A while back, Apple announced a replacement program for iMacs with a Seagate 1TB hard drive that shipped in mid-2011. Theses drives were prone to failure, so the program was set up to facilitate getting a properly-working replacement installed in those iMacs, which require drives with a custom firmware to interact with the temperature sensors. Not having this firmware results in the fans ramping up to full speed as you use it.
Now, Apple has extended that replacement program to cover iMacs sold with that same drive dating back to October 2009. To see if your iMac qualifies for the replacement, you can enter your machine’s serial number on Apple’s Replacement Program page.
So I guess those of us with the same model, but only a 500Gb HDD are left out in the cold with a dead drive. Thats my luck, day late, 500Gb’s short.
Hard drives fail. It isn’t a matter of if it is a matter of when. Apple recognized that there was a problem with one particular drive they used that had a failure rate that was higher than acceptable and setup the hard drive replacement program. For those with that drive, they had a little extra protection against that failure commensurate with the little extra risk they were taking using said drive.
Luckily, OWC has you covered with either the OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program or with an iMac DIY Kit for upgrading your 500GB HDD to a larger capacity drive, or even a SSD.
I also have a 500Gb Seagate drive that has had all of the same problems as the 1Tb drives…. Asked APPLE if it was covered, but no luck…. although several searches made it clear that lots of other people w/ the 500Gb drives are also having problems…
I have an affected iMac.
They sent me an email back then, I am taking the machine to a Genius next week.
If you did not give them a valid email address and they were not able to contact you than whose fault is that?
You have until April 12, 2013 to take action on this.
I just had my imac hard drive replaced January 2, it is still acting goofy and won’t install all information in applications from my time machine backup. It had to be unplugged to reboot all the time. Applications freeze up etc etc etc
what do I do about this????
If you had your drive replaced by Apple and are still experiencing problems with it, I’d suggest contacting them again and explaining the situation.
I have an iMac of exactly this vintage, with this exact problem. I submitted my serial and lo and behold…its not covered by the recall. I’m feeling burned…just like my hard drive…
Well it would have been REALLY NICE (and ethical) to mail those of us who bought one of these a NOTICE. this is the first I heard of it and I have been going through hell with this disk on my affected computer
They know who has their computers that are affected I guess they just hope we won’t notice.
Actually, Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program.