Some MacBook hard drives contain fatal defect, according to report

We've been hearing vague rumblings about potentially flawed MacBook hard drives for a day or two now, but a report from UK data-recovery firm Retrodata finally backs up all the noise with some hard data -- according to the company, revision 7.0.1 Seagate drives manufactured in China have defective read / write heads that can become detached and slide across the surface of the platters, making recovery impossible. Apple says it's only received "a few reports" of the problem, but Retrodata says the issue is severe enough to warrant a recall. MacBook users will want to fire up Apple System Profiler ASAP and check under the Serial-ATA listing to see what kind of drive they have -- and probably start backing things up, just to be safe.

[superfresh @ Nov 27th 2007 4:34PM]

I don't know what they're talking about. I haven't experienced a singl.

[korey @ Nov 27th 2007 4:56PM]

yeah, I just lost my macbook, got the question mark of death!

[Rjay @ Nov 27th 2007 5:22PM]

Superfresh, you were so close to pulling that joke off but that period at the end killed it.

[Ellianth @ Nov 27th 2007 5:40PM]

ROTFL.

No way.. he totally pulled it off. I got good laugh just now. +1 for superfresh!

[Reader @ Nov 27th 2007 7:01PM]

Lesson of the day: English class makes you unfunny.

[BubbaGump @ Dec 4th 2007 3:41AM]

haha superfresh,

good thing i run windows,
never had a single problem,
no hardware or software acceptance issues,
no update issues,
not even a single Blue Screen Of Dea..........

[pscs @ Nov 28th 2007 3:15PM]

"revision 7.0.1 Seagate drives manufactured in China"

I think all hard drives are made in China - with the exceptions of a few :P

[Suzanne @ Nov 28th 2007 7:40PM]

This just happened to me and I was furious! I spent extra money on this laptop because I heard Apple computers lasted forever. My one year warranty had just expired when this happened. I lost all of my data and had to buy a new hard drive (which had a 3 year warranty ironically!) I sent angry letters to Apple, complaining that I shouldn't have to pay extra money for an extended warranty just in case they make a faulty product. Who cares if someone else makes it? They put it into their product. They should stand by that product. Bottom line: If you pay a certain amount of money for a product, it should have a longer warranty for certain issues. I didn't by a cheap computer and to ask me to buy an extended warranty on it is just a scam. Apple did care enough to call me back and hear my complaint, but did they admit fault? NO! They did nothing and they lost me as a customer. I was just thinking about buying an iphone, but I just don't trust their products anymore.

[Isaac @ Nov 27th 2007 4:35PM]

Maybe this will stop the "Apple can do no wrong" bull crap.

[jus10 @ Nov 27th 2007 4:37PM]

1) Apple has done plenty of wrongs. Many iPhone related.
2) Apple didn't make the drives with the problem.

[Reid Conti @ Nov 27th 2007 4:57PM]

This would not be the first Apple product to contain a defective hard drive, but it seems sketchy to pin on Apple.

My 600mhz G3 iBook had an IBM/Hitachi TravelStar (laptop version of the famous DeskStar AKA DeathStar). Puked after 2 or 3 years. Fortunately it gave me a death rattle for about a month before it died; plenty of time to backup my data and source a much higher-capacity drive.

It's not like Apple hasn't had the occasional quality problem with their products; at least wait for a legit Apple screwup before you start your trolling.

[RandyG @ Nov 27th 2007 11:38PM]

...and that China really can do no good. It's pathetic how whatever China touches turns to crap.

[sean @ Nov 27th 2007 5:05PM]

@jus10
Apple is liable.
If a third party makes parts for a car, who gets stuck with the recall obligations? Who gets stuck with the financial implications in the press?

Deal with it, stop apologizing for a company. They're a company, just like any other. And if this story pans out, then they are just as liable as any other company would be.

[The Grand Master @ Nov 27th 2007 5:19PM]

Look at Sony made batteries, they were included in laptops by many companies, is it the company that used that parts fault that they were sold defective merchandise?

If you have a car that is sold with Michelin tires, and the tires burst, is it Toyota's fault?

[halycon404 @ Nov 27th 2007 5:45PM]

Yes, it is Toyota's fault. When you buy a car, or a computer for that matter. You are buying a complete product off one vendor. There may be lots of third parties who sold to that vendor, but the vendor in question is responsible for testing and making sure that all equipment that makes it to the consumer are in perfect working order. The party who sourced the parts to the vendor will probably have a hoard of memos fly to them, along with some monies changing hands.. But to us, the consumer, in this case Apple is at fault for not testing the drives for defects, no matter that its nearly impossible for Apple to do it, they are still the guilty party.

[SteveS @ Nov 27th 2007 6:29PM]

Apple can definitely stand blame *IF* they already know about this higher than normal failure rate (after all they are doing the replacements and should absolutely be tracking this data) and have failed to issue a recall before another Macbook owner loses their valuable data...

[Aaron @ Nov 28th 2007 3:31AM]

Clearly halycon404 was not around when tires were exploding.

[Matthew Hilario @ Nov 27th 2007 4:36PM]

prelude to the SSD.

[ethana2 @ Nov 27th 2007 6:15PM]

Right now on this laptop, I'm using... 10 GB of space...
One for the OS and such, 6 for all my media, and 3 for the ton of programs and libraries I have installed.

So if I could probably get along fine with one 8GB SSD, but 16 would give me more headroom.

How much would an 8 GB SSD cost me?

[superfresh @ Nov 27th 2007 4:36PM]

Weird. Didn't include my full post. Sorry for the confusion.

[Tiptup300 @ Nov 27th 2007 7:16PM]

Please stop while your behind.

[John B @ Nov 28th 2007 9:06AM]

What about his behind?

[superfresh @ Nov 27th 2007 4:37PM]

Vista is the fatal defect on my hard drive.

[ethana2 @ Nov 27th 2007 6:01PM]

Well that's easy enough to fix. If you get me some basic hardware info, I can tell you how well everything would work under Linux.

[e-mail]

[Tony @ Nov 27th 2007 9:35PM]

Just stop.

The first one wasn't funny, and each one fails more and more.

[chris r @ Nov 27th 2007 4:39PM]

Crapola... I have this drive in my MacBookPro 2.0 ghz... i've been meaning to upgrade.. now sounds like a great time~!

[scott @ Nov 27th 2007 4:48PM]

Better yet, get Apple to pay for it...

[scott @ Nov 27th 2007 4:49PM]

Better yet, get Apple to pay for it...

[chris r @ Nov 27th 2007 4:53PM]

Well... until either:

A) Apple acknowledges the defect and offers to replace it.

B) Seagate acknowledges the defect and offers to replace it

C) My drive actually dies (prayers)

I'm having a hard time thinking I'll get a new free drive to replace one that appears to be working fine right now.

[Ryan @ Nov 27th 2007 5:07PM]

Chris, you're being too skeptical.

I work for the University of Texas and we have about 17 of these bum macbooks. We took all of them back to apple over a period of the last two weeks and they are all getting new drives via apple for no charge. We staggered taking them in and the effect on our staff was minimal. Just waltz into your local apple store. It's real quick.

[chris r @ Nov 27th 2007 6:00PM]

I hear ya... my only concern now is turn around time. Did you have to surrender the machine in order to get the replacement? Or can they order the drive and swap it right at the apple store? Did they replace it with the same size drive?

[Paul @ Nov 27th 2007 9:57PM]

Ryan: So you just tell Apple you want the hard drive replaced?

[Luigi193 @ Nov 27th 2007 4:43PM]

My first gen macbook seagate drive just failed...wonder if its related!!! To bad I already got a new one...........

[Jhongerkong @ Nov 27th 2007 4:50PM]

Macs just work.

[Bob @ Nov 27th 2007 5:13PM]

Yeah they work ....and then they crash

[The Grand Master @ Nov 27th 2007 5:20PM]

Had either of you considered that these drives are not just sold in Macs...

[dalcowboys722 @ Nov 28th 2007 12:33AM]

This is stupid, I bet half the people who are insulting Macs have never used one, nor the new operating system. I've had windows based computers my whole life, and about a year ago I got a MacBook, and its the greatest computer I've ever used. OS X Leopard is amazing too, definitely beats out vista like it promises

[Ben @ Nov 27th 2007 4:51PM]

Apple has quality control issues with hardware? What a surprise! The fact it was Seagates fault is...

How long did Seagate know about the fault? And will Apple replace the drives... or will it wait for a class action suit before doing the right thing?
I wish I didn't recommend my mom should buy Apple. I should have guessed, since ALL my apple laptops have had defects from failed logic boards to hard drive failures (harddrive, then logic board failure in the first two weeks of purchase, another two logic board failures at the 3 year old stage).
I was blinded by pretty hardware and a decent operating system, but the hardware needs to actually work first and be reliable.

[J.P. Damico @ Nov 27th 2007 4:58PM]

Sorry to hear that Ben. Usually these computers should just work. Hardware fails in both Macs and PCs. Unfortunately, I have seen end users with just really bad luck and computer after computer go down. Sounds like you're one of them :( -- That is unless you store these things next to a heater or a high voltage area.. or.. a giant magnet.

[Ben @ Nov 27th 2007 5:01PM]

It's my high voltage magnetic personality I guess...er... Well, it could be...

[ScOObyDoo @ Nov 27th 2007 4:55PM]

What a great way for a previously unknown data recovery company to get tons of free publicity.

[SteveMB @ Nov 27th 2007 6:03PM]

Or did they?

[hypereric @ Nov 27th 2007 4:57PM]

Man, has Jobs been pissing on his worshippers lately or what? One die hard Mac friend of mine is now a EX-cult member. He no longer prays the "Our Jobs, who art thou in Cupertino, grant us thy coolness" mantra.

About time Apple starts showing their true colors... But of course, you'll still have a few old holdouts --- the diehards --- that will defend it with "well apple (may peace and blessings be upon them) didnt BUILD that hard drive! ..... they just chose the manufacturer and the specs and yada yada yada"

[Reid Conti @ Nov 27th 2007 5:00PM]

Sounds like a pretty legit defense to me.

Or do you have a better idea of who to blame?

Will Dell and Toshiba make your blacklist once it's revealed that, *gasp*, these drives aren't just in Apple products?

Laptops are just generally unreliable products. Apple may have tops in quality (source: Consumer Reports, past 5+ years), but the extended warranties on these things really pay for themselves.

[Benson Leung @ Nov 27th 2007 5:15PM]

... and obviously hypereric wants to blame Apple for not being able to see into the future and predict that a part from a reputable hard drive manufacturer will exhibit a failure some time down the road when they chose the hard drive to go into their MacBooks two years ago... right.

Apple is not clairvoyant. Obviously, they didn't intentionally give us a part that they knew would fail.

[hypereric @ Nov 27th 2007 5:55PM]

Lets see... I don't remember the exact stat, but the overwhelming majority of BSOD's on Windows machines were from drivers that --- gasp -- weren't made by MS; yet, Apple (see icon for Win machine in latest apple "OS") and its' followers love the BSOD thingy. That's why this, and all of the other Apple screw-ups lately, put a smile on me.

Apple worshippers are pathetic. Actually, I'll chnge that to sad. If you have ever been in a real cult or known someone in a real cult, you see it in the "Jobson's Witnesses". Rationalization, Cognitive Dissonance, Double Standards, etc, etc.

Example: A friend who is a pro photographer (no... not a portrait type, but big enough to be an asst photog on several national retail catalog & magazine shoots) came by my office a few years back. Back in the Win2000 days. I had a BSOD while he was there. He about fell on the floor laughing.

Not long after that, I went by his studio. His Mac (pre OS-X days) locked up so hard that he had to pull the power plug to get it rebooted. I didn't laugh (much). But, in retrospect, what was really sad is that he justified it with something along the lines of "must have been something I did". Typical cult thinking. The organization is never to blame.

And for those of you that think these drives were just picked up off the shelf from a local best buy in china and then put into a laptop, you don't have a clue. Anybody care to get the part number from one of these drives and see if tigedirect or someone like that carries it? Bet they don't. When your large company like Apple (yes yes, I know Apple worshippers: large companies are evil, but Apple is soooooooooo different) you don't choose a drive from a catalog and say gimme 250,000 of those. YOU tell Seagate what YOU want.

[Chris M @ Dec 5th 2007 12:19AM]

If you are anything _but_ an atheist, hypereric; I'm going to laugh, because irony is awesome.

[korey @ Nov 27th 2007 4:58PM]

My Macbook just experienced the question mark of death. Any ideas of getting some pics off the harddrive that weren't backed up, mostly everything else important was.

[J.P. Damico @ Nov 27th 2007 5:02PM]

You could yank it out and if you have an external enclosure, you could try to plug it into that.

[wtf @ Nov 27th 2007 5:02PM]

First they kill our kids with lead. Then they steal our WOW accounts. Now they kill our Apples. CHINA!!!