Level 1

0 points

75% failure rate on 24" iMac hard drives?

Yes, the title sounds a bit inflammatory, but it in my case, it's true. I have four 24" form factor iMacs ranging from the 2.4 to the 3.06GHz core 2 duo models that I've bought over the last 3 years, and have had hard drive failures in 3 of them. Fortunately I had Applecare plans on all of them but still, 3 out of 4? And why? Apparently, Apple prevents the Mac Geniuses at the stores from commenting or speculating about it at all. They said they simply couldn't talk about it. What the ****?

I'm no Mac newbie. I've had about 15 different Macs since '88 and only once have I had a hard drive fail on me, and that was a Mac Quadra 700 with a twitchy Seagate drive from the time Apple was lost in the wilderness. And yet now I have I have 3 out of 4 of the same form factor poop out on me in as little as 3 years? Something is rotten in Denmark.

This is not a rant against Apple, OS X or Macs in general. I love my Macs. What I want to know is this: is this a design flaw with this form factor or were the Western Digital drives they came with just crappy to begin with? I've used stand-alone WD drives for Time Machine installations, and yes, I've discovered that those are crap. Of the 4 I bought, 2 of them failed within the 1st year, so I'm leaning toward the WD theory. But if its a design flaw, such as the HD (regardless of the manufacturer) isn't being properly cooled due to to the design, I would like to know that. I need to know that. If I didn't have Applecare, I certainly would like to know if I had to factor in $350 every year for a new HD replacement.

So what I would like to find out is if anyone else out there has been having a similar experience with the 24" iMacs. Did you need to have your HD replaced as well? Did they replace it with a WD drive or a non-WD drive, like a Hitachi? How did that go? Has anyone had failures with the Hitachi drives? I'm really curious to see how prevalent this has been.

24 in. Imac, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 17, 2010 1:59 PM

91 replies

Nov 10, 2010 2:34 PM in response to GLS-Texas

I, too, have had a 24" iMac for three years. About ten days ago, it wouldn't start up at all. When I attempted to start it from the Snow Leopard CD and ran Disk Utility, it said the hard drive was damaged and could not be repaired -- I got the dreaded "invalid node structure" message.

At the Apple Store, they repartitioned the drive and reinstalled the OS, and all seemed well. I spent the next two days restoring from a backup and re-installing software, adding my photos and music, etc. And then it wouldn't start up again. i took it back to the Genius Bar, and they did another re-install. It returned to the login screen after installation, but wouldn't start up again. So they replaced the hard drive (fortunately under warranty). I've spent the past three days getting the iMac back to some sort of normal state -- in a way, the crash was good because it forced me to purge a lot of stuff I didn't use. Kind of like spring cleaning.

Last night, the EXACT SAME THING happened to my MacBook Pro. Wouldn't start up, Disk Utility said the disk couldn't be repaired, "invalid node structure," blah blah blah. Took it in to the Apple Store today, and they said the hard drive was shot and needed replacing. Two computers I bought about two years apart both have complete hard drive failures within three days of one another? Am I giving off some sort of evil electromagnetic waves? Is my house haunted? What's going on around here???

Nov 10, 2010 2:57 PM in response to gumbohead1

I am gonna go out on a limb and suggest it is because the factory installed hard drives are not the highest quality drives. And, the fact the original poster got Apple to put the same drives back in the machines only to fail again supports this conclusion. However, my iMac (early 2006) was still using the same original 250GB 5,400rpm drive until a few weeks ago, which is still working fine in a firewire enclosure. This also suggests the issue is not across the board. I replaced mine with a 500GB 7,200rpm SATA2 drive and it is much more responsive than the old one.

The only thing to take away from these experiences is, don't put a crappy cheap hard drive in your Mac. Spend the money and get a good one. Even if it is under warranty. Buy the drive and get Apple to put it in.

And, please remember: There are only two kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that have yet to fail. Back up! Back up! Back up!

arminbw

Level 1

0 points

Nov 11, 2010 1:54 AM in response to Silly rabbit

My default iMac hd selfdestructed after 3 weeks: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12537599&#12537599

Dec 21, 2010 12:45 AM in response to GLS-Texas

my imac 24 2.8gz 4 gig has gone through 2 hard drives in under 4 months the first one was under applecare which was fine but being a uni student the downtime
was annoying, i was told that they had stopped making the 320gb and was getting a WD 500g replacement.When i did get it back it didnt seem like the performance was like it was before the first crash and i would get the beach ball randomly coming up when the mac was not even working hard.I also noticed that the top left of the mac was running hotter than before it crashed the first time .I called the apple store where it was fixed and told me it was normal for the 500g to run hotter.when asked about the beach ball the Guy said "well we completely checked it out,replaced the hard drive and tested it on completion and it was running fine"
I took his word for it.3 months and ten days later and now out of apple care my hard drive crashes while writing an email! called apple and was told they have a 3 month warranty on repairs so it looks like it going to be a very poor christmas.

jsuhr

Level 1

8 points

Jan 12, 2011 1:48 PM in response to GLS-Texas

What the heck is going on with Apple? Is this the cost of going to China?
I love the machines but in the past year I have had 3 , yes 3 09 imac hard drives fail, as well as a logic board from a 2007 imac, all diagnosed by Apple

Yet I still have an original mac plus and IIci that run perfectly after 20 years

Apple needs to step up here !

Feb 9, 2011 2:22 PM in response to GLS-Texas

I too have this problem and believe it is inherent to the design of this unit. I have an early 2008, 24 inch, 3.06GHZ machine. It was flaky from the start with random system freezing that was usually signaled when iTunes would stop playing music and a rolling freeze would set in requiring a hard reboot. After installing a program called SMART utility, it reported a failing hard drive. This was in February of 2010 although I suspect the problem was ongoing from the date of purchase. Took the unit in and the drive was replaced under Apple Care. In January 2011, once again SMART utility reported a failing drive after a series of freezes and a third drive was installed. Today, February 9th, the iMac is back at Apple with another failing drive in little over a month. Mind you I installed SMC fan control in the past month to rev up the fans when encoding video as this machine would get ridiculously hot otherwise and in the hope of avoiding another hard drive failure. No luck. I have also suffered with residual image ghosting on the left side of the screen for over a year even after changing the desk background to white. I believe this issue is also due to excessive heat. Our company owns a total of 7 iMacs with the other six being 20 inch models with no issues. I've complained to Apple that this is not acceptable and have asked for a new computer. They told me they would be conducting some testing of the machine so we'll see what that turns up. I have no intention, however, of being put off with merely another hard drive (4th drive) replacement. Needless to say I rue the day I replaced my G5 Mac Pro tower with this machine. Having owned Macs since the original Classic, this has been my worst Apple product experience ever!

Mar 10, 2011 8:50 PM in response to tahoebear

I too have a 24" early 2008 imac. I've had the 750gig HD replaced twice in the past 6 months. The current HD is a Hitachi HDS721075KLA360. The last replacement was less than a month ago and already getting black screen freezes again. Disk Utility is telling me there is an error the HD. Did you ever get resolution to your issue with the HD replacements?? Getting tired of having to visit the apple store and would love to know if there is a fix before having to go back again to get a faulty hd.

Pagrash

Level 1

84 points

Mar 11, 2011 9:05 AM in response to GLS-Texas

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to see if there are still reoccurring problems.
After converting all our labs from MS Windows PC's to iMacs and OSX , I have to say while I love the OS, I am surprised by the hardware failure rate I've seen with our iMacs.
We have 38 iMac 20"s and 15 iMac 24"s and 2 iMac Pro's. All are vintage 2008.
So far we have had 4 hard disk failures, 3 in the imac 24's and today one of the iMac pro's. All of the failures have been with WDC500E drives and all have been on machines that remain 'on' most of the time.
Also we've had 2 motherboard failures, again on the iMac 24's. In my experience this is a pretty high failure rate.

Mar 11, 2011 8:23 PM in response to Pagrash

I can tell you that my Hitachi HDS721075KLA360 is working like it was when it was brand new and I use the **** out of it! Its been a great drive for me and much better than my Maxtor and Western Digital drives!

bskuared

Level 1

8 points

Mar 27, 2011 9:35 AM in response to GLS-Texas

Add me to the list - twice. My 2.4 GHz iMac from 2007 now is the proud recipient of it's second hard drive. That's two hard drive failures. First about 18 months, now the second. This time they replaced it with a larger drive but I'm not sure my faith is renewed. In fact, my Apple Care expired last month so this time I had to pay for it. Happy with the Genius folks, easy to work with and speedy repair. NOT happy for the 2 drive failures. Not all that disruptive though due to Time machines backup and a Super Duper clone. If you don't have a back up plan, then you are a fool.

Mar 28, 2011 8:37 AM in response to R C-R

I have been having "failure" experiences as well. My iMac just goes dead. Nothing can be done unless I pull the plug, let it set a couple minutes and then replug, restart. On it goes for awhile until the next episode. Ran HD test and it comes back with a code of fan issues. Took it to a puter doctor, he ran tests and says it has got to be in the mother board. I have been a Mac owner since time began and this is the first one that I am unhappy with. Until in really dies, I just back up, back up, back up.

May 7, 2011 11:07 AM in response to GLS-Texas

My 24" iMac is coming up on 3 years old and it too has just died after not coming out of sleep mode.

Took it to (ahem!) a local Applestore 'Genius' who revealed what I already feared- HD failure. Alas- I stupidly had no back-up so years of family photo's, iMovie & Garageband projects down the drain. 320GB Western Digital strikes again it seems? Didn't want to risk screwing things up further with suction cups/torx screwdriver DIY set-up, etc., so opted to let AppleStore repair it for a not unsubstantial fee. Ironically, while they were booking mine in for repair- another person was just collecting a repaired iMac for... yep! you guessed it HD replacement.

I was told it would take about a week but I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call 2 days later saying 'You're iMac is ready for collection!'. Drove 13 miles into town, collected my iMac, returned home, plugged in booted up and....nothing but a grey screen. Don't forget I had to pay $278 to fit a $60 HD by the way!

And lo, the seething anger began to build. Returned the useless aluminium box next day and told my iMac may have had a DOA HD installed and that I was probably just unlucky. (Unlucky twice if you count the FIRST HD failing...)

Will update you when I receive the repair...to fix the repair but after 7 years of loyalty to Apple products & services, and persuading countless friends & family to part with substantial sums of money to switch to Mac's because they "just work"....I am now seriously considering switching back to PC.

May 23, 2011 3:55 PM in response to GLS-Texas

I've just had the hard-drive on my late 2007 24" iMac die 😟

About 6 months out of warranty, not looking forward to the cost of replacing it - don't suppose anyone's managed to get apple to foot the bill?

Knifedge

Level 4

1,605 points

May 23, 2011 4:09 PM in response to GLS-Texas

I bought a refurbished 2.8 Ghz 24" model in 2008, and I have recently traded up to a 3.06. I transferred the drive when I upgraded. The drive has been running almost 24/7 since I got it. I'm going to upgrade the RAM to 4 GB to reduce Virtual Memory usage. Apple doesn't make hard drives, but IMO they haven't always chosen the most reliable models.

May 26, 2011 10:49 AM in response to GLS-Texas

What I want to know is WHY is this happening? I had a PMac 7200 for years then upgraded to a G4 for many good years all without problems, then get this darling piece of equipment and under 3 yrs old it has a HD or "mother board" failure? For the amount of money Apple wants for these things I may need to go (cough,cough) to PC and windows !!! gagggg! I'm very upset, my money doesn't come easy!!!!

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75% failure rate on 24" iMac hard drives?