iMac dead after 20 days

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Hey all...while I really have been enjoying my switch I had the strangest thing happen. After exactly 20 days of owning my 20" iMac the hard drive. I was extremely upset by this as I needed it this weekend for a huge project. Luckily, the Apple Store gave me a brand new one when I told them my dilemma. However, this led to me frantically installing software all night on Friday. My question is why? Apple was unable to tell me and I couldn't figure it out either. I have a number of certifications dealing with computer hardware, but this seemed very odd. I of course being a heavy user never turn it off so the hard drive started spinning and basically never stopped unless it was being reset. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Hopefully iMac round 2 will be better. :Confused:
 
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Hi cblagburn,

Like most companies, Apple factor in that there will be lemons in the mass produced product line somewhere, it's a fact of life.

From my experience with my iMac, the AppleStore just toss out the faulty part and pop in the new one. AFAIK, there isn't any further investigating into what may have contributed to the fault.

So, if you buy a new mac and it develops a fault, it's replaced OR the faulty part is replaced. They don't repair many parts so there's probably no point in knowing why your macs HD failed.

Enjoy your iMac!
 

dtravis7


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Hard drives die. Some drives I have purchased right out of the box died on me that day. Apple uses the same brand of drives others use. Usually WD or Seagate. You just got a lemon drive. It's happened to me and 1000's of others and most of the systems I have had to fix are PC's. It's not a Mac issue at all. Not in the least.

I have had my iMac for 1.5 years now and use it HARD and 24 a day. It's never off. Never and not one issue.
 
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Thank you all for your replies...please do not think for a second I think this was the fault of Apple as they do not make their hard drives or anything so they cannot control it. It does seem odd that it took me two MacBooks and one MacBook Pro before I got a machine that actually worked out of the box. I again understand this can happen to any company, Apple is just the only one it has ever happened with. Either way, I still own the iMac and plan to go back about my business just like before.
 
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My question is why? Apple was unable to tell me and I couldn't figure it out either. I have a number of certifications dealing with computer hardware, but this seemed very odd.
Well, being an individual with knowledge of the inner workings of computer hardware, you are aware that many different things could have led to the failure.
It isn't always something that can be immediately diagnosed. You admit yourself that you couldn't determine what the fault was. I am sure that the Apple tech would prefer be pragmatic and honest by saying that he wasn't sure what the fault was as well, rather than speculate wildly about the possible causes.
Being a former IT tech myself, I am certainly familiar with those strange little things that seem to have no initial explanation. I always took the same approach to a situation like that. Sometimes these things take time to investigate and research before a viable prognosis can be given.
 
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D3v1L80Y...I totally agree..perhaps I should have explained more with this..I know that it's not like the Geniuses would be able to magically diagnose the failure. Plus, doing IT stuff at a school you begin to realize how often hard drives really do fail. It was very surprising when I first started working with so many machines how often they actually failed. For it to be my own machine just caught me off guard. I think it was mainly because of my previous issues with a few Macs I've had and that I am running some 4-6 year old hard drives..the only part that seems unacceptable is the number of lemons I've actually had from Apple..and again I'm sure I'm the exception. It's not like I hate the company..as I said, I have two recently purchased machines, despite all my problems.
 
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your mac is cursed. There's no way around it.
 
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My iMac's HDD died after approx 5 months
 

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This thread again?

I bought a BRAND NEW Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM drive Factory Sealed in it's box. CAREFULLY installed it and right up got S.M.A.R.T. Errors but tried to install the OS anyway and ran into error after error and even worse SMART errors. This happened on a PC and a Mac. Drive was defective but I could install the OS. Seen this happen over and over again with Seagate, Maxtor, WD ETC. Some drives worked for a while like 5-6 months then failed SMART or died completely. Bad drives do happen, some right out of the box even.
 

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