Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Hi,
My Time Capsule 500Go, purchased in march 2008, died suddenly on sept 25th. Exactly 18 month after it was powered on for the first time...
This epidemic turns pandemic... Does anyone know if any changes were made on the new models ? I wouldn't like to buy a new one without having a clue on the expected lifetime of it....

I purchased my TC August 2008 and it died a similar death September 2009. "Perfect" timing.

Mine just failed last night. As with the others here, it's been 18 months since I bought it. I love this concept, it's saved my *** twice... but it's very disappointing that Apple won't recognize the problem. I guess I'll have to go out and get another one today, but it makes me pretty sad to know that Apple doesn't have our backs here.

Mine is dead as well (first gen 500GB model). No power, no light, just died overnight. Just about 6 months out of warranty so it's around 18 months old.

I took it to the Apple Store and a technician suggested a power surge because it appears the power supply has failed. It's connected to a UPS so I know it's not that and everything else is fine.

I have Apple Care on an iMac I bought over Christmas which will cover it. They wouldn't replace it with one of the newer models so I have to wait a few days for Apple to ship a replacement to the Apple Store.

Running on my old workhouse WRT54G router now.

After the service call I mentioned above, I got a lovely email asking for my opinion. I answered the questions truthfully. The service and concern I received was excellent as always (it's usually a pleasure to call Apple) the fact that nothing has been done to elevate this problem to a "known issue" was not. My suggestion is to offer any kind of polite feedback you can on this - Apple's all about making great products and they listen when enough customers present problems.

Special thanks also to the moderators of this discussion - I appreciate you allowing this discussion to continue. It is very important to those that have been affected.

Hi,

Looks like as of today I've joined the ranks of the disgruntled March 2008 Time Capsule users with dead power supplies.

I have been on the phone with Apple support in Australia for quite a bit of time today regarding this issue. Currently they are unaware that it is an issue but I have since had some pretty strong words with various people and I think they have gotten the idea that it's going to become an issue very soon.

Some tips for people with this issue,
1) If you have Applecare (extended warranty support thingy) on any of your Apple computers - USE IT. Let Apple know that you use your Time Capsule with that machine and they should replace it.
2) For those of you with important data to get off the Time Capsule (I had the joy of having 10 years worth of medical data on mine), make sure you get it OUT of the Time Capsule before handing it in to the service department. The service department reckon's they are just going to format the drive and refurbish it.

Now tips one and two don't really work well together as they only way to get data out of the Time Capsule is via opening it. Opening it voids the warranty. The various service departments I have called today (Macsales and Next Byte) say they don't open the Time Capsule and thus don't recover data of it. So basically you are screwed.

Anyway if you are like me and REALLY need to get your data off the Time Capsule, the follow guide should help.

1) First you need to crack it open - http://www.applefritter.com/node/23907 - this is a decent guide.
2) Get some sort of SATA drive docking solution. I used this one via the firewire interface
http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php
3) Mount your drive in the drive dock and you'll notice that you still can't access your data due to lack of privileges.
4) Enable root user access on your Mac. The process is different between Leopard and Snow Leopard. In Leopard, all you need to do is go into Directory Utility which is located in the Utilities Folder. In Snow Leopard, you have to enable it via, System Preferences/Accounts/Login Options/Network Account Server:Join then you can Open Directory Utility.
Make sure you unlock Directory Utility and click Edit to Enable Root User.
5) Log out and log back in as root (with whatever password you nominated). You should now have access to your Time Capsule's data.
6) It's probably not a bad idea to disable your root user access once all this is done too.

Now if you opened the Time Capsule properly (using a heat gun/hairdryer and not tearing the rubber base), you should be able to put it back together with no one being the wiser and still get it replace via the Applecare warranty.

One more thing I found out today...Apple actually has a direct feedback line for issues like this. They don't send you individual replies but if enough people spam their lines, they supposedly sit up and take notice.

http://www.apple.com/feedback
Specifically for us,
http://www.apple.com/feedback/timecapsule.html

I never knew about this part of their website till I got off the phone with some Apple Product Specialist in India who I think was sick of me telling him that the lack of ventilation for the power supply was causing the caps to melt. The design of internal power supply of this Time Capsule really does leave something to be desired. There is a small 3cm or so fan cooling the psu that has no intake or exhaust ports. I think they are relying mainly on the aluminium base to cool the unit but have forgotten that the rubber covering acts as an insulator.

Anyway hope this helps guys,

Cheers,

G

Message was edited by: Gior

That is a good summary Gior...

You could also post in mactalk as a the local mac interest website.
http://forums.mactalk.com.au/28/71270-time-capsule-dead-power-supply.html

And I have managed to fix them, just by replacing those couple of dead caps.

If you accidentally tear the rubber boot for instance and cannot return it.

Also if you do repair the caps you don't need the housing etc to recover your files. Overall it could be cheaper to repair.
I would recommend leaving off the rubber boot as it is really just for show and is a stupid idea. No heat is supposed to go out the bottom... heat rises anyway.. but it partly blocks all the ventilation holes around the bottom edges.

I have also done a fan mod... if you don't need to live with it in your bedroom and don't want to do the external power supply mod, then making the fan draw in cold air and actually cool things does amazingly good thing.
http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems /apple-time-capsule-repair/apple-time-capsule-fan-mod

Well, I guess I join the cast of hundreds (maybe thousands) as my Time Casule died last night. One minute it was working and the next it was not. I expected to see an amber light. It was lights out!

I purchased it about 18 months ago. Its the 500 GB model. It was purchased after I bought a MacBook AND an Apple Care warrnty that is still in effect. Has anyone been successful in getting Apple to replace the Time Capsule under these circumstances?

Hi LaPastenague,

I've got your PDF file on the repair (edition 2 of course) off the local aussie forums 🙂. You've been an inspiration mate 🙂

Will respost on the local aussie mac forum too as the info might help another desperate Aussie TC victim 🙂

Cheers,

G

The AppleCare on the MacBook covers the TC. They will just replace it for you... bye bye to any data you wanted though.

lee74c3,

I'm off to the Apple shop Sydney tomorrow. I've already got a case number from the Apple support number so there should be no problem getting the replacement unit. I'll post an earful if I have any trouble getting a new unit but really, once you have the case number you should be fine.

Cheers,

G

Thanks for the replies. Fortunately (?), only the backups were on the TC. I have a 1 T external that I do a second backup to for photos, itunes, and documents. I guess being redundant on backups is good.

How do you get a case number?

Mine died last Wednesday while on vacation. Came home to find my 18 month old 1TB TC dead. Unplugged it and plugged it back in. Few flashing lights and a whistling sound and then dead. Last 2 weeks that makes 2 cracked white macbook cases and 1 dead 1TB TC.

I sincerely hope they see this is a trend and recall them. Otherwise I'll have to go into the Apple Store and create a scene.

My faith in Apple has been (somewhat) restored. Praise be!

I thought I might share the outcome to my story for those still in the lurch...

After reading all the very helpful advice on this thread I phoned the AppleCare number on the policy document that came with my MacBook Pro purchase (December 07).

After over an hour on the phone, with their customer care/troubleshooting script finally exhausted, I was eventually told that I could keep or dispose of my original 1TB Time Capsule and that Apple would be sending me a new one today which really was the best outcome I could have hoped for.

To be honest, I wasn't exactly enthralled at the prospect of returning my old Time Capsule to Apple; the thought of posting into the void forever a complete and (probably, once outside the case) perfectly accessible backup of my entire life (my laptop drive), including my business emails, bank/credit card details and all other manner of highly sensitive personal data that every identify thief would just love to get their hands on, filled me with utter dread.

You read horror stories about refurb computer equipment turning up abroad unformatted and in this case there is supposedly no way of securely erasing the drive without cracking the Time Capsule open and thus voiding your warranty. A real catch 22 if ever there was one. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, if you are careful, how anyone would know you had been inside to retrieve your data is quite beyond me.

It's certainly borderline just how clear Apple are in their documentation that peripherals like Time Capsules are covered by a current AppleCare agreement but I am obviously glad that it IS the case; I have the people in this thread to thank for pointing it out to me.

For anyone facing my flavour of the problem: I bought my Time Capsule (March 08) three months AFTER the purchase of my laptop and AppleCare agreement (December 07) but it WAS covered even though the warranty for the Time Capsule itself had expired.

Regardless, I am quite sure you would have a very good case via UK/EU law (the 2 year warranty thing) regarding this problem even if you don't have AppleCare, given the number of examples of unit failure you could point to in this thread and others. This would certainly have been my next port of call had the AppleCare avenue proved fruitless. The thread also demonstrates that people have clearly experienced wildly different resolutions to their own situations which could only help your argument: pick the outcome you want and cite precedent.

Anyhoo, following my call to Apple I have since stripped the drive from the Time Capsule case (using the helpful instructions given on this thread) and accessed the data using an SATA cradle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB2-0-Docking-Station-Adapter-Bracket/dp/B001FEONM6/ref =sr11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254175244&sr=8-1

Plug and play. The drive itself was absolutely fine, just as I suspected.

I might now even have a bash at the repairs that have been posted seeing as I have a 'spare machine' to play with!

From my experience it seems as though Apple (UK at least) is unaware of this problem. The second of the four persons that I spoke to asked me to direct him to this thread and he said "...Wow, thanks. I've clearly got some reading up to do!"

Ultimately I would guess Apple will find it cheaper to take a hit with replacements on a case by case basis; far easier (and cheaper) than having a complete product recall for sure (something I wouldn't personally hold out for), so complain!

I just hope the replacement is a newer model.

Good luck all.

Add a couple more to the list. I came home last night to find my 500GB Time Capsule was not on.

I found this thread last night, and am fairly confident it is the power supply. When I showed up to the Apple Genius Bar today, there was another bloke in line cradling his Time Capsule. Same problem, bought at nearly the same time, roughly 18mo ago.

The nice Apple folks were able to offer me new one, thanks to Applecare on my MBP, even though it had expired 10 days earlier. They deserve recognition for that. However, since the data on the drive is worth more to me than the $289 for a straight replacement, I'll be taking my chances with migrating the drive to an external enclosure.