Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Just remove the rubber foot with a hair dryer (on max) or heat gun (on min)...
The glue softens beautifully and you can peel off the rubber no problem. I have peeled the rubber on about 6 TC now, and whilst it isn't my favourite part of the job (always glad when people have done it for me, it is about 10min worth of time. Clocked it down to 6min on the latest one.

Heat the whole area of the base for about 3min, it should be hot to touch, probably around 60C. Get a pair of leather work gloves and carefully prise up the rubber in one corner with a wide blade screwdriver... then slowly pull it off, keeping the heat pointed to the area coming off...plus keeping the whole base still hot. If it catches slow down and apply more heat. If you do it carefully all the glue comes off with the rubber pad. Then undo the screws and remove the drive to copy the files... Using the heat trick I have never yet ripped the rubber foot. NOT yet! YMMV. Sometimes the glue sticks to the aluminium but that won't bother you.

Put it back neatly with it hot and the glue will grab, press the rubber back on... and nobody is the wiser... an apple genius even suggested it.. !! Maybe not 100% kosher but since Apple will do it themselves to refurbish it.. I see no problems... and you can delete the files from the drive when you are finished copying yours across. That would make me feel a whole lot better about the whole exercise.

There are lots of sites that explain the process to upgrade the hard drive with pretty pics... http://www.hardmac.com/articles/79/

It is VERY easy to remove the rubber boot. Warm up the whole rubber piece with a hair dryer or low power heat gun. Use a plastic scraper and gently pry up the rubber (only the rubber, not the aluminum plate!). Takes maybe 5 minutes or so.

Then you have access to a bunch of TINY phillips head screws. Remove all except the ones surrounded by rubber isolation mounts (those are attached to the hard drive and only used for positioning).

Remove all plugs from hard drive (SATA and power). There is a sensor with 2 small wires on the HD. Peel the foam away and peel off the sensor holder.

Lift out HD. Remove positioning screws. Insert HD into an external SATA case with your choice of interfaces. OWC has one with Firewire and USB 2.0 for $30 or so (refurb).

If you have no use for the dead TC, I will buy it from you, sans drive but with all connectors and PS.

Today I finally decided to give the Genius Bar a crack at my out of warranty 18 month old (all of a sudden dead) 500GB Time Capsule. Despite that the Genius could not find any posting regarding dead TCs on the Apple service site he decided to replace it. And replaced it he did with a suspiciously available refurbished first generation 500GB Time Capsule. Why would they keep these in stock at a 3 week old Apple store? At least I now have a working TC. I just hope that I'll be in the market for a new TC 18 months from now. 😉

ITUNE DUMMY wrote:
Amazing all of us worldwide have a Dead TC...Interesting complete failure we all downloaded some sort of program from apple the last week or so

The last week or so? This whole thread started quite a bit before then-it helps everyone if you actually take the time to read through it before commenting- to keep the amount of disinformation and speculation from needlessly spreading.

Just to recap:
1) The problem for some people started before Snow Leopard-not "last week" and not because of "some software we installed"

2) The "range of serial numbers affected" may be unofficial Apple policy (as people have said their Apple Geniuses/Applecare specialists have mentioned it when replacing their TCs-great!) but it is not official Apple policy-and won't be until they release the information publicly (which they have done in the past-including extending warranties on logic boards, etc.)

The point being, using this as an argument is a great idea, but its not like you have official language to back you up (this thread, sadly, is not proof 😝 ) But....

3) Applecare on your computer DOES cover the Time Capsule. You do NOT need to have bought your TC at the same time as your computer. And you have ample written proof that this is the case-just check your Applecare contract terms. Everyone with Applecare on their iMac or MB can and should get their TC replaced for no charge-if the Apple employee you are speaking with claims otherwise, politely ask to speak to a supervisor-the language in the Applecare warranty is quite clear.

4) It is not Apple policy to allow you access to your old data. Does this suck? Sure. But there is no place written in any of Apple's return/warranty information that covers recovering data. SOME people seem to have convinced Applecare/Apple Geniuses to allow this (great!) It is not something anyone has official sanction to do (or if they do, once again, it has not been released publicly).

Hope this helps those who are joining in late 😝

I suppose I was a fool for thinking I would escape this problem, but alas, here I am. TC just died today with no warning (1TB version purchased when they were first released, well out of warranty, and I have no recent Mac purchase). After reading all the horror stories I was afraid I would be SOL on a replacement, but I'll be damed if the nice Genius at the Apple Store didn't find a way to get me a brand new TC this evening. I guess it was "in the range of serial numbers" that they would allow for free replacement. So don't give up! Now I just need to tear apart my broken one to get all my music off the hard drive (hey, it's a learning experience, right?)

All:

My 500MB TC died like everyone else's after 19 months. I had purchased an AppleCare plan when I bought my iMac and TC. I used the "Have Technical Support Call You Back" function today on the Apple Support page. Received a call in 10 seconds. Was walked through a few quick checks to verify TC was dead. Told that if you bought an Apple computer and AppleCare Plan that TC's and other Apple peripherals purchased within 2 years of the original plan were also covered by the plan. My new TC will arrive in 5-7 business days. Whole thing took about 5 minutes to resolve. So please, get in touch with Apple before you go to any extreme measures to repair or replace yourselves. Love this company!

Call Apple. They'll check the ID of your Time Capsule and you'll get a new one for free.

!!

Check http://www.timecapsuledead.org/ and register your Time Capsule. You'll also find information on what do when your Time Capsule dies.

It's known problem by Apple. Call and get a new one for free.

I'm in the uk here and my tc 1tb bought march 2008 died last night 😟

I rang applecare this morning and got the out of warranty line (although politely I might add). I was advised to take it back to the store I bought it (in the bullring).

Anyways after a quick call to get a geniusbar appointment (sameday) I got a call from applecare advising that they'd retro applied applecare to it for me so I can have a free replacement.

Took the tc to the store - yup dead - no prob on the replacement but they'd have to charge a fee for the data transfer. After a quick chat the genius agreed I can take it home with me so I open her up and copy the data myself and they'll then replace it when they get stock in again (next few days).

All in all I'm actually pretty chuffed that it was as easy as it was. Cool applecare peeps and a cool genius.

What I will say though it that getting the rubber off the bottom is a ***** - you absolutely must heat it up if you don't want to tear it to shreds.

thingi

I had the same issue as everyone else and I had made a comment sometime last week about it. Anyways I called apple and they replaced me 1TB TC this with a brand new one free of charge. I was out of warranty and I just directed the phone operator to this page to show them the amount of peopler having the same issue. After they saw this page they said no prob and sent me a new one that I received yesterday. Just call the company and show them this site and you will get a new

Mine died too. Two days ago. I hope Apple would just issue a recall for all those overheated power supplies. I opened mine and sure enough, the power supply capacitors mentioned elsewhere on the internet were budging and looked damaged. I always kept my Time Capsule well ventilated. I din't try talking to Apple Support. I don't have applecare and the warranty is expired.
I was amazed to see how the bottom rubber cover actually covers half of the area on the ventilation holes in the bottom of the Time Capsule - this looks like a design flaw. I am used to Apple products lasting for at least 5 years.

Chances of replacement are almost 100%, but you might have to be a bit persistent if you do not have Apple care. However, not sure if they will replace 1TB with a 2TB. More important, you will have to be even more persistent if you want to keep the old TC so that you have a possibility of retrieving your data. Do post here whatever the outcome.

My TC started whining last week, then powered off. If restarted, it would run for a short while then power off. I took it in the a local Apple Store last week. They replaced it with a new one, no problem. Said the capacitors were likely gone. Unfortunately, after 2 days, the new one is powering off as well. The source of the problem in my machine must be the power cords, which they did not replace. Just a heads up to anyone heading in to get theirs replaced - bring the power cord along & get it replaced as well.

Mine was replaced with no hassle what so ever. I did not have applecare, but my Time Capsule fell under the range of serial numbers known to be defective. I wish you all luck on getting yours replaced.

Add another dead TC to the ever growing list. I had a very disappointing experience yesterday. I called Apple and was not asked if I had Applecare, the associate was very nice and polite about the situation and in a matter of minutes, arranged for a refurb to be sent out. My TC lasted a whopping 21 months and Apple is going to replace it anyway.

The disappointing part is when I asked the associate about my data, I was told to take it to the genius bar and they would help me retrieve the data as long as I had my own external drive. I spent the better part of an hour discussing the situation with the store manager of the Atlanta Lenox store and got NOWHERE and was informed that there is nothing in place to help recover data. I unfortunately just reinstalled Snow Leopard on my MacBook pro, wiped out the bootcamp and primary partition and hadn't copied my documents back to the laptop before my TC died. I was informed by a senior associate that Apple is not responsible for the data and offered NO help or compassion for my situation. I was told point blank, if there was evidence my TC was opened, I would be charged the $506 for the replacement and would own the old and refurb TC.

As a result of this experience, I have pretty much decided I am not going to purchase any more "consumable" products from Apple in the future, including the iPhone, which mine now has a 30 minute battery life and no way to replace the battery. I hope Apple remembers what they did to their LOYAL followers to alienate them and force them to spend buy products that have consumer replaceable parts. I have probably spent between $100k and $200k personally on Apple products over the past 10 years and have been a driving factor behind friends, family, co-workers and companies purchasing another $500k+ worth of Apple products

Message was edited by: MarkieM

With a refurb TC, you have some time to return the dead unit. It is not hard (for some of us) to remove the rubber "foot", exchange HD (either from refurb TC or some beater off eBay). I just exchanged HD for a guy who received a NEW dual band simul. TC 1 TB model. He sent both units & I simply swapped. A crying shame to send a brand new 1 TB drive back to Apple, tho'. If the refurb is the same model as original, I just swap out the PSU, leaving old unit MAC address intact but with a working PS.

Look up Time Capsule repairers here: http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems /apple-time-capsule-repairers

You can do this yourself, but please take care removing the rubber "foot", one little tear and Apple will scream foul.