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Some MacBook Drives Suspected of Fatal Design Flaw
by , 4:20 PM EDT, November 2nd, 2007
Investigators are looking at a possible design flaw in some Seagate hard drives found in MacBooks and MacBook Pros, according to Techworld on Friday. The problems leads to catastrophic data loss.
The problem is suspected with Seagate 2.5-inch SATA drives made in China and loaded with firmware version 7.01. Model numbers affected include ST96812AS and ST98823AS. The read/write head can detach and cause a catastrophic failiure of the drive and loss of all data.
"There is absolutely, definitely a flaw with these drives," said Duncan Clark, the managing director of Retrodata in the UK. "I have seen enough to know there is a problem with them ... any Apple Mac that uses a 2.5 inch drive is at risk."
While the number of reported instances is still small, and Mr. Clark conceded that one would need to see several hundred or thousand drives fail in this way to be sure of a design flaw, the problem reports are still being looked at carefully.
Also, it is not clear if the problem is related to Macs shipped only to the UK or worldwide. In any case, MacBook owners would be wise to check their drive models and be sure their daily backup procedures are firmly in place.
Observer Comments
This is what we get with wanting cheaper and cheaper goods, globalization and getting the Chinese to make everything. Meanwhile in Derry N Ireland over 900 skilled workers loose their jobs. If ever Apple shut their Cork plant and move overseas to China, us Europeans can expect to see the standard in quality of pro desktops drop.
QuoteiGrouch wrote:
This is what we get with wanting cheaper and cheaper goods, globalization and getting the Chinese to make everything. Meanwhile in Derry N Ireland over 900 skilled workers loose their jobs. If ever Apple shut their Cork plant and move overseas to China, us Europeans can expect to see the standard in quality of pro desktops drop.
I'm not convinced that is what is happening in this case. If this is a DESIGN flaw then you'd have to see who did the actual engineering. The Chinese plant could have built the drives exactly according to specifications, flawed specifications. There's a difference between a design flaw and a manufacturing defect.
Americans really make no sense and often are quite hypocritical. Americans love to talk about human rights and freedom. Yet, what do they do? They support one of the biggest enemies of both. Namely: China. All big business in China is either owned by members of the Communist Party or people with close connections to people in the Communist Party. So, when you buy a product that is made in China you are supporting the Communist government and sending money over there that supports their economy not Americas.
Worse, Communist workers make very little money, have no political voice, and often are political prisoners. Buying Chinese products support that as well.
I love how Google's China search engine was given a hard time for censoring information on the web as the Communist government required it to do, but meanwhile our government is supporting free trade with China and giving big tax breaks to American companies who move their manufacturing operations overseas.
Sun Nov 04, 2007 1:44 pm Subject: Vendor relations
Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:54 pm Subject:
No argument. However, to call this an Apple design flaw (which folks are alluding to) is disingenuous.
It is likely that Apple will replace the drives with ones from a different vendor. Saying that they are "ignoring quality in quest (sic) to make a buck" is trolling. All manufacturers get hit with parts that have issues. That is a fact of manufacturing. See the mass recalls of power supplies and batteries for various computer manufacturers.
Implying that Apple effectively said "give us the cheapest parts you have, we don't care if they work" is BS.
Once upon a time.... (1998)
Seagate was known for making very good SCSI drives and horrible IDE drives, so horrible infact that they were forced into the "cut rate cheap" pricing level because no one would buy them otherwise. Then Seagate figured out that using spare parts from their high quality SCSI drives that didn't meet quality control standards in consumer market drives was a bad move, so they stopped doing that. Since 2002 Seagate has made very good consumer market hard drives, so I doubt anyone can provide a serious basis for accusing Apple of cutting corners to make a buck because they use Seagate drives.
No, it seems to me that it's a Seagate screw up since it's being called a design flaw, however since design flaws affect every single drive made with the design, I'm confused as to why they haven't issued a general recall.
Mon Nov 05, 2007 9:55 am Subject:
Quotedaemon wrote:
Once upon a time.... (1998)
Seagate was known for making very good SCSI drives and horrible IDE drives, so horrible infact that they were forced into the "cut rate cheap" pricing level because no one would buy them otherwise. Then Seagate figured out that using spare parts from their high quality SCSI drives that didn't meet quality control standards in consumer market drives was a bad move, so they stopped doing that. Since 2002 Seagate has made very good consumer market hard drives, so I doubt anyone can provide a serious basis for accusing Apple of cutting corners to make a buck because they use Seagate drives.
No, it seems to me that it's a Seagate screw up since it's being called a design flaw, however since design flaws affect every single drive made with the design, I'm confused as to why they haven't issued a general recall.
That's an excellent question, daemon. Hopefully they will step up to the plate soon.
Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:51 pm Subject:
Can you tell us what you know of Apple's quality standards, or anyone's quality standards? Do you know what has to be done to show that something has quality? It doesn't prove that something is not going to fail; actually it's an indication of the probability of failure - and that's completely different.
It is impossible, and I really mean impossible, to prove that something is not going to fail. Hard drives break down. You may (or may not) have heard of MTBF - mean time between failure. Your drive may last for fifteen years, or it may crash in a week. But the mean time will be some time way in the future.
Did you have backups of your data? If not, why not? I'm sorry you lost stuff, but you have to take a little responsibility yourself.
(Goes off and reads Robert Persig's Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, again!)
Thu Nov 15, 2007 3:51 am Subject:
I can recommend DiskWarrior, because you can set it to tell you when your drive is reporting hardware problems, through its SMART settings.
Alternatively (and it's free), regularly check SMART through Disk Utility.
When you click on the drive (not the volume), down the bottom of the pane you'll see: SMART Status: Verified. Or not.
I don't know where you are and what your consumer rights are like, but since it's out of warranty Apple is not obliged to help you. It all comes down to attitude. I'm not presupposing that you've got on your high horse and yelled at the shop staff (you didn't, did you?!), but at that point the only person who can help you is the one you're talking to. Explain that it's only (say) ten days out of warranty, and you'd rather not have to pay it all yourself.
It's worth a try. Charm, rather than smarm, and a smile mixed with a hang-dog look.
Did they actually say it was your fault, or was that just you thinking the worst?
LF, I have always thought MTBF was an acronym for Mean Time Before Failure, being an engineer's estimate of how long, on average, it will take before a device is likely to fail.
Have I been labouring under an allusion?
Or even Laboring under an illusion? (<- Warning: obscure political reference)
Or perhaps, most likely, labouring under an illusion?
Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:22 am Subject:
Quotecoaten wrote:
Or even Laboring under an illusion? (<- Warning: obscure political reference)
Far be it from me to interfere in another country's political machinations, but better to Labo(u)r under an illusion, than re-elect your current PM with his purported musical tastes!
QuoteThanks, Monsieur Intruder, for showing that I hadn't misremembered - but coaten is right as far as disk drives are concerned: when a disk drive has a failure, it ain't gonna go again, or we ain't gonna trust it…The Age wrote:
John Howard likes the revolutionary Bob Dylan but — here's the thing — not his lyrics. Few things sum up our Prime Minister better than that. To like Dylan but not his lyrics is akin to liking Don Bradman but not his batting.
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