got one of the new unibody mac book pros, worked flawlessly for about 3 months, then all of a sudden it stopped booting up completely, i called applecare and tell them whats up, they tell me to take it to the nearest apple store. so that weekend i ferried back home to Vancouver to uvic so i could go to the apple store at the pacific center to get them to fix it.
so i took it to the apple store, got them to do what they do, got it home and then the same thing started up again, back to the apple store again the next day. got it there, took them a solid 2 hours to tell me that i had to move all my shit to an external and do an erase and install, no big deal since i am told because i have apple care they will do it for me, except i have to provide the external harddrive to back up all my stuff? being a broke university student with no external harddrive to start out with, this was a bit of a problem. so after a few angry phone calls, i get apple to lend me an external to temporarily hold all my shit.
so i do the erase and install and get all my shit back onto my own hd, and then use it for about a week and it wont boot up completely again. so i call applecare again and explain what is happening, and the tech support basically tells me im retarded and tells me to do an erase and install again. so i erase and install again, and of course the same thing happens. within an hour of doing the erase and install i call applecare back and talk to someone else, and within about thirty seconds of me finishing explaining what is going on with my computer, he tells me that i need to replace my harddrive, and i can take it to the nearest apple certified reseller and they will replace it free of charge, and just to be sure they actually replace my harddrive he puts a note in my case number requesting that my harddrive is replaced. the nearest reseller happens to be my campus computer store, and i live on campus in residence, awesome!
so i take it in and tell them whats up, tell them to look at my case number and then replace my harddrive. i am then told that i my computer will be ready to be picked up 4 days from then, again awesome. so i go back 4 days later, and they tell me there was nothing at all wrong with my harddrive. now at first i thought to myself "well ok thats weird, two applestore visits couldnt fix it, but the computer store could? oh well they ARE certified techs".
now the worst part. i keep the external i was lent from apple for a few days just to make sure my mbp is running smoothly, and then after it was, i sent it back. about two days after i sent the external back, my computer starts randomly crashing, and only booting up completely every few times, so i call applecare, and the guy i talk to tells me that i am just being dumb and paranoid and that my computer is fine. so i go a few more days without taking action, and then my computer stops booting completely. now at this point i had become very good at troubleshooting and fixing my mbp on my own, so i run a few diagnostics and disk consistency checks to see what the fuck is going on, and what do you know, my "S.M.A.R.T." status is failing.
now for those of you who dont know what the fuck "S.M.A.R.T." status is, it is the condition your harddrive is, and its ability to run properly, and mine was deteriorating, fast, in fact it was quickly losing the ability to store data, and every time it tried to boot up, it got worse. back on the phone to applecare.
this time around with applecare i talk to someone who knows what he is talking about, and actually listens to me when i tell him what i have already been through. he tells me that my harddrive should have probably been replaced when i took it to the applestore the first time, regardless of what the apple genius was able to find be running diagnostics, and then especially after i took it back the second time, did two erase and installs, and then took it to the campus computer store where there were notes explicitly telling the techs to replace my harddrive because it was not working properly. so he tells me i should immediately take it to the computer store, not to turn it on anymore because at this point the only way to get any of my data off would be a very expensive data recovery service that the computer store could probably provide, which he ensured me should be free of charge because of the mix up. so before i hang up i ask him if maybe they couldnt read the notes on my case number because they were not authorized and so he checked to make sure that it was not the case, along with every other possible excuse the computer store techs could make about my case number and not replacing my harddrive.
so i took my mbp to the computer store again and told them what the deal was, told them i needed to have my harddrive replaced because my "S.M.A.R.T." status was failing, and that i needed data recovery because i could not get any of my stuff off my harddrive and they should have replaced it the first time i came in. at this point they tell me that they only looked at my mbp the first time and that they did not have access to the notes on my case number, only that they could see that i had talked to applecare on multiple occasions. i tell them that me and the apple tech i talked to actually checked if their techs were able to read the notes and we had found that they were, so they were completely at fault. at this point the tech i was talking to went to get the manager, and have him tell me that i would be paying for their terribly expensive data recovery service.
needless to say i was furious, i had dealt with far too many techs and customer service people, and that most of it could have been avoided if the computer store techs had done their jobs properly the first time around, and that i refuse to pay for the data recovery service, and that he could call apple and deal with them. so i left hoping and praying that i would not have to pay for the data recovery, or be able to get my mbp back without paying.
i returned to the computer store when i received a phone call at 4:05pm (the computer store closes at 4:00pm) telling me all the work had been finished on my mbp. i then excitedly ran to the computer store expecting to get my mbp back, except when i got there, one of the employees was just about to close up, as it was just after closing, and that even though they had not turned anything off, they were just locking the door so they could close up, i was not able to pick up my mbp that i could see sitting on a table inside. i then explained to him that i had been given a phone call after closing that i could pick up my mbp that day, and that i should be still able to pick it up, the employee i was talking with got his manager (a different one from the one i had talked to about what i would or would not have to pay to have my computer fixed). so the manager said that it was completely reasonable for me to expect that i should be able to pick up my computer a few minutes after my phonecall, even though the store was closed.
the manager then let me come in, grabbed my computer and read over the work order, gave me back my mbp, and did not mention any sort of payment whatsoever, or even check a computer to see if i had to pay at all for that matter. i then took my mbp back to my residence building, checked that everything was in working flawlessly, and that all my data was on the new harddrive, and went on enjoying my almost brand new mbp.
to this day i am still not sure if i actually had to pay for the data recovery, or if that particular manager was too lazy to check the work order to see that data recovery had been done, or checked the computer to see if i had to pay.
