back to article Apple cops to defective MacBook drives

Apple has extended the warranty on certain MacBooks from 2006 and 2007 whose hard drive failed, while offering free replacements for defective drives. Look out your window and you might observe porcine aerobatics - and that red-tailed gent donning the toasty overcoat might well be Lucifer. Of course, in a support note …

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  1. John 62

    still using the stock drive! lol!

    I upgraded my 2006 model nearly a year ago from the 120GB/5400rpm stock drive to 320GB/7200rpm. I had noticed the odd click, but SMART didn't report anything wrong. On the other hand I did have to make use of my Apple Care when the Superdrive stopped burning CDs.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wonder what went wrong

    Did Apple just get a bad batch of drives? (I think from Hitachi?) I am impressed with the design of my MacBook. The layout and thermal insulation around the drive means I can barely feel any vibration or hear any noise, and yet the drive reports fairly constant temperatures in the low 30s even when under load (and when the rest of the computer is under load). I own several PC laptops and their drives are relatively loud and get scary hot, sometimes into the low 50s.

  3. Alan Denman

    The Apple drops?

    Seems they are such a god that they are allowed to ignore documented irrefutable evidence for years.

    Everyone knew about this but of course in religion you are only meant to kneel in appreciation to god.

    The fact that Apple do not make business machines has helped with all of their cover ups.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Say what?

      "The fact that Apple do not make business machines has helped with all of their cover ups."

      I guess my Macbook Pro is only used for playing games - I was wondering what I had been doing for the last 12 hours. No no no - wait Macs are not good for playing games - they are just toys. Please don't tell my boss that I only have a toy to do my work! He might get me a 'real' computer and then I won't get any work done.

  4. Lee T
    Thumb Up

    better late than never

    my hard drive was replaced by apple 6 months after i got the laptop, it did the flashing question mark "its joined the bleedin' choir invisible" thing. i can complain about apple's QA process, but i sure can't complain about their warranty service - they ended up replacing the whole laptop for other assorted issues, 2.5 years after purchase. Thank goodness i bought the extended warranty.

  5. Sven

    Backup

    This shows again the need for a good backup system. How many times i've had to try to get some data back of a HD that very very important data.

    So important data that they are stored on one HD and never bothered to put them on CD, DVD, ....

  6. John Pollard
    Thumb Down

    Always a catch

    I thought I was in luck as my MacBook fits the spec and I had to replace the hard drive a few months ago. However....I paid an Apple repair centre a diagnostics fee but refused to pay them their inflated quote for sliding out the old drive and sliding in a new one (£130 I think), so I bought a Seagate drive myself off the internet (£45) and fitted it. Now because I didn't go through with the full repair at the Apple repair centre, no refund for me!

    They are sending an Apple Store discount coupon to butter me up, but still disappointing. I will post here again if they reverse their decision, as Apple are normally so good on looking after their customers in my experience.

  7. Ian Ferguson
    Jobs Horns

    Interesting

    I had a 2006 MacBook, and the hard drive failed out of Apple's warranty. I took the drive out, noted the manufacturer (Western Digital I think) and looked on their website; their hard drives had a longer warranty than Apple gave for the laptop, two or three years I think. I submitted a warranty return to them and got a brand spanking new one back for free.

    So it sounds to me like Apple are begrudgingly extending their warranty to what the HDD manufacturer was offering anyway...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Apple Warranty

    John Lewis (at least used to) provide extended warranties for free. My parents Macbook disk was repaired under this. Since Apple don't discount anywhere, you may as well buy from a nice shop! :)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Macbook Lemons

    This is just one of many problems many people have had with macbooks of this age, others being often repeated failures of the onboard ethernet, needing a motherboard change, and refusal of the optical drive to read CDs or DVDs. A quick glance through Apple Discussions is all that is needed, something which has apparently eluded Apple so far.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Shock horror

      I can see the headlines now ... "Some old laptops break"

    2. Renato
      Thumb Down

      Apple juicy lemonade

      Don't forget the case cracks, both the hairline edition(TM) and the crack-on-palmrest(R) caused by closing the lid.

      Although apparently Apple is fixing those cracks.

      http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/04/08/apple_addressing_cracks_on_white_macbooks_casings.html

      Well, I might try calling Apple Support and see if they are willing to fix my Macbook.

  10. DJ Particle
    Paris Hilton

    What about Mac Mini?

    Don't they use the same series of drives the MacBooks do? Seems like a hole in Apple's refund policy.

    Not that I'm worried...replaced the stock 160GB drive with a 500GB drive in my Mini months ago (due to need for space, not drive failure, the old drive is still caged as an external), but still...

    Paris, because even she knows when a hole needs to be filled.

    (yeah, that's a stretch, but be kind, it's my first Paris joke *heh*) :)

  11. A 20
    Gates Horns

    Thermal issues?

    I wonder whether the drive issue is thermal?

    It seems odd that so many drives of different capacities have failed, but only on one particular chassis design.

    That suggests to me that the problem isn't necessarily with the drives themselves, but perhaps with something more systemic. Poor drive ventilation could do it. If that's the case, then replacing the drive will fix the instantly visible fault, but not cure the underlying cause of the problem...

  12. Taemar

    Short Memories!

    The hard drives issue went class action last year. Crap Seagate drives.

    See

    http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/30/apple_seagate_drive_warning/

    http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/27/apple_looks_at_macbook_hdds/

    and http://retrodata.co.uk/apple-seagate-drives.php

  13. N2
    Thumb Up

    original disc drive

    2.16Ghz 160Gb disc circa 2007 in use every day and not one problem or issue whatever you wish to call them. It is ridiculously easy to do a restore from time machine providing you use it & a new 320Gb disc dosnt exactly break the bank these days.

    @Renato - Don't forget the case cracks - My sons replaced with no 'issue' even though out of warranty.

    @Ian Ferguson - Good for you, I did exactly the same with a failed PC disk, after all why should the oem not honour their own warranty?

    @Thermal issues - Wasnt there a study by Google which claimed heat wasnt that much of a contributory factor to failure, I appreciate heat isnt a good thing but not as bad as considered, allegedly. It is located a tad close to the battery, which can get warm when busy, laptop stand?

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