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iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
#23887 10/22/12 11:21 PM
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If you have a one or two year 27" iMac with a 1TB Seagate hard drive, and it was properly registered, you have probably already received your recall notice. but if not. Apple has determined the failure rate of the 1TB Seagate drives is excessive and is replacing all of them free of charge, regardless of whether or not you are covered under Applecare. You can find more information and determine if your iMac is affected here

While the actual replacement does not take too long my local Genius Desk is quoting 3 to 5 days turnaround due to the number of iMacs involved (there were five of us there at the same time this afternoon. Apparently the failures are happening with little or no warning, so be sure you have good current backups and get your iMac in for a drive transplant ASAP.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
joemikeb #23914 10/24/12 05:23 PM
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And as the tech at an AASP I will give you this advice:

We are very very busy replacing hard drives. Apple has sent an email to everyone that owns one of these models of macs that registered with their email address. They've ALL been advised to bring in their computers for a hard drive replacement.

Apple doesn't ever us the "R" word (Recall) but that's what it is. They call these things "Quality Programs" or "Repair Extension Programs". ("the" program...) Almost all previous REPs required three things. (1) you had to own a computer whose SN fell within the stated range, and (2) your computer had to be experiencing the symptoms described, and (3) the symptoms had to be due to the part failing.

This Quality Program only requires (1) your computer's SN to be in range. As a result, we are getting upwards of a dozen calls a day to arrange service, about half of which actually bring them in that day. So we are quite busy. The repair requires pulling off the glass and the LCD panel, which takes time, care, and space.

We are also doing data recovery from old drives to new. It's very important for you to understand that Apple will NOT pay for labor charges to transfer your data to the replacement drive. Apple's informational page simply tells you that you ought to have a backup, and restore from it after the hard drive is replaced. They make no attempt to explain what will have to happen if you don't have a backup.

This leaves you with several options:

(1) you have no backup and bring it in and don't want to pay for service. We replace your hard drive and you get back a blank drive, will have to use your restore discs and reinstall the OS yourself, and start from scratch or whatever backups you happen to have and need.

(2) you have no backup and bring it in and are willing to pay for service. We replace your hard drive and copy the data from the old drive to new. It goes back with you looking exactly like it did yesterday.

(3) you have a backup and bring it in and are willing to pay for service. We replace your hard drive and restore the time machine backup you provided. It goes back with you looking exactly like it did yesterday. We charge slightly less for this than option (2).

(4) you have a backup and don't want to pay for service. We replace your hard drive and you get back a blank drive. You boot off your restore discs and do the time machine restore yourself.

(5) you have no backup and don't want to pay for service. We sell you an external hard drive, which you take home and set up for time machine and run the initial backup, then bring the computer in to us. We replace your hard drive and you get back a blank drive. You boot off your restore discs and do the time machine restore yourself.

We are currently suggesting option (5) for customers that do not have a backup. It doesn't cost a lot more than option (2), but you get more for your money. Your imac is restored the same, but now you also have a time machine backup which you did not before. We've ordered a large number of external drives to deal with the rush.


We've looked around and some AASPs are charging hundreds of dollars to do the data restore. We're charging 1/2 hour of labor which is considerably less.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
Virtual1 #23920 10/24/12 07:01 PM
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So just out of curiosity, what's happening to all the old hard drives being swapped out under this program?


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
tacit #23923 10/24/12 07:26 PM
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The past few days the forums got hit with a bunch of spam posts about rock crushing equipment from a Chinese mining equipment manufacturer. Coincidence? shocked smirk


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Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
Virtual1 #23928 10/24/12 08:41 PM
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My local Apple Store is offering only one option. You bring your iMac in and they replace the HD and install the same version of OS X and iWork that was on the drive they replaced — all at no charge. cool They did ask if I had a backup which I assured them I did and they used a troubleshooting app to determine if my computer thought there was a backup??? At least that is what I understood them to say??? The diagnostic app they used was really neat — I grumbled that it was not available to us plebeians. crazy

The link in my first post checks to see if your serial number is in the right range and then takes you directly to our local store to make a Genius Desk appointment thereby neatly eliminating the extra phone calls. That store is opening two hours early and staying open two hours late to work on and return the iMacs that have been brought in. I was promised five day turn around and they did it in two. laugh


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
joemikeb #23929 10/24/12 09:02 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
The link in my first post checks to see if your serial number is in the right range and then takes you directly to our local store to make a Genius Desk appointment thereby neatly eliminating the extra phone calls. (Emphasis added.)

Well, yeah, but travel time to Ft. Worth will more than offset that saving. grin


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
alternaut #23930 10/24/12 09:04 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
The past few days the forums got hit with a bunch of spam posts about rock crushing equipment from a Chinese mining equipment manufacturer. Coincidence? shocked smirk

I just knew that there had to be a good reason for those otherwise inexplicable posts.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
joemikeb #23939 10/27/12 03:35 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
They did ask if I had a backup which I assured them I did and they used a troubleshooting app to determine if my computer thought there was a backup??? At least that is what I understood them to say??? The diagnostic app they used was really neat — I grumbled that it was not available to us plebeians.

You have one. It's called Terminal. Enter:

tmutil latestbackup

at the command line.

Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
joemikeb #23966 10/29/12 04:50 AM
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I'm new to this site. Like many others I received the Mac Seagate 1Tb HD Drive recall e-mail.I entered my serial # and was told I was eligible for the replacement program.

Stay with me as there is a twist in the tale!

I went to About My Mac - Serial - ATA and discovered that it reports that I don't have a Seagate 1Tb HD but a NVidia 1Tb HD.

Interesting! Will this post generate any responses?

BFN - Art Geverding

Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
ART1 #23967 10/29/12 05:28 AM
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I see this under Serial-ATA in /Applications/Utilities/System Profiler, but the NVidia device is not my HD, rather it's the next branch up in the tree from my WD 500GB drive.

Edit: Oops... Hi, and welcome to FineTunedMac. smile

(As far as I can tell, NVidia doesn't even make HDs.)

Last edited by artie505; 10/29/12 05:29 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
ART1 #23968 10/29/12 12:09 PM
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The NVidia device you've got listed is the SATA controller.


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Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
alternaut #23976 10/30/12 12:05 AM
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Thanks for the replies - too bad - thought I might have dodged a bullet :<(

Re: iMac 1TB Hard Drive Recall
ART1 #23981 10/30/12 11:24 AM
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Just be sure you have a good Time Machine or clone backup on another drive to recover your data and applications from and the experience is neither too painful or too time consuming. At least it wasn't for me, the Genius Desk even had my iMac back to me in half the promised time.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein

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