Phonecall from MFF and Powerbook hard drive flakes out

[giza]

Earlier tonight I got a couple of drunken phonecalls from folks who were at Midwest Furfest. That was really nice of them, seeing that I wasn't able to make the con.

In other news, my Powerbook's hard drive has decided to give me the finger. The system freezes every so often while I hear clicking noises from the hard drive. Then I see "disk0: I/O error" in /var/log/system.log. I guess I get to go a round with AppleCare tomorrow. I hope I have better luck with sending the machine in then this guy did...

Comments

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

I haven't mentioned this online, but I just went through the same thing. My iBook died for the fourth time of the same cause, and Apple agreed to replace it. They couldn't be bothered to send a box and slip out -- I guess because they're going to throw it away when it gets back, and don't care about its condition. So they said I'd be emailed a FedEx slip, and would have to get my own box. That email took all weekend to arrive. Gah.

The good news: They shipped out the new machine as soon as I had the tracking number -- i.e., they didn't wait to receive the old machine before sending the new one. And the new one got here a day earlier than expected. Oh, and since they no longer had any 800MHz G3s, I got a 1.3GHz G4. :) (Don't feel jealous: I'd MUCH rather have had a computer I didn't have to send back four times....)

[elfasi.livejournal.com]

Sounds just like my Powerbook hard disk failure. Check out this page and have a go of the tool it suggests, it's pretty interesting seeing the full extent of the hard disk errors:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/596002794731/r/424000994731#424000994731

[giza.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks! I had smartctl, but I didn't know what all of the fields meant. I was getting some UNC errors in the log, and I just checked Current_Pending_Sector, which is 28. Definitely not good.

[cyriljackal.livejournal.com]

Nothing ever goes wrong with macs. *sarcasm*

[lionman.livejournal.com]

AppleCare used to be the Cadillac of repair contracts. :-/

Have you considered taking it to your local Apple Authorized service center? They should have better luck getting it to Apple for repair, or heaven forbid, replace the HD themselves, in-house.

[susandeer.livejournal.com]

I was pretty happy with the service I got when I had the same thing happen. Admittedly, I had to take it in twice, because when I took it the first time, they sent it out and it seemed to boot just fine for the repair guys. Booted it up at the store...seemed ok. A day or so later, the drive was doing the same thing. I brought it back, they scratched their heads, looked at me and said, "We'll retrieve your data free of charge and replace the drive ourselves. We're very sorry for the inconvenience! I had it back pretty quickly. @:)

Giza and I probably use the same center at the KoP mall.

Giza? Let them know that you -know- the drive is dying.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I ran smartctl and printed out a list of the unrecoverable errors, which I will include with the machine when I ship it back. :-)

[susandeer.livejournal.com]

Nice!

[takaza.livejournal.com]

I think one of the many quotes of the night were:

When I think of Giza, I touch myself!

[giza.livejournal.com]

Damn I'm smooth!

Waves from MFF!

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I'd never call you drunk...unless you were.

My experience has been that Apple has gotten my laptops back to me two days after I put it in the box and send it to them.

And yeah, if you have an Apple Store anywhere nearby, they can box the laptop for you and send it in, and have the return shipped to your home/work/whatever.

[rebelsheart]

I'd like to portest: I wasn't drunk... but I was encouraging the drunks :)

[giza.livejournal.com]

You instigator you!

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

Such behavior is rude and clearly unacceptable. If I were you I'd track down those drunken mendicants and give them a piece of your mind. Imagine! The very idea...