Macbook Hard Drive Failure

[canuckamuck]

I need some quick advice. A friend of mine has had a hard drive failure on his Macbook. This hard drive contained some very valuable information and records. It was two weeks since a backup. Apple in Bangkok says there is no way to recover the info from the drive. They are offering him a new hard drive on warranty. But he wants to get his hard drive back so he can attempt to rescue the info through other means. They told him they would have to charge him $800 dollars if he was to take his drive back.

This to me is very bizarre.

I have two questions:

Who should be the next person he should call?

Is there anyone here that knows a good place in Thailand where drive info can be recovered?

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

I need some quick advice. A friend of mine has had a hard drive failure on his Macbook. This hard drive contained some very valuable information and records. It was two weeks since a backup. Apple in Bangkok says there is no way to recover the info from the drive. They are offering him a new hard drive on warranty. But he wants to get his hard drive back so he can attempt to rescue the info through other means. They told him they would have to charge him $800 dollars if he was to take his drive back.

This to me is very bizarre.

I have two questions:

Who should be the next person he should call?

Is there anyone here that knows a good place in Thailand where drive info can be recovered?

well why don't you go back and say no thanks and take the computer w/ failed drive back and try to have the data recovered. It depends on how badly it has failed... then after you have taken your best shot at it then return the Apple auth dealer and have the drive replaced for free under warranty.

[nikster]

I am pretty sure he can have his old drive back for free, the $800 sounds more like the cost of a professional recovery service. My advice would be to take the laptop plus broken HD back as-is, buy a new hard disk - they are cheap - with external box, try to recover the broken HD while working off the new one, and later have the broken HD replaced under warranty. Then he can use the additional external HD as backup medium.

Good luck! I was in a similar situation recently and my HD is not recoverable with available tools. In the end I decided to lose the 2 weeks of data but that was mainly b/c I could restore most of it manually from emails and other server side information. My photos were still on the camera/phone which has convinced me even more to never delete anything unless I really run out of space. Emails and actual work were on the server, etc.

I had all sorts of offers to fix my HD. 95% of them were people who would just run available HD recovery programs for me. The rest were professional recovery centers which sounded very expensive.

Edited December 13, 2007 by nikster

[canuckamuck]

The reason I am bringing this up is because I beleive he is being scammed, not by Apple, but by the person doing the phone calling for him, or perhaps some Apple employee with sticky fingers. I was hoping someone would know Apple's policy on returning damaged equipment. According to the person who made the calls. Apple says the info is unrecoverable so they would not be charging $800 for the recovery fee. The fee is for the return of the damged drive if they replace it on warranty. I admit it is a dumb scam if it is one.

Is there any one else who was refused the return of their damaged equipment?

[Guest Reimar]

In case of waranty replacement some companies will charge you above the cost of a new product because they calculating service and other to it if you want to keep the damaged product. \

In my opinion it would be fair if the service company charge you the same as the new peoduct cost because they get the replacement or the money only if they return the damaged product to the manufacturer. If a costumer of mine would like to claim within warranty but want to lkeep the damaged product I'll charge the costumer the cost for the new product! Why I should take over the cost? I din't get the cost back without to return the broken product to the Manufacturer!

Be fair, even the dealer is bound to some rules!

[canuckamuck]

In case of waranty replacement some companies will charge you above the cost of a new product because they calculating service and other to it if you want to keep the damaged product. \

In my opinion it would be fair if the service company charge you the same as the new peoduct cost because they get the replacement or the money only if they return the damaged product to the manufacturer. If a costumer of mine would like to claim within warranty but want to lkeep the damaged product I'll charge the costumer the cost for the new product! Why I should take over the cost? I din't get the cost back without to return the broken product to the Manufacturer!

Be fair, even the dealer is bound to some rules!

Yeah but $800 for a laptop hard drive? you can get a whole system for that much

[bigchang]

why doesnt he buy a drive and stick it in himself,takes about 15min on the macbook,just done it myself and then get somebody to try recover the data fom the old one?

matt

[canuckamuck]

why doesnt he buy a drive and stick it in himself,takes about 15min on the macbook,just done it myself and then get somebody to try recover the data fom the old one?

matt

That is good advice, I will tell him

[phazey]

My drive went a few weeks ago - completely unrecoverable. As i was out of warranty i bought a 160GB drive (around 3400 THB) and put it in myself - Very easy to perform and does not invalidate anything. I then bought an external enclosure to try and get the old data back (no luck yet).

Time machine is my favourite app right now....