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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/26/2007 6:46:57 PM
From: aaplfan	Respond to of 213182

Time Machine will obviously be most useful before your drive croaks but all may not be lost. You can try the freezer trick (i.e. pull the drive out of the laptop and stick it in the freezer for a few minutes) to see if you can bring it back to life long enough to pull your data off. I've never tried it myself but have seen several reports of it working some of the time... just don't mess around: if the drive comes back, get everything off of it immediately as you're probably down to minutes of life left and should get a replacement drive installed right away.

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/26/2007 7:06:24 PM
From: inaflash	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

This is only the second HD failure I have ever experienced (the first being a 3G iPod). Hate to make unfounded accusations, but could it be an Apple thing? Macbooks do seem to to have a reputation for HD failure: discussions.apple.com; HARD DRIVES HAVE A REPUTATION FOR FAILURE especially in laptops (heat, bumps, less space/protection, etc.) It's not just isolated to Apple/Macs. Personally, I've had two terrible laptop experiences. Years ago a Compaq (486) had 3 HD failures in the first year (the drives were lemons) and finally the 4th drive (different model) finally fixed things. More recently, though still some time ago, a Dell had 2 HD failures around, each lasting 12-13 months (just outside the Dell OEM warranty, fortunately the credit card warranty picked up one of the replacements). The machine is now old and seldom used, so that might contribute to the longer life of the HD. Don't as me about desktop HD failures or we'll be here for a while. Surprisingly, I can't recall any Mac HD failures off the top of my head. What's the solution to failing hard drives? maybe SSD? Superior in most ways, expect for cost and speed, though both are quickly improving. Maybe coming to a Mac near you soon... MTBF 1,180,777 operating hours MTBF for 16GB based on Telcordia SR-332, GB, 25°C sandisk.com Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) ...300,000 to 1,200,000 hours for modern drives today... storagereview.com

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/27/2007 12:30:43 AM
From: HerbVic	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

You said your 2 year old Macbook froze and now aaplfan wants you to put it in the freezer to fix it. ;^)

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/27/2007 1:39:44 AM
From: Doren	Respond to of 213182

Allen might have some advice for you here. A question mark could mean a corrupted system. Can you boot to your install disk? If it is your system rather than the hardware an archive and install will get you back up and running with all your prefs and files intact. AGAIN this is why I always recommend a cloned system on a separate partition or an extra drive with. It makes diagnosis far easier. I've had systems go south several times. I've had one drive go out. An IBM before they sold the company. They sent out a better one no question asked. I've never had a Mac drive go out.

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/29/2007 7:52:37 PM
From: shlurker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

Time machine ... Interesting that Digital Equipment VAX/VMS had it in the 1980/90's. by default you never saved on top of a version, always a new version.

To: pyslent who wrote (70399)	10/30/2007 9:36:18 PM
From: pyslent	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

Failing HD Just a follow up to my failing HD in my Macbook... the Genius behind the bar proclaimed it "very dead," but they swapped it out for free, even though I didn't have AppleCare and my machine was well out of warranty. I had to relinquish my old HD, which of course, prevented me from trying aaplfan's "freezer" suggestion. I was pretty skeptical of that little tip, and now, I'll never know. Well, 2 years of light websurfing records, down the drain :). Consider this a lesson learned. Kudos to Apple customer service for recognizing how traumatic it is to have a total and sudden HD crash and waiving the $145 they normally charge for a $40 HD :). BTW, in the 2 hours it took to diagnose and replace my HD, I got to play with Leopard pretty extensively. There's a lot to like about the new finder, but I probably won't end up upgrading my Macbook. Incidentally, I haven't upgraded any of my XP machines to Vista, either (although I like Vista, having used it extensively on my work computer).