Hard drive failure??

FYI apple sent a memo to their 'geniuses' saying that HDs will be replaced free now regardless of warranty - this according to my local genius bar. The catch is they keep your old drive

Well, add me to the list. Second time in less than a year that my hard drive has crashed and then refused to mount. I have to drive all the way out to the apple store and demand a new hard drive (as I'm still under warranty).

What I'd like is a new computer that won't crash again in a few months.

And yet another one. My husband bought me a black MacBook (Jan. 2007) since I was starting grad school and needed a reliable machine. Fifteen months later and three months after the warranty expired, my hard drive died. Apple replaced it at no cost, even without the warranty, and I argued to keep the dead drive and won. They replaced the Hitachi drive with the same. Now, just three months later, it's got the same clicking sound and is behaving erratically. I backed everything up because I know it's about to die again. This is just unbelievable.

I'm not a techie but I'm beginning to think that this isn't hard drive model specific. I wonder if these computers are simply frying the hard drives, regardless of whether they're Seagate, Hitachi, etc. Whatever it is, it's simply unacceptable that Apple has not issued a recall.

Where did you take this to where the "genuis's" said this? I am having the same problem, and am just out of warranty..
-trav

Another victim. Seagate Momentus 5400.2 60 GB Firmware 7.1 Model ST96812 died 8-21-08 of SHDD (sudden hard drive death - Oh, shidd!) exactly 26 mos. after purchase on 6-21-06. I've since learned of the widespread failure rate of these drives. Very few of these can have data recovered and if they can it's very expensive ($800-$2500) depending on what data you want and if they can get it. Failures of this drive is way to common and they should have been recalled regardless of the inherent fragility of hard drives - this one has a fatal manufacturing flaw. I chose to replace mine myself rather than under AppleCare since they wouldn't let me pay for an upgrade in size. Seagate should reimburse Apple for a recall and reimbursing Apple customers who've had to deal with this.

I got my MB on 6/5/06 and haven't suffered any problems with my HDD. I have read a lot of the threads on the support forums and in my opinion it has to do with the shock-resistant HDD. When I needed to get a bigger HDD, I chose one without the shock-resistance and still have not had any problems. And it is a 7,200 rpm model to boot. My old HDD is in an enclosure for backup purposes and has yet to fail me.
I truly feel for those that have suffered HDD problems, though mine has had the logic board, wifi card and top case replaced, all under APP. APP is something I would never do without.
If anybody reading this has HDD failure and is out of warranty, just replace it yourself. It is so easy.

Condolences to all sufferer's,

Adam

Message was edited by: Adam White

This Really Jiggles My Biscuit. Currently Running My 4th Apple Hardware Test, With No Luck On Finding Any Problems, Except, Running The Extended Test, The Bar Makes It Just Under Halfway, Ending On 'Testing Main Logic Board', At Which Point The Fans Stop Whirring, The Install Disc Stops Spinning And It Just Says Test Complete, No Problems Found.

It All Started With The Question Folder, So I Checked These Forums And Quickly Discovered It May Be A Hard Drive Issue. I'm Just Out Of Warranty, And I Only Have PC World's PC Protection Plan, Not AppleCare, And Knowing Full Well How Cr*p The PC Performance Handle Mac Issues, I Decided To Bypass The Whole Shebang And Just Buy A New Hard Drive. That's Not Here Yet, I'll Try And Post Back When It Gets Here, But Until Then I've Tried One Or Two Things. I Took Out The Hard Drive Myself ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuyi-NWLLz4 Check This Video For How To Do It If You Don't Know, You'll Need Torx 8 And Phillips Screwdrivers) And Plugged It Back Into The Macbook Through USB, And Ran The Disk Utility App From The Install Disk. When The Hard Drive Was In The 'Book It Didn't Show Up In The Slightest On DU, And I Just Had The Flashing Question Folder. When I Plugged The Hard Drive In Through USB I Got A Circle Symbol With A Line Through It, and DU Then Showed My Hard Drive, But Said It Did Not Need Repairing. These Results Have Made Me Worry That The Problem Is The Logic Board, Not Hard Drive, Which I Can Easily Replace Myself.

Just Thought I'd Post My Two Cents On Here, You Never Know, I Might Have Given A Little Nugget Of Usefulness To Someone =D

If you are trying to format the drive externally using USB, you might want to know that Tiger does not support USB-ported HDD for that purpose. You can use USB for file backup, but for bootable disk, you must utilize FireWire for that.

Try that first and get back to us.

Adam

I didn't feel like reading all the posts but from the first few I can tell you it sounds like the 0 sector of your boot sector is corrupt. This simply means yes your HD for some reason is fried... You can get the info off of it but you'll need a new hard-drive. I'm sure someone has already told you this but I thought I'd try and help. Good luck.
-Donald

Ahh, Thank you Adam, that takes one worry off my mind, i thought the hard drive was lost completely, but if its just because im not using firewire that i cant boot then its something i can look into later. I dont have any firewire cables at the moment, ill be purchasing one soon though. My new hard drive arrived today and its now installing my OS X again, hopefully i will be able to transfer my files from the old hard drive when it is done, I'm a musician, and I have a lot of tracks and lyrics on there, foolishly un-backed up! I Think by the end of this i will have purchased about 10 ext. hard drives and made copies onto each one, just in case! =D

Cheers though, Ill post again once everythings done

Yet another sudden hard drive death of a Seagate bought Oct 07. On Aug 30, 2008, my MacBook crashed with a klicking noises of the harddrive. When returning it to Gravis (German Apple retailer) I found out that they would replace the defectiv part but the HDD would be sent back to apple and only an costly attempt to recover data could be made.
Since Apple/Seagate do know of the issue there should be some kind of official information or product recall. It irresponsible of Apple to erode their customers' trust by acting that way. Premium prices require premium products AND premium services in all aspects of the cutomer relation.
Is there any official response of Apple on that topic?
Cheers, happy backuping!