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Apple steps up when they didn't really have to

Lamonster

Lamonster

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 4, 2008
129
0
I have a 2008 imac running Leopard and I wanted to try out Facetime on it so I went ahead and bought Snow Leopard family pack to run on my MBP and Mac Mini. The install went fine on the MBP but I had major issues on my imac. Long story short it somehow killed my hard drive. After spending two days on the phone with techs I decided to take it into Apple. Because it was out of warranty they were going to have to charge me $85.00 to run it through the program. At this point I didn't care, I just wanted my good ol Mac back the way it was.

They call me the next day and told me I had a hard drive in a state of failure and that it was going to need replacing. Then they told me that I mentioned that it was fine before I tried to load Snow Leopard and I felt that was the real problem but I was willing to pay to get it fixed. They replaced the hard drive and the bill for the diagnostics and the hard drive came to $365.00 but at the end of the bill it said no charge. :D That was very cool for them to do that and I just wanted to give props where props were due.

I came home and loaded my backup and all is good in life again. Thanks Apple :apple:
 
I had a similar experience when loading Snow Leopard onto an 2006 edition Core 2 Duo 2GHz iMac, however Apple did not step up on my occasion despite literally being just days out of fully paid up extended warranty. As polite as I could possibly be, I remained quite calm as I was told that all my data was lost, and that I would now have to pay for a replacement drive and installation:eek:
My machine, like yours, was fine until the install. Years of faithfull service then this... And this may just be a matter of unfortunate coincidence (yeah right...) the board on the Hard Drive itself kindly expired leaving all my data inaccessible until I removed the drive myself and had it sent to a data recovery firm.
I firmly believe that there are issues known to Apple in regards to upgrading to Snow Leopard on certain Mac models and hardware configurations. If it hasn't been mentioned on the forums before I'd love to hear if anyone had this problem in upgrading to Snow Leopard.
I think in your instance, yours is a case of genuine generosity from Apple and that I was just plain shafted by Apple UK... Again!!!

Cheers :apple:! Love your Gear, Hate your rhetoric.
 
I'm sorry to hear that. I was willing to pay to have mine fixed and I would never try to install any software like this without a good backup. Time Machine did it's job and it was like I never had a problem to start with.

metalhead73 said:
I had a similar experience when loading Snow Leopard onto an 2006 edition Core 2 Duo 2GHz iMac, however Apple did not step up on my occasion despite literally being just days out of fully paid up extended warranty. As polite as I could possibly be, I remained quite calm as I was told that all my data was lost, and that I would now have to pay for a replacement drive and installation:eek:
My machine, like yours, was fine until the install. Years of faithfull service then this... And this may just be a matter of unfortunate coincidence (yeah right...) the board on the Hard Drive itself kindly expired leaving all my data inaccessible until I removed the drive myself and had it sent to a data recovery firm.
I firmly believe that there are issues known to Apple in regards to upgrading to Snow Leopard on certain Mac models and hardware configurations. If it hasn't been mentioned on the forums before I'd love to hear if anyone had this problem in upgrading to Snow Leopard.
I think in your instance, yours is a case of genuine generosity from Apple and that I was just plain shafted by Apple UK... Again!!!

Cheers :apple:! Love your Gear, Hate your rhetoric.
Click to expand...
 
Wow, $365 to replace a hard drive? I need to get into that business!

But seriously, if they would have charged me that price, I would have been furious.
 
Almost a year and a half ago, Apple replaced my Black Macbook with multiple issues with a Macbook Pro Mid 2009 SD version because they could not match the L2/L3 cache memory with any of the existing macbooks back then. I love :apple:
 
Mugambo said:
Almost a year and a half ago, Apple replaced my Black Macbook with multiple issues with a Macbook Pro Mid 2009 SD version because they could not match the L2/L3 cache memory with any of the existing macbooks back then. I love :apple:
Click to expand...

I like the sound of that. I'm planing to wear this baby out.
 
Ok. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Installing software does not kill hardware. The simple fact is your drive died. Drives die. The drive has probably been failing for months now and finally died.

Let it break it down for you all.

Your hard drive detects one bad sector.
Your hard drive detects a few more bad sectors.
Nothing is going on, all is well. You have no idea it's happening because everything is working as it should.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
Your hard drive has a few errors, but no big deal, you still don't notice.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
You install Snow Leopard and critical data is written on a bad sector and there is another error at the same time.
This is more likely to happen during a large amount of data written to the drive, but can still happen at other times.
Your hard drive is dead.
 
I'm sure that is true to some point although when they first ran the hardware check it did not show any problem with the drive, it only showed up when they tried to install the new software. Either way they still stepped up and it didn't cost me a dime and that is what this post is about. :apple:
bizzle said:
Ok. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Installing software does not kill hardware. The simple fact is your drive died. Drives die. The drive has probably been failing for months now and finally died.

Let it break it down for you all.

Your hard drive detects one bad sector.
Your hard drive detects a few more bad sectors.
Nothing is going on, all is well. You have no idea it's happening because everything is working as it should.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
Your hard drive has a few errors, but no big deal, you still don't notice.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
Your hard drive finds a few more bad sectors.
You install Snow Leopard and critical data is written on a bad sector and there is another error at the same time.
This is more likely to happen during a large amount of data written to the drive, but can still happen at other times.
Your hard drive is dead.
Click to expand...
 
I just looked at my bill again. I had a 320 gig hard drive and they replaced it with a 500 gig hard drive :D

  • Hard Drive 3.5" 500 GB 7200 SATA- $279.65
  • Hardware Repair- Level 1- $85.00
  • Apple support- Priceless ;)
 
Lamonster said:
I just looked at my bill again. I had a 320 gig hard drive and they replaced it with a 500 gig hard drive :D

  • Hard Drive 3.5" 500 GB 7200 SATA- $279.65
  • Hardware Repair- Level 1- $85.00
  • Apple support- Priceless ;)
Click to expand...

Too bad you can get a 2TB Caviar Black for $160 now. Apple prices for hard drives (and RAM) really are ridiculous.

GL
 
GroundLoop said:
Too bad you can get a 2TB Caviar Black for $160 now. Apple prices really are ridiculous.

GL
Click to expand...
Seeing my 320 was less than half full it doesn't really matter how big it is seeing it didn't cost me a dime. :apple:
 
Lamonster said:
Seeing my 320 was less than half full it doesn't really matter how big it is seeing it didn't cost me a dime. :apple:
Click to expand...

True for you. But I am thinking of all the other people who are getting out of warranty repairs on their Macs via the Apple store. In some cases you have no choice (logic boards) but to charge almost $300 for a 500GB HDD is downright theft.

GL
 
I agree

You pay a premium for Apple products, but one of the major reasons why is customer service. I have had to replace a couple of things (minor) from Apple and they were quick to replace the problem without even seeing a receipt. You get what you pay for...
 
rugonnagraduate said:
You pay a premium for Apple products, but one of the major reasons why is customer service. I have had to replace a couple of things (minor) from Apple and they were quick to replace the problem without even seeing a receipt. You get what you pay for...
Click to expand...
This was the first major problem I've had and one thing that really impressed me was when I did my backup from Time Machine it worked! I don't think I've ever had a backup work on my PC's.
 
bizzle said:
You install Snow Leopard and critical data is written on a bad sector....
Click to expand...

That's about what I was going to say.

I guess the important thing is that Apple came through...again...when Dell would've told him to take a hike.
 
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