Got a phone call from Apple

A month ago, I bought a MacBook Pro with the 7200 RPM hard drive. It's for my daughter, who's heading to college (in 10 days). So Apple calls me to say there may be a problem with the hard drive - and could I send it back to them to check? If there is a problem, then they'll have to switch out the drive. (Drat - my daughter has loaded lots of stuff on it already). I asked the Apple rep how serious it is and she said, it will probably get worse, the more applications you load.

I asked if there's any more info about this on the web and she said "no - it's not a real recall. Only recently manufactured machines have this problem. Apple will pay shipping, etc. and they promise to have it back to me in "one week".

I have have googled the web to within an inch of its cyber-life, as well as visiting forums like this and I can find no mention of this problem. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

Well, it could be Apple keeping "hush hush" over it...that may be why you're not hearing it around the web.

First of all, can you confirm its Apple and not some scam? If it is definitely Apple I would say best to send it in. Apple doesn't normally call out and tell people to send in their hard drive (or battery or whatever) unless it seriously is urgent. I think its better to send it in now than have your daughter's hard drive fail halfway into her term paper .

Also, ask if you can bring it into an Apple Store. You'll get faster service that way.

 

yea definataly (sp?) make sure its them. as sam said go to a sore and ask them if they know anything and if it is a serious problem. or if no store is near then call apple and tell them you got a phone call from "them". if anybody calls in the future just right down their name and ask them for some other kind of info that apple could use to identify if its really them. and yes that might seem somewhat extreme, but im sure you want to keep you $1700+ lappy in your possession.

 

Ask for a case number or some contact information and call AppleCare to verify.

 

Definitely Contact AppleCare at 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273).

 

Careful, may be a scam, make sure to VERIFY that Apple really did call you. get contact numbers, etc.

 

Yes, I got a case number and no, the rep said I cannot carry it in to a store, alas.

I had to laugh as I typed this on my Windows PC (my daughter is the Apple person and I am Windows) - I said to her "What's the big deal? Windows does that weird stuff all the time and you don't see me sending my PC back". She knew I was kidding.

Still, I'm truly amazed that no one has heard about this. Interestingly, Apple's own forum is "temporarily" down.

And, by the way, I wish it was only $1700. It was actually $2400, what with that 7200 RPM drive and 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 Gig of memory. Ay, carumba...

 

Apple's discussion forums are up again, anyways.

I'd say send it in...since you've confirmed it is by Apple. I see no reason why you can't bring it into an Apple Store though.

 

Update: I called Apple Care, as you folks suggested (thank you) and the rep said, "No, I haven't heard about that problem". I gave him the case number and he found it, much to his surprise. His suggestion" "If it ain't broke..."

I'm inclined to go with that. After all, there's been no mention of data loss - just degradation of speed. Plus, with the first day of school bearing down on us and my daughter pleading with me not send her poor computer away, I'm going to pass up this particular opportunity.

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I see no reason why you can't bring it into an Apple Store though.
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I agree. It adds to the frustration level. Also, I see no reason that Apple shouldn't put this into a Knowledge Base or such. I'd love to have more detailed info on exactly what my exposure is. It sounds like firmware to me, which would mean that a drive failure is not, in fact, imminent.

 

Okay then, monpaz. Good luck and hope there's no problems with it .

 

Thank you again - y'all are great.

 

I'm kind of worried that they'll call me now. Or was this just for the MBPs with the 7200 rpm HD?

 

I assume it is MBP's with 7200RPM HD's.

 

Someone posted a similar thing happening over at Macrumors too now. Let's see how widespread this becomes ><

 

I really hope this doesn't affect me. I'll be very sad if it does.

 

Copy of a letter sent from Apple to a fellow MacRumors member:

Yikes. This doesn't look good.

And if people are interested, this should be the thread that taelrak is talking about: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=345337

By the way, who here has a MacRumors account?

 

So, it's limited(supposedly) to the 7200 RPM HDs?

 

Apparently so, but still I wouldn't be too worried about it. As I said before, problems are always publicized but the satisfied customers usually don't sound off, so it sounds as though problems are more widespread than they actually are.

EDIT: Looking through the posts at MacRumors and various sites, it looks like only 7200 RPM HDDs are affected.

 

Me. Again.

Yes, the woman from Apple who called said it was just the 7200 RPM drives.

Also, I went to an Apple store today to buy some stuff (including .MAC for its unattended backup for my daughter at college!!!) and mentioned this to the Apple person. He was pretty surprised and said he hadn't heard about this at all.

Lastly, on a note that will resonate with anyone who has a college-bound son or daughter, I just talked with my daughter and highly recommended installing the .Mac backup, given this note of hard-drive uncertainty. But noooo... "I'd rather use a Zip drive...".

Yikes is right.

 

I've had a couple zip disks in the past, and while they were fast to store and get stuff out of them... they failed one too many times.

.Mac is one good option to have...

 

Zip drive? ugh They still make those?

 

yeah, they're around, although not as prominent as they once were. thumb drives took over this market quickly.

 

That's odd. Has anyone tried running DFT on a Mac? I'd just run an extended test and if it passes, all is well!

Good luck with the notebook though. Hopefully they can get it back to you in a week.

 

what is DFT?

 

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT

Drive Fitness Test. It's a very common tool used to test hard drives. It has both a "Quick" and "Extended" test. The extended test is very thorough.

 

an apple can talk?

 

I didn't know windows could talk as well.