I bought my powerbook 12" in december 2004. By the end of august 2005 the 80GB hitachi HD had failed. Sent it back to apple but they quoted some crap about machine damage and wouldn't replace the HD. (Machine has never been dropped, etc.)

Bought my own HD (eventually, being a poor student funds are tight), installed it myself. Its a seagate 100GB and has worked flawlessly ever since.

Only problem I've noticed is the machine runs about 2°C hotter inside, and the left wrist rest gets quite hot (not unbearable to touch, just quite warm.)

3 Times
 

I have had my powerbook for 3 years, so far i have replaced the drive 3 times. One was drop related the second was not my fault and the third apple manged to do while repairing my dvd-rom drive. (They replaced it without telling me what happend my data just, when i called they said it was damaged by an apple emploeyee) I currenlty have a 120GB drive i bought online and installed myself.

Lucky i make mirrored backups once a month and rsyncx my user directory everyday.

Powerbook G4
 

I have a 17 inch Powerbook G4 purchased two years ago. My computer worked fine until May 16th. The hard drive was replaced under Applecare on May 22nd.

On June 3rd, I began to experience problems while traveling for business. Tonight, after speaking with Apple tech support, I was told my hard drive must be replaced again. I followed her instructions to run Disk Utility. However when it loaded, the name of my drive was in red letters. It said the drive failed.

The tech support person was nice enough even contacting my local Apple store to arrange an appointment. They will have to replace the drive.

I am shocked and uneasy. I have used Apple computers since 1984.

Thanks for this post. I had begun to think my situation was an anomaly.

Thanks,
Orien