Snow leopard disaster - apple is replacing my macbook pro..

Hey everyone, i am a new member/mac owner. Been using microsoft my whole life. I built PC's for a living through high school, but i didn't like where microsoft was headed. After many crashes/data loss/ and troubleshoots i finally called it quits on windows.

So about two weeks ago i bought a 13-inch macbook pro for school (studying molecular microbiology/chem). I fell in love with it. The quality surpassed my expectations. Its very refreshing coming from windows.

Well like most of you, i instantly fell in love with everything "apple." So when i heard about snow leopard i drove down to my local store and picked up snow leopard. Everything installed great, except after restarting it, it froze on me but i thought, "meh, nothing to worry about." Everything seemed to work ok after that except things seemed a little slower. I hadn't installed any programs on it except for the snow leopard update. After a few days my macbook started to hang unexpectedly while using apps. Finally about three days after the install, my macbook would no longer boot up. It would get stuck on the apple start up screen with the spinning gear. The spinning gear would freeze and the laptop would get very hot.

I immediately tried booting into safe mode with no luck. Then i tried running disk utilities with no luck. I also tried booting into single user mode but i got the same freezing. Fed up, i called apple and they couldn't help me either so they told me to take it into a store. At the store they determined that my hard drive had failed beyond repair. The genius that helped me said i wasn't the first to experience hardware issues after a snow leopard update and that he had replaced other machines with the same dilemma. He said as far as he knows it only occurs when you keep all your files intact instead of installing the OS 10.6 on a freshly formatted hard drive.

Luckily though, apple is replacing my laptop for free. So although it sucks to be out of my comp for 2 weeks, i can't complain. They have excellent service. I just don't think i'll be updating the replacement i get to 10.6 anytime soon...

Ok so i wrote a novel here.
Here are the cliff notes:
-bought macbook pro
-installed snow leopard
-hard drive failed
-genius thinks it could have been snow leopard that caused it
-apple is replacing my macbook for free

EntropyX said:

-genius thinks it could have been snow leopard that caused it

Click to expand...

Glad they're taking care of you, but being a storage guy.. I'd really like to know why he thinks that.

Just sounds like the install ran into some problems with writing things over, so could have been simple as a little cut on the disk. On my iMac I choice to do the upgrade option as well with no issues at all. Most likely you will be getting a macbook that has SL preinstalled on it. Pretty much any computer and operating system can have this type of problem, which is the reason the disk checks before installing is slowly becoming you can't jump ahead option. Sorry that this happened but these things do happen to a small percentage of people.

Dysfunction said:

Glad they're taking care of you, but being a storage guy.. I'd really like to know why he thinks that.

Click to expand...

He explained to me that the file systems were corrupt. He was unable to recover some documents i had on there. Luckily, they weren't of importance to me. I offered the idea that perhaps we could install a fresh copy from a command prompt (i don't know much about macs, yet). However, he said that he wasn't even able to access anything on my disk. He couldn't get it to respond at all.

I've been through this stuff kind of problem on PC's before. I thought it was more likely to be a faulty hard drive then caused by a software update. But i took his word for it because i feel less knowledgeable when it comes to macs.

gagnerants said:

...Sorry that this happened but these things do happen to a small percentage of people.

Click to expand...

With the way they handled the situation, I can still say i have no regrets about my purchase.

I'm a Server/Network administrator who got his start in computers by repairing hardware and software for 7 long long years. A Snow Leopard upgrade being the cause of hardware failure makes no sense to me. I'm going to go with 'mere coincidence'.

I have heard, though, that Snow Leopard incompatibilities can slow down your Mac considerably. There are clearly bugs to still be worked out, so I don't blame anyone for wanting to hold off on upgrading to SL for awhile.

EntropyX said:

I built PC's for a living through high school,...

Click to expand...

As a side note, this is how Michael Dell got started. You may want to read his book sometime "Direct from Dell." Hey, you're the one who said he wrote a novel!

Best of luck on the new MBP, mine is awesome.

Hi there!
I just opened a discussion on a similar problem, then I found this one… and I though that I may have the same problem.

I bought last winter (?) a new mac book, snow leopard already on it. It always worked perfect, but some days ago it started freeze quite often while using apps.
But yesterday it froze just after I logged in, and it still does so: I can see my desktop but I cant do anything, and I really mean anything.

May I have the same problem? Could my mac be affected by a virus (even if I never knew about that with a mac)?

tommi said:

Hi there!
I just opened a discussion on a similar problem, then I found this one… and I though that I may have the same problem.

I bought last winter (?) a new mac book, snow leopard already on it. It always worked perfect, but some days ago it started freeze quite often while using apps.
But yesterday it froze just after I logged in, and it still does so: I can see my desktop but I cant do anything, and I really mean anything.

Click to expand...

What troubleshooting steps have you attempted to date?

If none, please start here:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

....and let us know how you make out.

May I have the same problem? Could my mac be affected by a virus (even if I never knew about that with a mac)?

Click to expand...

To date, there are no known viruses for Mac OS X.

thank you for your interesting link: i didn't know these solutions!

problem is that i tried them all and still the problem is there

here's what i did:
-resetted pram and nvram
- file system check
-repaired permissions and disk (via utility disk)
- deleted caches (with cache out X)
- verified preferences (with preferential treatment)
- run the routine maintenance scripts (with maintidget)

i only manage to log in using the "safe boot".
once logged in, i deleted all the recent downloads and installed apps.
____

so what could i do? (i do not have/cannot find the MAC dvd...)
i think i need to find some one willing to lend me his dvd
or, even, since the computer is still under warranty i may ask for a new one?

The fact that you can log in properly in "Safe Mode" indicates that there is something in your user file that is causing the problem. You should have a look in your login items (which you can access via Accounts) and launchagents ([your home folder]/Library/launchagents) to see what's going on.

thanks for your tip, i tried to follow your advice but it seems not working:
i deactivated all the applications automatically launched and deleted the what was in the lauchagent folder.

problem is still there.

now it seems even worse: before the desktop was charged, i was able to see the dock, icons and the top bar.
now i just see the desktop wallpaper.....

??

That wasn't what I suggested, and was probably a bad idea. You may well have thrown out something important as well whatever was the problem.

I'd tell you from here you'll need to make a new admin user account, log into it, MAKE NOTE (using pen and paper) of what *should* be in those folders, but that's probably too late now. At this point I think your best option would be an archive and install re-installation of the system. Please google how to do this FIRST, before trying it.

yep i definitevely did it wrong, and now i cant even log in using the safe boot... tomorrow i'll go to see the mac assistance in order to re-install the OS (as i dont have the dvd)

that sounds like a hard drive issue, had similar things happen to me on an old computer (it was a pc but the hardware is the same).
It happens, your hard drive works by an arm hanging like 10nm or so above a couple of platters spinning at 5400-7200rpm (piece of paper is 70,000-180,000nm thick) its a miracle they last even 10 seconds.

EntropyX said:

-apple is replacing my macbook for free

Click to expand...

I'm sure that right there will seal your fate as an Applehead 4ever!