iMac (Late 2007) Harddrive Death

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I don't know whether this has been discussed before, or whether it is even a widespread problem, but I finally jumped in and got a shiny new aluminium imac about two months ago after being woo'd by the Mac Mini a couple of years ago, and I'm having BIG issues. About a month in the harddrive began making really nasty squeaking noises, like a rusty hinge, and suddenly this morning it's not responding whatsoever. I've tried booting with the install disc and repairing, time machine, repairing permissions etc etc to no avail. It won't even let me reinstall Leopard whilst archiving my previous system info. I fear this is the end for this machine already, am I correct? Bizarre thing is, the machine still knows how much space is left on the harddrive, which is my only beacon of hope that it's still alive.

If anyone has any new light to shed on my issue or even some simple advice, I'd be very grateful; even if it's "take it back to Apple!"

I'm starting to think my little Mac Mini wasn't all that, well, little anymore....
 

dtravis7


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2 months old? Take it to an Apple Store. It's under warranty and they have to fix it. That is not a usual thing for the iMacs drives to die that fast.
 

chscag

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Hard drives are hard drives.... and Apple uses the same hard drives found in PCs supplied by the same manufacturers. That's why making a backup is so important. Even a brand new drive in a new computer is subject to sudden failure. :|

Regards.
 
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Hard drives are actually more likely to fail in the first 2 weeks than at any other time in their lives.
 
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cwa107


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Folks, let's keep the tone civil, OK?
 
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ok. sounds good to me.
 
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Right. I'm going to take it into an Apple shop tomorrow but I was wondering; I've had a look on the Apple website and it says you have to make an appointment with the Genius bar apparently. Now, I've tried for the last few days to book an appointment at my local shop, but it's ALWAYS fully booked. Do I actually have to make an appointment or can I just turn up with my iMac and request someone to take a look? It's getting rather frustrating. Granted it is the flagship shop on Regent Street in London, but my warranty runs out in about nine months and at this rate I won't be able to make it in time!

So I guess my question is: Will I get turned away if I just turn up with my iMac or will I get it looked it?

Thanks for your replies so far.
 
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well if its a flagship store just take it in, I'll bet they will have it looked at in no time, I mean, who wants a customer with a faulty item (thats really big) complaining loudly in front of potential customers??
 
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Took it in today. Harddrive failure. Mechanical issue. Funnily enough, someone next to me getting their macbook pro checked out had the same squeaking harddrive issue, but obviously in the earlier stages as they could still get theirs to load up. So the moral is, if your harddrive is squeaking like a rusty gate, take it in and back up your data ASAP otherwise it's probably going to fail.
 

cwa107


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Took it in today. Harddrive failure. Mechanical issue. Funnily enough, someone next to me getting their macbook pro checked out had the same squeaking harddrive issue, but obviously in the earlier stages as they could still get theirs to load up. So the moral is, if your harddrive is squeaking like a rusty gate, take it in and back up your data ASAP otherwise it's probably going to fail.

I'd go one further - do regular backups regardless. Laptop hard drives are notoriously failure-prone, regardless of the make and model. Simply put, they are subjected to forces and conditions that desktop hard drives are not. These days, an external hard drive with way more capacity than even the largest notebook hard drive will run you less than $150. It's well worth the investment, both monetarily and in your time to do a regular backup - or better yet, just use Time Machine whenever you have your laptop at your desk.
 

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