MacBook hard drive failure epidemic

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)

well... I took my MacBook in and it was the hard drive... I've now had it fixed (glad I still had 19 days left on the warinty) and now I'm realizing just how much I should have BACKED UP!!!! ugh... I had over 3 days of music on my iTunes... much of that is long gone... what I do have on CD will take quite a while to put on there and I lost all my origionals... this sucked.

After a few days of discussions with AppleCare Level 2 support, I have a resolution to my problem of 3 hard drive crashes in 6 months.

They are replacing the computer with a new MacBook.

There is no resolution on the CAUSE of the problem - while I and tech support agreed this is seemingly improbable - we have no agreement as to causes.

Since my MacBook was a custom build ... it will take weeks to get to me however.

Tonight, for the second time, my MacBook suffered from hard drive failure. Bought mine in June of 2006, and in December, I was listening to music on iTunes, and the computer froze up and was totally unresponsive. Had to hit the power button, and it started up to that horrible clicking sound.
However, the drive I was using was not the original that came with my MacBook. I separately purchased a new 120GB drive from Seagate, so I delt with a replacement through them. I actually swapped back in my 60GB factory drive in my MacBook while I waited for the replacement to arrive.

Tonight, exactly 6 months after my first drive failure, I was typing up statistics lecture notes in Word and listening to AOL Radio, and I got the beachball. Then Finder froze up. Ironically, I was just getting ready to plug in my external to save my lecture notes that have taken me literally 3 days to type. The computer was completely frozen, yet my music was still playing. I had no other choice but to force shut down after nothing else had defrozen the machine. I held my breath and worried, as my worst fears came true.....When I turned the computer back on, I got that awful clicking and no drive detection. I literally cried because of all the statistics notes I typed these past 3 days were lost and my exam is in 2 days 😟
Tomorrow I'm going to call Seagate again and see if they can send me another replacement. While I want to deal with Apple because I think it's a MacBook fault, I cannot afford to give up my computer these next few weeks. I am so frustrated with this.

Basically, each drive lasted me 6 months right on the dot. This is completely unnacceptable. I hope Apple gets on the ball and does a recall or something for these first generation MacBooks. Sure, backing up is essential, and I do that on nearly a weekly basis, but these random failures are way too much of an innconvenience on us MacBook users... especially after 1 or 2 previous drive failures.

my MB-HD, bought in june 2006, died 3 weeks ago.
first brought it to a data recovery company, they told me, a lot of MBs and MBPs are brought in with the same issues at the moment. overheating which leads to the destruction of the HD mount. data recovery was too expensive.
now i got a new HD (through apple warranty), but the MB is now very slow and the fan is nearly continously running.

The only problem I have with that explanation is that the MB hard drive isn't in a part of the computer which gets very hot. It's not near the CPU.

It would be interesting to see the failure statistics (of course, that's impossible) to see if perhaps there's a correlation with amount of installed RAM. Low RAM (512M) might be causing a whole lot of swapping... or large RAM (2GB) might be straining the drives with writing a 2GB file every time the MacBook is put to sleep, and the 'hibernate' feature is a new development not found on the iBook and PowerBooks... another thing to consider. Maybe people aren't waiting patiently for the sleep light to pulse, causing them to jar the drive while it's in the middle of the big write, or maybe the SMS is involved.

Lots of possibilities. Note: this is purely speculation - I'm NOT saying these things are involved - just that it would be nice to have more data for analysis.

Quad G5, PB 15" 1.5Ghz,MacBook 2.0GhzCore2Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacBookPro 2.33Ghz C2Duo/120G/2G RAM, Logic Pro 7.2.3, Focusrite Saffire...

I will add another MacBook to the list about this hard drive problem. My thread about this problem was deleted but basically, I've had this EPIDEMIC hard drive failure happen to me TWICE on a 1st Generation MacBook since my purchase last June. First time was about 3-4 months ago and the second time was yesterday. Just basic use, browsing the internet and checking email, then I got the Spinning Beachball of Death. Had to force shutdown, won't boot, flashing drive, blah blah blah. First time it happened, I brought my MacBook to the Apple Store and they ordered me a new drive. But since my 1 year warranty is over, will Apple replace the drive they just replaced?

I wouldn't expect them to replace it out of warranty - even if they did replace it recently under warranty. Fortunately, these drives are quite inexpensive these days. newegg.com has several 120GB drives for about $70, 60GB drives are about $50, and they're easy to install.

The unfortunate thing is the lost data, and data that can't (easily) be erased before discarding the drives.

I'm curious about what's really going on behind this, or if it's just that they sold so many MacBooks that normal failures look like an epidemic.

sigh Guess I'll add my story, too... Got a brand new MacBook Pro on June 18th 2007. Serial number begins with "W8722" so it's probably a later revision. It sat on my desk for two days and booted up exactly _three times_ before the Spinning Beachball of Death blew up in my face. I wasn't even doing anything major, just mousing through System Preferences, trying to get rid of that moronic "Dashboard" thingy. Reboot brought me to the infamous gray screen with flashing "question mark" folder. Zapped PRAM, no joy. Rebooted with CD....okaaaay....except the hard drive was missing in action, and I noticed a weird ticking coming from the left side of the machine. And the darn thing was HOT in that area.....yeeeouch.

1. Hardware Test...no problems.
2. Utilities...couldn't find a hard drive to repair.
3. System Profiler...could find the hard drive, period.
4. OS X Installer....ditto.

Took the MacBook Pro back to my local Apple dealer on June 21, and the hard drive will be replaced. I didn't have enough cash to get the extended warranty. Thing is, having read the posts in this thread, I don't know whether to spring for the extra warranty and hope for the best, or return the computer and ask for a refund.

I'm curious about what's really going on behind this,
or if it's just that they sold so many MacBooks that
normal failures look like an epidemic.

yes, this would be very interesting.

in europe there is a obligatory warranty of 2 years, if it can be proven that it is a hardware error that existed already when the item was purchased and delivered, then the manufacturer has to replace the item with a new one.

i asked around all the people i know that have MBs oder MBPs. and NOBODY was really happy with it after some time of use. many told me similar stories of battery problems or HD failures....

Mine failed as well, and 10 days out of warranty (no Apple Care).

My only consolation is that the drive was easily user replaceable and a drive with twice the original capacity came in at a significantly lower cost than Apple Care would have been.

FYI - 1st Generation Macbook, 1.83GHz Core Duo, Serial # 4H6233..., Seagate 60 GB hard drive.

This Macbook did previously exhibit the wrist rest staining issue that a number of early Macbooks experienced. That issue was resolved under warranty.

MacBook1,1 Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Once upon a time, a bug in hdutil occurred that messed up low level formatting. I encountered it in a Beige G3 desktop circa OS 8.1. The main symptom was the drive would not mount or let itself be reformatted.

As far as anyone in the Mac world knew, the drive was dead. My company bought a new drive. Rumors had it that drives that had died this way could be "fixed" by formatting on Windoze systems.

Curious, I went home, opened up my Starmax tower, and while OS 8.1 was running, carefully swapped the cabling from a working ATA drive with no useful data on it to the one that had "died".

I know this was dangerous, but I had nothing to lose. I was able to reformat the formerly dead drive and used it for many years.

Could something similar be happening with these Macbook drives? If crucial low level info in headers is being corrupted by Macbooks it could be fixed in similar ways.

Anyone care to repeat my experiment?

Well, here's my story:
Bough a MacBook Pro in early 2006. The first machine's display failed within weeks of delivery so it got replaced by a new machine. That one suffered from 3 hard drive failures within 6 months so it was replaced by Apple in Jan 2007 to a newer machine (and I got a processor upgrade at the same time since the original model was no longer available). Hard drive failure during a business trip in an airplane in Feb 2007, drive replacement and new try. This one worked fine for 4 months until today. In the middle of browsing the web the drive started doing clicking noises, /var/log/system.log started getting populated by error messages and the machine failed to restart after that (grey screen, hard drive clicking).

A couple of the failures happened shortly after I put the MBP on top of my MB while working. Could it be that the case is short circuiting some component, or that the insufficient air flow under the machine simply kills the hard drive?

-Mikael

MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.10)

First time poster, just thought I'd add my MacBook HD failure story to the mix.
After six months of perfect use, last night my MacBook died while opening an MS Word doc. I got the spinning beach ball of death and the system froze (though iTunes continued to play), and after attempting a restart I got only a gray screen and the flashing question mark/folder icon. I've tried booting from my OSX install disc (as well as the OS9 disc) but it doesn't seem to recognize the disc, so I can't try Disc Utility or anything. I have tried holding down the C key, it seems to try to read the disc but soon gives up and the folder beings to flash after 4 or 5 mins. There are a few clicks, but no major squeals coming from the HD.

I've backed up most of my files, so I'm not it bad shape, but if possible I'd love to reboot the HD and copy the rest of them before taking it in to the AppleCare store. Any ideas for things to try before taking it in tomorrow, or it it pretty much toast?

Macbook 13" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Macbook 13" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Closed the lid one last Monday. Tuesday morning nothing.

My admin user is backed-up monthly, so no great drama.

Another user though, where I have over a thousand scanned pictures of my family over the last 75 years, is gone forever I guess.

I'm past hoping it'll be okay, especially after reading all of these posts. But at least another one biting the dust will keep this thread close to the top of the list for a bit longer.

Or until the next one goes.

uh oh. came here to look up "flashing question mark", and i guess i'm just another "me too". hmm.

so with no active warranty, i just have to buy a new harddrive, or pay for a service call, right?

bummer. this just took a few months of baby pictures (even designers get into a rut with backing up!). Any chance I can recover anything or did everyone find out no?

thanks!