What does the Genius Bar Use?

[JSMencer]

I was just in at the Genius bar, and they ran tests on my laptop, They came to the conclusion that one stick of my RAM is failing, and 90 segments of my hard drive are failing. Is there a way to repair may hard drive, and not have any problems. I am in the process of taking all my info off it now through an external enclosure. If this hard drive fails, this will be my 4th hard drive in about 2 or 3 years. I think my computer runs extremely hot, is there anyway to cool it down some?
Thanks for all your help...

 

[Mal]

You can attempt to zero out your hard drive and let it mark the bad sectors as unusable space, but if you value your data at all, you'll just replace the drive. No sense messing with a failing hard drive.

As to the tools Apple uses, those are internal and run from a server. Most of the same conclusions can be reached by using software such as DiskWarrior and Member, though, and sometimes just Disk Utility.

jW

 

[Grimace]

You can attempt to zero out your hard drive and let it mark the bad sectors as unusable space, but if you value your data at all, you'll just replace the drive. No sense messing with a failing hard drive.

As to the tools Apple uses, those are internal and run from a server. Most of the same conclusions can be reached by using software such as DiskWarrior and Member, though, and sometimes just Disk Utility.

jW

Actually, they use DiskWarrior primarily. I used to train them. There are a few Apple hardware tests that can be run for other diagnostics (99% are available to the masses) but for hard drive issues, it's almost exclusively DiskWarrior.

 

[ZebOfMac]

I was just in at the Genius bar, and they ran tests on my laptop, They came to the conclusion that one stick of my RAM is failing, and 90 segments of my hard drive are failing. Is there a way to repair may hard drive, and not have any problems. I am in the process of taking all my info off it now through an external enclosure. If this hard drive fails, this will be my 4th hard drive in about 2 or 3 years. I think my computer runs extremely hot, is there anyway to cool it down some?
Thanks for all your help...

Our local store here uses ASD (Apple Service Diagnosis). This is an internal apple product, but can be found within some of the apple user groups in local areas.

 

[Mal]

Actually, they use DiskWarrior primarily. I used to train them. There are a few Apple hardware tests that can be run for other diagnostics (99% are available to the masses) but for hard drive issues, it's almost exclusively DiskWarrior.

Not at the bar, not that I've ever seen. The Genius's behind the wall, sure. Up in front of the customer, though, they just plug in an ethernet cable and run AST generally.

jW