iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program - how long does it take?

I took my machine to the Carlsbad, CA store last Saturday and got the call to pick it up on Wednesday. The replacement drive is a Western Digital Caviar Black (WD1001FALS).

The system boot time is now noticeably faster, but that could be due to a number of factors.

The person who brought my machine out to me could not provide details of how the system was built on the new drive, nor the process for restoring the data, but I have not been able to detect any variance from the state of the machine as I delivered it to Apple. Time Machine, however, backed up 192 Gig the first time it ran.

Ed George wrote:

. . .

The person who brought my machine out to me could not provide details of how the system was built on the new drive, nor the process for restoring the data, but I have not been able to detect any variance from the state of the machine as I delivered it to Apple. Time Machine, however, backed up 192 Gig the first time it ran.

They must have put the new drive in an encosure and cloned it before replacing (or vice-versa). They don't know it, but you probably could have prevented that big backup, with a new command in Terminal.

Restoring from Time Machine would have resulting in a slow, but small, backup.

But, glad it's sorted out and all is well. 🙂

I am in the same boat having bought a 27" iMac that now needs the replacement drive. Called the local store and was told up to 7 days to do the replacement. I cannot be without my mac that long, so they said I could bring it in and they would verify the serial number and order the part. It seems to me the serial number verification could be done online somehow given the advanced technology of Apple and the part could be pre-ordered so I could just show up and it would be there. No... they tell me I have to bring it it. Then I ask if once they get the part, can I just bring it back and let them swap it while I wait? No... I'm told, I have to leave it over night and pick it up the next day. So... that's a total of 3 trips to the Apple store (gas, parking, time). So, I took it in and they "verified" the serial number by scanning the bar code on my box (I really needed to drag in the whole, heavy unit?). I then got a call, the next day saying the part was in and I would need to bring my iMac back in and leave it for 5-7 days. Huh? I was told overnight earlier. No... "we are backed up and it will take longer than that". Yeah, but a hard drive swap doesn't take 7 days... so what will my computer be doing there, I asked? The tech admitted that it would be sitting in the back room waiting it's turn. Well... can't you just call me when it my iMac's turn and I'll drive it down there and wait? Seriously... you want me to relinquish the computer I depend on for a week because your company installed a defective drive? Finally the tech agreed that this was unreasonable and advised me to just schedule 3 Genius Bar appointments in a row and they would install it while I wait. I don't want them doing the "cloning" of my drive to the new one.... I backed everything up and I'll start from scratch. This will allow me to do a clean install of Lion which I was getting ready to do anyway.

Bottom line.... this defect is an Apple problem and it seems to me that they could be a little more accommodating to the customer. And how about my inconvenience? How about an iTunes gift card or something to make up for all of my time and hassle?

You might want to call Apple Care and have them run interference with the store. You should NOT have to go down to the store to prove your serial number because Apple already has that information. Nor should the store expect you to drop of the machine before they are ready to work on it.

Apple Care made my arrangements for me and the store was careful to comply.

They are throwing in the $99 data transfer as a freebie, but other than that, it doesn't look like they doing anything for us.

Call AppleCare and insist on an onsite replacement.

Took mine to the store (Best Buy) this morning. Told it would take 4 to 8 weeks.

Bottom line; when you live in a hole according to Apple, don't buy a Mac. I'll make sure I remember that one next time.

4-8 weeks? that's insane. why would you accept that? call apple care

Did that already. No onsite service is available in my area since I live "way too far" from the nearest AASP.

Basically what Best Buy will do is send the machine back to the nearest Apple Store since I bought it from them, it is that or either I take a day off to do the 3 hour trip over there with the machine myself which I'd guess would be my only option if I had bought the machine online...

I really hope that the guy at BB is wrong about those 4 to 8 weeks, but I'm not impressed with all this.

Oh my goodness, you really are out in the middle of no where. It must be beautiful up there.

Maybe you could try putting more pressure on Apple about this unacceptable situation. There are things they could do, for example, just giving you an exchange instead of the repair.

Good luck!

Well, maybe in the middle of no where, but even Dell offers on site support over here via resellers… Wouldn't be hard for BB/FS to be an AASP but they are not… I guess it shows how much Macs they sell which is probably not a lot and, unfortunately, I think I understand why now.

On the bright side, I called Apple care again and they don't seem to think it will take that long once they get it, I sure hope so… Otherwise, I don't think I can recommend buying a Mac to anyone here and it will be surely my last Apple product.

That's too bad. In spite of the hard drive recall, my 27" with Lion is light years ahead of my clunky Windows PCs. The Mac is not flawless, but still a great product. I think many PC manufacturers would probably keep slient and hope that most of the hard drive failures occur out of warranty.

But, not having local service options would be make a big difference to me. Computers sometimes need technicians. That's life. So my buying decisions would definitely be influenced by service availability.

It's kind of rotten luck that this small window of time during which bad HDs slipped through happened to be the time when you got yours. In my case it was a minor inconvenience.

Some years back I had a Sony Vaio laptop, and the cord went bad. I was told to ship my laptop to Silicon Valley so they could examine it and determine whether in fact it was the cord. And, that particular cord was unfortunately out of stock, so it would take weeks for the situation to be resolved. I remained calm, mostly, and kept pushing, and saying, look, I'm going to have buy a new machine, this is my business, this my livelihood, I can't wait weeks. If I can't get a cord, I have to move on. Eventually after a couple days persistence, I reached someone, somewhere, who managed to scrounge up a cord and send it to me. I bought that Vaio in 2000 and it still works.

I hope you get your machine back prompty and that it serves you just as faithfully!

SO... I ended up talking to the head tech at my local Apple store and explained that leaving it for days was not an option. When I brought it in to have the serial number "verified" one of the guys said that they would be willing to just swap it for a new iMac, but all of the ones they had in stock had the same problem. The serial number verification was kind of lame too because I took the iMac all the way down there (and, as you know they're not light weight) and all they did was scan the bar code on the box. Couldn't they just go online and verify in their system that I bought the thing?

Ultimately they agreed to swap the drive while I wait by just instructing me to schedule 3 genius bar appointments in a row (45 minutes). They got it taken care of. I elected to not have them "clone" my drive because that would have taken longer, and instad just restored it from my Time Capsule. Only two trips to the Apple store instead of three... but there is no reason why this couldn't have been a single trip if Apple just had their act together.

Yeah I know, unfortunately, I switched from "Windows" PC to a PPC Mac Mini back in the day because I wanted a UNIX machine I could use day to day and Linux just wasn't cutting i so I tried it and got hooked, typically not the regular Mac user maybe, but I didn't like Windows and that was the option that stayed through three, including this iMac, Macs because they work well and respond to my needs, and quite frankly I like Apple, like I liked Commodore back as a kid.

But, someone at Apple gave me her extension number through this problem. Left her two voicemails in the last month asking for confirmation that I could leave the machine to BB, never got any callback or confirmation. A last voicemail was left tonight basically explaining, quite respectfully but frankly, what I said here today.

I've been working in sysadmin support for over ten years now and where I work this would have been case for serious coaching…

Well, I thought I'd post on my results of this ordeal. I got an appointment last Thursday with the Westfarms Apple store in CT for the hardrive exchange. The girl on the phone at the store told me to bring in just the computer and that they would transfer my data onto a new drive, exchange them, then erase the old one before sending it back.

I get to the store and after being asked why I was there, I showed the genuis my copy of the email I got. He said it was the first time he heard of this. Ughhhhhhhh!!!! But he went in the back to check and quickly came back out and said they knew about it and he would start the paperwork. When I told him what the girl told me (from his store) on the phone, he said they do NOT put your data back on the computer but that I had to do that myself with Time Machine. I told him about this thread and asked him why the girl on the phone said what she said. He had no clue and asked if I knew her name. I didn't. He also said the old drives go back to Apple and they destroy them. They don't erase them at the store.

Anyway, he was nice and he brought out and showed me my new 1 TB Western Digital hardrive that I was going to get and told me 1-3 days. He also told me how to transfer my data with Time machine and said it would be easy. As it turned out, it was.

So this morning, after 3 days I got the call and went to pick up my machine. It now has the Western Digital black Caviar 1 TB drive in it. They only installed Snow Leopard (which is what I had on it when I left it with them).

First thing I did when I got home, was attach my Western Digital external firewire drive to the computer with my Time machine backup and turn it on. Then I turned on the computer. After going through the welcome song, I got the dialog boxes to choose my language and keyboard. The 3rd page was the one that asked me if I wanted to transfer my data from a Time Machine backup (amongst other options) and I did. Then, I selected the external drive I wanted to transfer from (I only had one attached at the time) Then I chose to backup everything and it went through its transfer. For me, about an hour and a half. A couple of more questions about registering, and I restarted my computer.

I found a link to these instructions here for anyone who has to do this:

http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/SetupAsst.html

Upon restart, Time Machine asked me if I wanted to back up to that drive and I said yes, and it did a whole new backup. Then I noticed through Software Update that my Snow Leopard was not up to date. I thought it would be from the Time Machine restore I did, but it wasn't. So I updated.

So now everything seems to be back where it was. I also had a clone of my drive on another external drive with Carbon Copy Cloner, but I have not attached that drive back yet. I have been testing to see if everything works and is where it should be before I attach it and start doing backups to there too.

You know, I called Apple support after droping off my imac to the store to ask what there policy was in regards to the stores restoring our data back on the drives and the guy I spoke to said the stores have NO obligation to restore our data back, but some stores do it because of their own policy. So it is up to the individual stores on if they want to do it or not.

Just reporting all this in the hopes it will help someone else. I am happy now - so far - that all seems to be back where I was 3 days ago when I brought in my computer, except that I now have a Western Digital drive that hopefully won't fail under certain conditions.