Should I do this? (Service related)

[metalkills]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question. I had a flickering screen on my macbook awhile back and took it in to get fixed. When it came back it was fine for about 2 weeks and began flickering again. I am taking it back in again on Wednesday, but wondered should I take the harddrive out beforehand?

I have read the dangers of leaving your harddrive in your computer when sending it in for servicing. I didn't really think about it last time, but the problem isn't software related as far as I know so whats the need for a HD? Theres nothing on there I want to keep secret unless they can somehow pull passwords from websites I visit (banking, ebay, paypal) so I've got nothing to hide besides that. For some reason they did ask for my password last time so they did need to log in to my system.

Is this a good practice? I actually trust that nothing will happen and they are too busy to go cloning every HD that comes in.. but then part of me thinks its better to be safe than sorry. Then again, I don't want to make the hour drive just for them to tell me "sorry we can't figure out the problem without the HD, you'll have to come back"

Anyone input will be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[AndyK]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question. I had a flickering screen on my macbook awhile back and took it in to get fixed. When it came back it was fine for about 2 weeks and began flickering again. I am taking it back in again on Wednesday, but wondered should I take the harddrive out beforehand?

I have read the dangers of leaving your harddrive in your computer when sending it in for servicing. I didn't really think about it last time, but the problem isn't software related as far as I know so whats the need for a HD? Theres nothing on there I want to keep secret unless they can somehow pull passwords from websites I visit (banking, ebay, paypal) so I've got nothing to hide besides that. For some reason they did ask for my password last time so they did need to log in to my system.

Is this a good practice? I actually trust that nothing will happen and they are too busy to go cloning every HD that comes in.. but then part of me thinks its better to be safe than sorry. Then again, I don't want to make the hour drive just for them to tell me "sorry we can't figure out the problem without the HD, you'll have to come back"

Anyone input will be appreciated. Thanks!

If they have your hard drive installed they need your password to log into your machine to test that it is working. Otherwise they'd have no way of testing.

If you remove the drive before you send it away, they will stick in their own drive with the OS installed that they have free reign over to test your machine thoroughly.

 

[rogair]

Don't worry about service techs snooping around. They don't have time for it. Delete the important stuff (after backing up), or create a password protected disk image and put your important files in there.