I run Tech Tool Pro and have it SMS me whenever a SMART (or other) error is detected on any of the machines I admin. SMART often catches things before you have a failure. However, the errors can be transient; mine had errors several times, then stopped for a day or two, then started again. So looking one time may not tell you a lot; it should be full-time monitored.

If the drive is noisy or behaving erratically, they told me they'd replace it before it fails. Nobody at the tech bench at the local store thought that was an unusual request.

nice. i might go in this weekend then. now the question is, can i upgrade to a better hard drive (and pay extra for it) :) i'd like to get my hands on one of those 100GB 7200 rpm drives they have in the new powerbooks!

They said no, they will not do any sort of exchange like that. You can always ask anyway, you get nothing if you don't ask...

I've had two HD's fail in the same PB. Both were my fault though - not enough RAM caused them to be over-accessed for long periods of times. Eventually they both started making funny noises. When the first one went, fortunately it was still *just* working enough for me to back everything up. I then bought myself a faster and larger drive from Hitachi (60GB 7200rpm instead of 30GB 4900rpm), and a few months after getting that, it started making funny noises too. Sent it back to Hitachi and eventually got a replacement. I'm now no longer using the PB that HD is in as I've got a new one .... the old PB has been passed onto my father. I am known as a power user, so to be honest, I wasn't 100% surprised when the poor little HDs gave up the ghost ...

I agree entirely with what's been said above - it's not Apple's fault in the slightest - it's not their fault if the third party hardware they use fails ....

I honestly wouldn't suspect your lack of RAM to be the fault of the hard drive failures. Drives fail! There are 3 devices in your PB that have moving parts. The HD, CD and fan. Any of the 3 are likely to fail at any time. Your HD has a maximum expected lifespan of about 5 years. That's max! It's usually warranted for 3 years.

If you look closely at the warranties that come with drives, they say the drive will last 3 years—but 3 years with a certain amount of use. One I remember seeing said 10% usage over the 3 years.

I had the HD fail in my PB17 (long sold) in January of this year. I went back to my local Apple reseller (Uficon, Pantip Plaza, Bangkok) before it failed and they sent it to Apple, who just replaced it without a murmur. Against all advice ( and I respect that advice to this day ) I had Filevault on and setting myself back up was simplicity itself.

Apple pissed me around over the logic board issue (PB15) but - as I posted at the time - one of their official service partners (I was in the UK at the time)replaced it without a blink.

Cheers
Gavin

According to the Apple Authorized Service Center I took it to, not for free. There are probably individual differences between technicians, but this technician said that according to the rules, they had to install the one that Apple sent them. If he installed another drive, he'd have to charge me the $80 for labor. So I let him install the Apple-supplied drive and then when AppleCare expired I installed my own (7200 rpm) drive, bought a FireWire enclosure and put the Apple supplied (5400 rpm refurbished) drive in that. [I'm speaking of a Desktop, not a laptop, but I imagine the rules are the same.]

Yes, the Apple supplied drive under AppleCare will likely be a refurbished drive. I wasn't very happy about that but then read AppleCare rules and it is allowed: I had one drive replaced under AppleCare in February 2004 and then that very same drive that Apple provided as a replacement failed and had to be replaced in November 2004. Fortunately I was backed up, but my wife wasn't fully backed up and she was pretty upset.

I should note that after the initial shock wore off, I have come to terms with this. From an environmental and conservation of resources standpoint, I'd much rather have as many used and failed parts be reused as possible and back up twice as often than have a pristine drive installed every time.

I don't find Apple to be at fault here; as mentioned above, drives are going to fail. Also, I imagine the AppleCare policy is standard across the industry. I might add, that I have only myself to blame here. If I had read the AppleCare agreement from the start, then I would have been aware that replacement parts are possible refurbished. [I do, in general, RTFM, but I don't often RTFEULA when it is from a trusted company.]

DiskWarrior also comes with a daemon you can install that will check every day for you.

Well, I consider myself badly hit.
I had two drives fail within 1 week or so, a few years ago. On this same Pismo that I still use. That was the primary drive and my back-up drive used in the expansion bay. Both were IBM/Hitachi 2.5". I was running off an external firewire drive untill replacements arrived. Burned a lot of CDs then:D. Both drives were replaced under warranty. Fortunately, I kept automated backups (rsyncX), still do:o. I haven't considered suing anyone for the time spent or the brouhaha resulting from feeling out on a string.

I had my drive on my PB 12" fail rather recently. But something tells me it had more to do with my shoving the thing in my backpack then throwing said backpack around when I got home (you always think the padding is enough...) Yeah, I'm dumb. But, on the flip side, the drive lasted a year and a half under heavy use and abuse.

My Powerbook Just Failed me!!
 

I have a Aluminum G4 12" 1.33 ghz powerbook. It has 512meg Ram, 1 80gig 5400 rpm HD. I bought this system in May 2004, 18 months ago. Of course no extended warranty. The logic board failed under warranty march last and now my HD. It was reporting serious error under Disk Utility SMART. Now it can't even be seen by computer when starting under system disk. It also whines real loud. I feel cheated and ripped off. I rarely move this computer, it sits on my desk. Now I have to find the money for a new HD. Add me to your list Jimmy D Houssen.

FYI there was also a battery recall by apple for this and other model G4's powerbooks.

Good Luck from a Canuck.

jimmyd@houssen.com

Anyone who thinks that it isn't apple's fault when 2nd party Hardware fails is missing the mark. Apple is passing the hardware off as their product and covering it under warranty, therefore it is in fact there responsibility.

I'd venture to say that since repair/replacement is covered by the warranty, that qualifies as living up to that responsibility. I don't think the integrity of a user's data is covered under that option, nor has it ever been, to the best of my knowledge.

What does "responsibility" mean to you? They do fix it under their warranty. Or are you saying that they are responsible for making bad hard drives that fail often? I don't get your point.

I used to work for an AASP, and have been repairing apple's under warranty (and apple's warranty guidelines) for over 6 years now. If a client of mine gets any kind of sign of hardware failure for whatever componet it may be, I can order it under warranty no problem.

As for a HD being a common bad part, yes I would say that HD is somewhat common. For one its mechanical (electro mechanical if you want to be technical about it), and the moving parts will sometimes fail. That is until we, in the near future, move to solid state HDs.

The most common part I see gone bad in apple laptops (besides user abuse) is probably a tie between main logic board and the inverter boards.

I would not fret on your hard drive failing. If its going to fail it most likely will in the first 30 days.

I'm on my third PowerBook HD. The 12 GB that originally came in my Pismo died after about 18 months. I bought a 30 GB replacement drive from otherworld computing, then it died a bit over a year and a half ago. Now I've got another HD from otherworld, this time a 60 GB 7200 rpm drive.

When the first drive died, it died hard and fast. I'm sure carrying it around on a motorcycle had something to do with it.

The second one died more slowly - lots of crashes and overlapping file errors. Once I saw the SMART status warning, I went ahead and replaced it. At the time, I was going to college and I'm sure being moved around a lot didn't help much.

The third drive is still going strong after almost two years and running at least 80% of the time - I use my Pismo as a desktop unit with external mouse, keyboard and monitor, and I almost never turn it off or put it to sleep. An uptime of a month or two is not uncommon.

No failure yet
 

My 1.25 gighz "alubook" is the 5th Mac for our family, and none has suffered a drive failure. 'Course now I"ve jinxed it, so stay tuned....

Seriously, this is the first laptop, so perhaps it will fail more quickly. I'm 2 years in with it, and so far so good. I use a Toshiba laptop at work; the drive on that has sounded like it's pushing sand around in there for a year and it still runs, so maybe the drive sounds don't tell you much. Nonetheless I back that one up every day.

I hope if my 12" Powerbook drive's going to fail, it does so soon. My Applecare is approaching its end. Just about everything else on it's been replaced. I sent it in because of a bad logicboard. The report I got back had everything replaced other than the screen and hard drive. Even the upper and lower covers! You think someone ran over it with a forklift? :confused: