebag first by giving you stupid answers telling you there's nothing wrong.

If they're going to insist that the tests show that nothing is wrong, then by all means go ahead and tell them to look at your record of all your Apple visits and how it's always the harddrive. Ask them if they honestly think that you have so much free time to constantly pay them a visit every few months, and ask them if they think you find it fun. Tell them that there IS something wrong with it otherwise you wouldn't be coming back so many times. If they still refuse to take a through check at it, then kindly request to them that you wish to speak to their manager.

Once they agree to take a look at it, then request from them if it's possible for them to get your notebook changed (or at the very least get the logic board swapped). If they tell you something like, "No, sorry we can't do that. We can only change the HDD for you.", then ask them if they know what the issue is. They'll likely say that they have no idea. Tell them that since they don't have any idea, what makes them think that changing the HDD again would solve the problem, as you've already had it changed many times and it is NOT fixing the problem, and they'll likely just be wasting their time and your time if they only swap the HDD again.

Also if possible, try to see if you can call up Apple again and ask them if they could at least make a case for you or something. Also ask them if they can help you request for a new laptop replacement as you've already had so many problems in 10 months. It'll certainly help facilitate things when you bring down your Mac to the genius bar again when you have a case ID from Apple Support. I had a problem once where I had an issue with my LCD, brought it down to the bar and they said they'll replace it. However I didn't have time then, and months later when I brought it down again the issue had disappeared and I was told they couldn't replace it any more. Called Apple up, explained to them and sent them pictures. Brought it down to the bar again and gave them my case ID and they took it in this time without questions.

Lastly as I said, try to remain friendly and polite to the staff.

At the end of it all I think you can try to call Apple back and ask them if they can waive off the $50 charge too. Explain to them that it was due to a fault in the computer that caused you to call up, and you don't feel it's fair that you have to pay the cost for it. :)

PS: Don't get an SSD just because of this. If you had 4 HDD failures within 10 months then there's an extremely high chance of there being something within your computer causing it to fail, and it's possible you may end up killing another SSD too.
 
Well this is full of crap. They refused to replace it because my issue wasn't severe enough, blaming it on "User Permissions" gone bad. Bull. They also weren't able to trace the previous hdd failures, which is because I had the drive replaced two months ago. Not only that, they also tried to tack on a $250 bill to replace and do a deep down scan of the entire system and try to find stuff. Funny, the last rep did the EXACT same thing!

Now, if someone would be kind to route me to an Apple Customer Relations number, that would be wonderful. Thanks!
 
sjinsjca said:
Not at today's capacities, meaning today's areal densities and nanoscale fly-heights.
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If it was that common, we'd see complaints much more frequently. It is not common to see several HDDs fail in a year. If it was, they wouldn't even be in the reference design specs anymore. This is similar to the argument regarding ram and that ECC is more crucial now given the relative densities when properly functioning ram would not experience bit flipping on a daily or weekly basis. It should be quite rare.

mohsy90 said:
Not having AppleCare warranty hurts your position, but this time I would demand that they replace both free of charge seeing this is the 4TH TIME its failed. If you had warranty you could probably get a full replacement, but don't take just a HD replacement for an answer....demand a logic board or full replacement.
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Applecare should really only be an issue after the normal warranty expires. There are a lot of people on here who want to make it into something more, but extended warranties don't work that way on their official policies, and I don't go by anecdotes of where they chose to go beyond their normal policies when someone happened to have applecare as it's not a guarantee. I noticed you made a different statement later, but I'm not sure how we'd be talking about warranty repairs if he wasn't within the first year.

Ryukouki said:
I know, I wanted them to take a REALLY deep look at my Macbook and tell me something was wrong. As I don't have the Applecare, I do however still have the regular yearlong warranty. Which is even more stupid because four breaks in LESS THAN A YEAR is complete bull if you ask me.

Trust me, I don't intend to leave unless I get myself a replacement. I'm going to say that up front. I am going to get rid of this laptop and get a different one. I have very detailed self written logs that chronicled my problems, from dates, appointment times, things I recall doing last, the solution that Apple gave, etc., computer specs, all that fancy stuff. All they need to do is reference the dates of the genius bar appointments on my logs and they'll see that I'm not blowing air.
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It's stupid that you you have to go through that many hardware problems in the scope of a single year. All computers have the potential for hardware problems, but when they are repaired, you want them to receive the right repairs.

eagandale4114 said:
They have no right to charge you f you are in the 1 year warranty period. Also if you bought your mack with an education discount your warranty is extended by 2 years (1 year standard + 2 for education customers). However your telephone support is only limited to 90 days. If you have had 3+ failures within the warranty period it is your right to get a new macbook. It is called their lemon policy. Ask them about it.
Click to expand...

I've only read about lemon policies on here.

mohsy90 said:
Umm no, any replacement that needs to be done for a defective/failing part within the 1-year manufacturer warranty is free. Apple should not be charging the OP anything! AppleCare is another thing, and I'm fairly sure that $50 charge wasnt for "extra" phone support.
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Their policies are silly at times.

Ryukouki said:
Well this is full of crap. They refused to replace it because my issue wasn't severe enough, blaming it on "User Permissions" gone bad. Bull. They also weren't able to trace the previous hdd failures, which is because I had the drive replaced two months ago. Not only that, they also tried to tack on a $250 bill to replace and do a deep down scan of the entire system and try to find stuff. Funny, the last rep did the EXACT same thing!

Now, if someone would be kind to route me to an Apple Customer Relations number, that would be wonderful. Thanks!
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Try a different one. Corrupt permissions cannot brick a drive. I'm not sure whether they can crash an OS, but the permissions would not be capable of corrupting the firmware or causing hardware failure. Try a different Apple store or a third party repair center. The chance of 4 hard drives dying within that period is unreasonably low. I'm guessing we're talking about an Apple Store. Trying to charge you for such diagnostics is ridiculous. Even out of warranty they'd need to present you with a quote for that first, and that's still ridiculously high for diagnostic work. Third party repair shops around here will charge around $90 for diagnostics, but if you buy the repairs from them, they'll deduct the diagnostic fee from that.
 
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They gave me the riot act with user inflicted damages and they promised a deep scale search of what went wrong with the unit, I gave them my own riot act and told them that their service was inexcusable and I'd take it up with corporate. Filed a complaint on the entire store. An hour delay on an appointment is complete bull in my book.
 
At this point, I'd be setting some corporate butts on fire, all the way up to Tim Cook. This is simply unacceptable.
 
Ryukouki said:
They gave me the riot act with user inflicted damages and they promised a deep scale search of what went wrong with the unit, I gave them my own riot act and told them that their service was inexcusable and I'd take it up with corporate. Filed a complaint on the entire store. An hour delay on an appointment is complete bull in my book.
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I don't blame you. If you're following typical precautions such as not slamming the lid or moving the computer constantly when in use (especially when accessing data), these things shouldn't happen. The issue of increasing capacity is brought up with drives much like with ram, but if you're using something in a manner consistent with the intention of its design, you shouldn't see chain hardware deaths. HDDs do die. If it was one or two I'd feel differently about it, as these things do happen. SSDs die too. The sandforce controllers had a few issues a while back, and the drives themselves have limited write cycles. I like them, but there's no guarantee that one will solve your problems.
 
Ryukouki said:
They gave me the riot act with user inflicted damages and they promised a deep scale search of what went wrong with the unit, I gave them my own riot act and told them that their service was inexcusable and I'd take it up with corporate. Filed a complaint on the entire store. An hour delay on an appointment is complete bull in my book.
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Are you goIng to an actual Apple Store? What you're describing is totally different than any experience I've ever had at an Apple Store.

That being said, I've only had the Apple store give me replacements on iPods and iPhones. I did have an issue with an older MacBook pro and that had to be handled through Apple support. Try calling 1-800-APL-CARE.
 
I disagree with the idea to buy an SSD instead. I've had 5 ssds in the past year and 2 went bad before 6 months. They are NOT more secure than HDD, they are just as, if not more, likely to go bad (and data recovery will be much more expensive if you don't backup).

That said, there is a good chance the problem is your hard drive connector cable. It's cheap to buy on ebay and if you know how to open your computer, it may solve your issues. It's possible a bad/flakey hard drive connector cable will corrupt or "break" (for lack of a better term) your hard drive.

Also, test your drive by connecting to another computer (with sata usb adapter or enclosure) and trying to format it (with zeroing out all data). If this completes, the hard drive wasn't "bad" just too corrupt to boot the computer.

4 bad hard drives seems like too much of a coincidence. That is: it's unlike you really had 4 bad drives within a year. It's more likely the hard drive connector cable, something most repair techs (including "geniuses") don't check/consider.
 
300DDR said:
I disagree with the idea to buy an SSD instead. I've had 5 ssds in the past year and 2 went bad before 6 months. They are NOT more secure than HDD, they are just as, if not more, likely to go bad (and data recovery will be much more expensive if you don't backup).

That said, there is a good chance the problem is your hard drive connector cable. It's cheap to buy on ebay and if you know how to open your computer, it may solve your issues. It's possible a bad/flakey hard drive connector cable will corrupt or "break" (for lack of a better term) your hard drive.

Also, test your drive by connecting to another computer (with sata usb adapter or enclosure) and trying to format it (with zeroing out all data). If this completes, the hard drive wasn't "bad" just too corrupt to boot the computer.

4 bad hard drives seems like too much of a coincidence. That is: it's unlike you really had 4 bad drives within a year. It's more likely the hard drive connector cable, something most repair techs (including "geniuses") don't check/consider.
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Until the issue is resolved to the end with apple customer service, I would not open the computer or try to fix it. It is their problem. I would position myself in this manner in the discussions; I am just a computer user, I am not a computer expert, you guys at Apple are the experts, I've not modified or abused the computer. I need a working computer because of xyz.....after you've reached the end of the customer service process, then you can start opening the computer and try to fix it.
i wish you the best.
 
Ryukouki said:
Yeah, seriously. I even had it (the HDD) replaced too! Last time, which was May 8th, 2012. I have that invoice too, so I'm definitely gonna bring that up. It SUCKS. I'm thinking motherboard, but that doesn't seem likely. If I had any other ideas, I'd say them, but I'm just a college student. I usually keep my laptop at home, and use the university computers for my works. :(
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I had apple tell me my hard drive had failed in my old 2008 MBA. They replaced it twice before they figured out that my logic board was doing something wonky. They replaced that a few times before eventually replacing the whole computer with a 2010 MBA. Ask the apple store people questions.
 
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