iMac Hard Disk Repair

[marsnic]

I'm currently dealing with an iMac with a failed hard drive. The repair is proving to be a little convoluted and drawn out and I wondered if I was missing a trick here. I firstly returned the iMac to PC World where I bought the machine. They told me that they couldn't help and I had to ring Apple support. I rang Apple Support who told me to take it to an iStore to confirm that there was a problem with the hard drive. They would then arrange for a pick up and a repair. I've just got back from a 2 hour round trip to the iStore with that confirmation. Having just rang Apple Support, they have arranged for another company to pick the machine up. I've been told to expect a call from them towards the end of next week to confirm a pick up date and time. On top of that, I was told to expect a 7 to 10 working day turnaround after the machine has been collected.

Is anyone aware of somewhere I can go in the Kent/SE London area to get this dealt with in a reasonable time frame? I assume it's as simple as swapping the drives out and reinstalling the O/S - just not sure how to get into an Apple case.

Thanks
Darren

[Richie Royale]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfLmsrMafXs Don't think I'd want to DIY having watched that.

[marsnic]

lol - I'll wait for them to pick it up next week

[Tui]

Wow, my teeth hurt just by watching the guy do this.

It's quite amazing, though, how tightly everything fits together.

[nathanscribe]

As great as my iMac is, this is a good argument in favour of a proper desktop... What happens if you can't get to an iStore? Why do PC World not deal with Apple? What's customer service?

[forumuser695516]

It is tedious to change the HD on an aluminium iMac. But I wouldn't say it was difficult.
I did mine a couple of months ago after it started to die. It was well out of warranty however, so I didn't mind having a crack at it myself. Of course, if it is in warranty, then by all means have Apple do it.

12" G4 powerbook on the other hand, now that was a bugger of a Mac to change the HD on!
Some Macs were built by humans, others by Aliens. Consequently, an HD swap can be a 2 minute job, or it can take all afternoon! Later ones are not usually too bad though..

[Tui]

The bit that got me was the trick with the suction cup... Something between genius and utter ridiculousness, haven't quite decided yet.

[forumuser695516]

It's actually pretty clever. It keeps all the screws neatly out of sight, which is all part of the fancy design I guess.. The glass panel has metal pins bonded to it, so that the panel can be retained magnetically.
I didn't use a suction cup though.. I just used a thin blade to pry it out.

Btw, this drive that failed, 1TB seagate perchance? If so, Apple issued a recall for it..
http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

The one that failed in my iMac was an original 320gb Western Digital HD. But it was around 4 years old, and had a hard life pretty much daily. So I wasn't too sore or surprised that it eventually spun it's terminal revolution.

[marsnic]

I bought the machine in December so I don't think it was part of the recalled batch.

One question I did have however was around how I found the disk error which was a little random. I'll admit to being relatively new to Macs. The first I was aware of the disk problem was when I tried to install Lion. The install failed and reported that this was due to SMART errors reported on the hard disk. I then confirmed this using the disk utility. With my PC, I would see these errors reported when booting the machine. Is this something the Mac should proactively report to me and if so, where would I see it? I'm kind of glad I tried to install Lion if only to find this fault.

Cheers,
Darren

[Richie Royale]

From my own limited use I think that Disk Utility is the only bundled program that details disk status, but you need to run it, rather than it actively warning you that a disk is failing.

[DaleSmith]

The iMac teardown is amazing, and not for the faint hearted.

I don't understand why you couldn't just leave the mac at the store and let them sort it out from there. As for the turn around, that fits in with our mac store, as all the work is done off site.

[Tui]

The install failed and reported that this was due to SMART errors reported on the hard disk. I then confirmed this using the disk utility. With my PC, I would see these errors reported when booting the machine. Is this something the Mac should proactively report to me and if so, where would I see it?

There are several free utilities that will check the SMART status for you. I use SMARTReporter:

http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/

It sits in the menu bar and not only checks the SMART status of my internal drives, but also read/write integrity of my raided FW drives.

To find free apps in general, it's a good idea to keep an eye on two sites:

http://www.macupdate.com/

http://download.cnet.com/mac/?tag=hdr;snav

[marsnic]

The iMac teardown is amazing, and not for the faint hearted.

I don't understand why you couldn't just leave the mac at the store and let them sort it out from there. As for the turn around, that fits in with our mac store, as all the work is done off site.

I was told in the shop that it would be probably be quicker to arrange a home pickup through Apple Care. It actually went back yesterday. Taking into account that I can only get to the store at weekends, this might prove to be the case. I didn't really fancy the round trip again either to be honest. I'm a little confused as to why PC World who sold me the thing aren't able to offer this service if all they do is send them off elsewhere for repair.

[marsnic]

@Tui - really useful thanks

[Mr Spanky]

I did mine myself. Not a repair mind you, I replaced the original internal drive with a Western Digital velociraptor. Total time, maybe 4 hours? I could probably do it quicker if I had to do it again, but was extra careful in case I buggered it up. I also upgraded the CPU. This is a mid 2010 model with the i3.

[chris...]

Total time, maybe 4 hours?

Well done! But a real shame it takes that long.

[Mr Spanky]

It's not that easy! Still, quite enjoyable. In a sick way.
The big hassle was the CPU really, just couldn't get the clip back on.

[G-Doubleyou]

The iMac teardown is amazing, and not for the faint hearted.

I don't understand why you couldn't just leave the mac at the store and let them sort it out from there. As for the turn around, that fits in with our mac store, as all the work is done off site.

I was told in the shop that it would be probably be quicker to arrange a home pickup through Apple Care. It actually went back yesterday. Taking into account that I can only get to the store at weekends, this might prove to be the case. I didn't really fancy the round trip again either to be honest. I'm a little confused as to why PC World who sold me the thing aren't able to offer this service if all they do is send them off elsewhere for repair.

They may be an authorized reseller, and not be a Service Center. If the techs are not certified Apple techs, it would void your warranty.