Level 1

5 points

MacBook hard drive failure epidemic

I'm an IT guy at a medium size ad agency and I've had 3 MacBook hard drives die in the a similar way in the past 3 months. I'm told that the computer was on low battery when they put the machine to sleep and the next day (or later) that machine failed to restart. Even with the power adapter a restart produced only a flashing question mark. All the user's information is completely gone and not retrievable.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've completed with no positive results:
1) Reset PRAM and PMU
2) Startup from install disks and run Disk Utility. DU doesn't even see the drive! Even Target disk mode doesn't reveal the drive.
3) Archive and install; the installer doesn't see the drive
4) Swapped the drive into another machine; drive not recognized
5) Disk Warrior, Data Rescue, DDRescue, SpinRite can't see the drive.
6) Moved the drive to an enclosure and still doesn't not mount or appear for programs in item 5
7) Put the drive in the freezer for a weekend (thawed for 1 day) and tried again.
-- No I'm getting desperate... and ******
7) I buy a matching replacement drive (Fujitsu 2.5" 60GB SATA) and swap the electronics. No difference.
** all machines were fairly up-to-date (10.4.8-10.4.9) and we do have a backup system and plan in place but it's not always reliable with active email databases (Thanks Microsoft).

All three of the drives prviously mentioned exhibited this same behavior. It is probably a problem in the boot sector of the drive. But what could have happened to this drive that you can't even format the drive? It's not crashed heads or a few bad sectors. There has be a way to access these drives.

I have about 20 MacBooks in circulation and plan on getting more, but I won't be able to keep people's faith if their email and documents keep getting trashed.

MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 15, 2007 9:52 AM

91 replies

May 30, 2007 10:53 PM in response to Kevin Duane

You should be careful about putting a 7200 RPM drive
in a laptop due to the temperature. Faster drives get
a lot hotter and use a lot more power (shorter
battery life). That's why most laptops come with 5400
RPM drives.

Thanks Kevin I appreciate the input. I did a little searching through the forums, and it seems a lot of people are happy with this drive. I will let you know after the install.

MacPro 2.66ghz Mac OS X (10.4.9) 4gb ram, 23" ACD

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

May 30, 2007 10:54 PM in response to angusfan

That sounds very similar to the problems my users have been having. Please let us know what happens and what Apple does. Four months is too young for a hard drive to buy the farm.

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

May 30, 2007 11:01 PM in response to Gabriel_W

Not 100% sure but mine were all early models.

Shealy89

Level 1

0 points

May 30, 2007 11:34 PM in response to Kevin Duane

Well another one bites the dust... same thing happened to me tonight... I was had iTunes open and was playing a java game I downloaded off of the this site. I've done this many times before and nothing like this has ever happened. The game froze up (it does this from time to time, I just force quit) but this time I couldn't force quit because Finder also froze. So I restarted and, just like you all have said, I got a white screen that eventually shows a flashing question mark... I did everything I could think of (as well as everything you all have tried)and when the disk utility couldn't find the hard drive I knew I was sunk... to make everything better I am going on vacation tomorrow and was counting on my macBook as entertainment... so much for that.

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Nick A

Level 4

1,526 points

May 31, 2007 2:49 AM in response to Shealy89

Just to chime in, my user replaced Seagate 7200.1 died at around seven months w/o any warning. It was in a MacBook Pro for two of those months however

Nick

May 31, 2007 5:31 AM in response to Nick A

You all are scaring me. I just bought a new macbook without the extended warrenty. Guess, I better go back and get the three year extended warrenty!

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

May 31, 2007 5:36 AM in response to Marie Dockery

To put things in a bit of perspective ... Apple sells over a million of these MacBooks a year. This thread has mentioned a few dozen failures.

There may well be a problem, but this thread is hardly proof or even plausible evidence to justify the word "epidemic" in its title. IHMO.

bah1234

Level 1

0 points

May 31, 2007 6:49 PM in response to Kevin Duane

So I got my brand new black MacBook today, and it has a dead hard drive. It would not even boot on the first try! I've had a lot of macs, and my share of tech issues, but never have I been sent a dead machine! I will have to go to the Apple Store tomorrow to see what I can do about it, but I'm shipping out for Iraq again pretty soon, and I need my machine!!!

If anyone has any luck with any sort of utility or something short of replacing the drive, please post it.

Thanks

AlfaGT

Level 1

6 points

Jun 1, 2007 1:05 AM in response to bah1234

you could try re-installing with the discs that came with the macbook, but I would go to the apple store and get a replacement if its new - especially if you are shipping out.

Jun 4, 2007 11:39 AM in response to Gabriel_W

My machine is Rev A. After 2 dead hard drives in one year (see my earlier posts) and some screen flickering, I sent in the computer to be serviced and they replaced my logic board. The flickering started only after the 2 drives failed, and apparently it points to a logic board issue. Just got my computer back today, here's hoping hard drive #3 doesn't bite it too...I will back up religiously just in case though. Good luck everyone and please please backup.

Jun 5, 2007 1:15 AM in response to Kevin Duane

It is worse.

This morning I had the third hard drive failure on the same MacBook in six months ... regularly like clock work every 2 months.

All have been Hitachi 160 GB SATA drives that seemed to give no warning, but all failed after roughly 2 months.

This is completely silly. I have escalated with Apple and am insisting on complete machine replacement. This simply cannot be hard drive failure - the computer must be doing something (heat? power? logic? driver failure?) to cause this problem.

Apple claims to have no knowledge of an epidemic - but three failures in the same machine over a short period of time is mind boggling to explain.

I learned after the first failure to remember to backup. But regardless - with a large drive and lots of apps - it takes several days of work to restore a machine to working state. Repeated failures are simply unacceptable.

neonsox

Level 2

214 points

Jun 6, 2007 8:33 AM in response to RocketAlchemist

Apple relies on the fact that fanatics will praise anything they do, even when they release a substandard product. Don't complain or you will be censored by the powers that be on this forum. This lack of accountability and cheap manufacturing is making me start to find Apple a little repulsive.

challe

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2007 11:54 AM in response to Kevin Duane

I'm an IT guy at a medium size ad agency and I've had
3 MacBook hard drives die in the a similar way in the
past 3 months. I'm told that the computer was on low
battery when they put the machine to sleep and the
next day (or later) that machine failed to restart.
Even with the power adapter a restart produced only a
flashing question mark. All the user's information is
completely gone and not retrievable.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've completed
with no positive results:
1) Reset PRAM and PMU
2) Startup from install disks and run Disk Utility.
DU doesn't even see the drive! Even Target disk mode
doesn't reveal the drive.
3) Archive and install; the installer doesn't see the
drive
4) Swapped the drive into another machine; drive not
recognized
5) Disk Warrior, Data Rescue, DDRescue, SpinRite
can't see the drive.
) Moved the drive to an enclosure and still doesn't
not mount or appear for programs in item 5
7) Put the drive in the freezer for a weekend (thawed
for 1 day) and tried again.
-- No I'm getting desperate... and ******
7) I buy a matching replacement drive (Fujitsu 2.5"
60GB SATA) and swap the electronics. No difference.
** all machines were fairly up-to-date
(10.4.8-10.4.9) and we do have a backup system and
plan in place but it's not always reliable with
active email databases (Thanks Microsoft).

All three of the drives prviously mentioned exhibited
this same behavior. It is probably a problem in the
boot sector of the drive. But what could have
happened to this drive that you can't even format the
drive? It's not crashed heads or a few bad sectors.
There has be a way to access these drives.

I have about 20 MacBooks in circulation and plan on
getting more, but I won't be able to keep people's
faith if their email and documents keep getting
trashed.

MacBook Pro
15" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I don´t have any solution to bring, just to add that I had the same problems two days ago. Had my MB about a year and it suddenly froze, forced a shut down and then it couldn´t find the hardisk anymore. Nothing to do they said in Apple service - just install a new hardisk. Trying to retrieve the data costs about 1000€ and need to purchase new hardisk which is a bit over my financial interest. So, lost 2 months of work and a lot of headaches with Apple support who refuse to admitt that Macbook has a problem with the hardrive, which apparently they do when surfing a bit all the forums that discuss the same problems.

Good luck though, seems as some people managed to retrieve the data...

Challe

dwb

Level 7

33,220 points

Jun 6, 2007 11:56 AM in response to neonsox

sniff sniff ... troll

neonsox

Level 2

214 points

Jun 6, 2007 12:03 PM in response to dwb

People like you make my point exactly. Bahhh!

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MacBook hard drive failure epidemic