Some MacBook hard drives contain fatal defect, according to report
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 27th 2007 4:30PM
posted November 27th 2007 4:30PM
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.
I think all this hard drive failure is just a way to sell the TIme Machine "feature". ;)
Some people here make it sound like Apple stole their girlfriend.
I have a Seagate hard drive on this MacBook, I won't lie I am a bit worried it might crap out on me. However I have a couple of backups for this computer so I'm not concerned in that sense. I'm not mad at Apple although they may be partially to blame nor am I mad at Seagate though they are more to blame. It seems to me the non-Mac owners seem to be the ones getting more worked up about this.
hey jim if you are here we will be at the bar tonight.... cheers
Just as luck would have it, I have a 7.01 FW Seagate 80GB HD ripped from my MacBook that died a horrible death in an airport lounge. I'm guessing it's this problem, so that puts my fears to rest about ever getting the data back (Apple won't do it anyways, it's a really expensive procedure). Apple only offered to switch the hard drive, but they wouldn't let me keep the dead one (and I wanted to hold onto it to see if the data could ever be recovered.)
Sad.
i have a macbook.. cant tell if its seagate hd tho.. its got revision 7.01 and the model # someone said of the infected drives
Hello is anyone having any problems with the new os Leopard it runs like sh-- . The programs dont run as freely, and yesterday my mac hard disk was spinning so fast i had to disconnect the battery, i think the problem is in the new os Leopard.
I think the crux of the apple bashing here comes from PC users who here nothing but "Apple makes their own hardware""Apple builds computers with superior compononents than PC manufacturers do" and so on from Mac nuts. This really isn't Apples fault. Apple does whatever other PC manfufacturer does they but parts from other companies. Hard drives, monitors, motherboards, memory and so on. The then send it off to a manufacturer(foxxconn,asus) to be put together.
The issue here is how Apple handles this since they bought everything OEM they assumed the responsibility for the Hard drives to US the consumer. In that regard Apple is responsible and if their is a problem and if they know about it than it is Apples responsibility to recall it regardless of wether itis a seagate product or not. Apple will deal with the issue with Seagate seperately.
The thing is Apple is a company that doesn't like to admit mistakes or problems it takes them a long time to recognize a serious issue or at least admit it to the public. They like that squeeky clean image even if it is just that an image.
Crap. Im on the list!!! :-(
Hehe, I guess this is why we got 'Time Machine'.
yay!
mine is a Fujitsu!
To all of you ranting against Chinese manufactures: what do you think they are? Magicians? Man hours are a negligible factor in the production costs of a high-precision, sealed piece of machinery such a hard disk, yet consumer brands will go to China expecting similar saves to those they get in labour intensive mp3 players and mobile phones; obviously the Chinese manufacturers will have to make cuts in quality, they are not getting machining or electricity any cheaper than anybody else!
Consumer brands are the sole responsible for the quality of their products; moreover when what you buy is a branded computer, rather than an enclosure and a choice of 3rd party components. It is sad to see how Apple’s hard earned good name is brought into disrepute by savage profiterism, both in the fields of product quality and commercial practices (i.e. iPhone).
BTW, Seagate offers 5 year warranty on all HDDs that they sell. If Apple does not want to replace, just contact Seagate for a replacement.
"vague" huh? What, no witch hunt? No snide remarks?
Oh well.
Apple are of course *responsible* since they have sold the machines to those who have defective drives in their MacBooks, but they are not the ones *to blame*. Not even Steve Jobs can see into the future. AFAIK, Seagate have a very good reputation as a hard drive manufacturer. Compare it to, say, Maxtor... Tenchology fails. That happens all the time. Even in Apple products.
Mine has a Toshiba drive. Phew.
"Apple IS of course *responsible*"
...So this post is being made from a Macbook with the 7.01 firmware dri-SCCCRRREEEEEEEEE
My profiler says Revision: 7.01 Is that the same as 7.0.1?
It's true. My dad had a first gen black MacBook and had to replace his HDD twice, at a cost.
It used to make a horrible fan sound and the system used to drastically slow down before we decided to change drives.
Yep my Seagate drive died about 2 hours ago. My Macbook is 15 months old, and no longer covered by Warranty. So I guess I'm screwed.
I hope a recall is issued, so I can get a replacement drive without having to fight for it. Maybe Apple could fix my broken iSight while they're at it.
I've heard that the Seagate drives have a five year Warranty on them, so even if I can't get a replacement through Apple, maybe I can get one through Seagate.
This happened to my 60gig I had. 2 weeks out of warrenty, hardrive fatally scratched and data could not be revived. Call apple customer relations at 18007672775, they will try to make it right. They fixed my Opitcal Drive (also broke) hardrive and faceplate for free ($300 value) in one day!!
Hi,
I was uploading photos with cute ftp and suddenly the macbook 13" stop responding I press for 10 seconds the power botton and then I saw the folder with a question mark that indicates that no operation system was found , I test the hd with another macbook and i notice that it makes a 3 click sound, so the hd toast. I got the mackbook a year and 2 months ago, so no warranty but I LOST all my precious data. SO MAC ARE NOT THE BEST or at least the seagate hd that they are using without putting in a test period before selling. Now I got a hitachi 200GB 7200 rpm I make backups every day , I hope that hd last.
Luck to all mac users.
So my macbook hard drive died yesterday. This is a 3 month old, 2nd gen macbook purchased brand new from apple. I did not have the seagate drive like apple mentioned, It was a Hitachi. I have read some issues with the macbook hard drive failure and found one company that had 3 of their macbook hard drives did the same way mine did.
The battery was almost dead, I put my mac to sleep and plugged in the power adapter. The next day I opened my macbook only to find It would not wake-up. When I pushed the power button it booted up but It then told me to restart. When I did I got the question mark of death.
I popped in my install disk but my hard drive did not show up anywhere. I then took it to apple and they have to hold it for a few days until they receive a new hard drive replacement.
Apple should have a recall on all the macs with hitachi and seagate hard drives and not wait for something like this happen to a customer only to find out after the problem has happened to even know there was a problem with their product. I lost GBs of data, I was going to back up my data this Friday because I ran out of disks to back them up on.
Oh well, what goes up must come down. At least this happened to me 3 months in and not a year later leaving me with money to spend because I did not purchase apple care. I now think I should purchase apple care, Damn you apple and your marketing scheme. Apple should have longer warranties on certain parts in their products.