It finally happened. My best technology related friend died. My internet surfing buddy died yesterday. My fledgling internet marketing partner croaked and left me without even saying goodbye to all of the good times we have had these last 3 years since we met. It was love at first sight back in November of 2007. When we touched for the first time, I knew he/she would change my life in such a way that I would never look back. Yep, my Apple MacBookPro hard drive died on me yesterday, leaving me helpless, sad and angry all at the same time.
My MacBookPro is the best piece of equipment I have ever used. I’m one of those Apple people who sing the praises and I absolutely hate most everything that is Windows related. I just like things to work, and for 3 years, my MacBook has worked flawlessly even though I have run it through the mill with everything I do on it.
The good and the bad of Apple
The first thing I did was to call my local Apple Store. I could not even get an appointment to take it in to visit a technician for 2 days! C’mon Mr. Jobs, this is totally unacceptable and sucks a big one. I could not even drop it off, I was told. I have a dead laptop and I could not be seen for 2 days. This is customer service at it’s worst.
Never Deal With People Who Sport New Age Names
I mention that I have spent a ton at the store and recently bought an iMac. It does me no good. I was not a VIP in their eyes. I felt like I might be in a little trouble when the girl I was speaking of told me her name was “Ocean”. I thought that if I told her my name was Rainbow, that we might connect on a different level but she asked me for my account info and she could easily see that I have the most common name ever given to a male born in the 50′s & 60′s. Just a regular ol’ Steve.
The Bad News
I tell Ocean that I have my receipts and that I bought a 3 year warranty for $349. I can hear her typing something and she confirms that I did buy a warranty, but gives me the bad news that I didn’t register the warranty online. She offers no additional help or advice. I’m getting pissed but I can’t raise my voice to someone named Ocean, it’s not in my nature. If it had been a dude named Solar, that would be a different story.
I called a friend of mine in South Carolina who takes his computers to an authorized Apple Service company and always speaks highly of them. He makes a call and tells me they would be happy to look at it today! Woo Hoo! I hop in my car and drive 100 miles and drop off my laptop.
The Good News
The technician at this company tells me to call Apple and try to register my warranty with someone. I felt like it was hopeless because I obviously did not follow the rules. I’ve never followed rules my entire life and it usually costs me way more than $349. I reluctantly call the number and a sweet little girl answers me with a heavy, but cute accent. I can barely understand her and I repeatedly ask her to repeat herself. This aggravates me to no end usually but she sounded so sweet, I felt she had to be a hottie on the other end and I just put up with it. That’s right, us guys put up with crap from attractive women or those we feel might be attractive on the other end of a phone line. Don’t blame us, God made us that way.
The End Of The Story
A guy comes on the phone with a normal run of the mill name of Jeff, and tells me that since I had never registered the warranty, he will give me a full refund or he will register it. Miss Ocean at the store, never mentioned this. I opted for the refund since the warranty runs out in November. Bottom line is that my repairs will cost me $60 out of pocket and I upgraded to a 500 gig hard drive. My faith in Apple was restored in a simple phone call. I did have to drive a couple hundred miles but I didn’t mind because I got to visit a friend I don’t see that often.
Morals of the story
- If someone with a new age name answers the phone when you are calling for service, hang up and keep calling back until someone with a conventional name answers.
- If she has a cute accent but you can’t understand her, just ask her to keep repeating herself while you imagine she’s a real hottie on the line. Eventually, she will give up and let someone else handle the call.
- Since I’m not an A-List Blogger, I can’t really tell you what puffy, pie in the sky lessons that are to be learned here. However, I do expect you to re-tweet this post 279 times.
- Mr. Jobs, please fix your stores.
I was nice, persistent and I never gave up even when I thought it was hopeless. I’ve called the Apple Store 3 times this morning to cancel my appointment and the line has been busy 3 times. I ate 2 fast food meals yesterday on the road. I had a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich for supper and I paid for it with a night of indigestion. That’s ok though, me and my MacBook got a thing going on.
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The MacBook did not die retard, the hard drive did,
Apple has NOTHING to do with fucking hard drives.
-_-
Thanks for adding to the conversation Mr. Guest. You truly added some great value.
Just a tip – I had a powerbook HD not even die yet and I got the approval with 1 simple app. at my local Apple Store. I think it’s a matter of chance of who you deal with. I told them I was starting to hear clicking which means imminent head failure. In hindsight I actually regret replacing the hard drive through Apple / Applecare for free for the following reasons:
1. You give them this hard drive which has all your data on it that is possibly fully recoverable. My hard drive was still working so I backed up then formatted. But it’s still recoverable so I’ve read. I guess it’s just unnerving to let it go like that for me personally.
2. Apple replaces the HD with the same specs as the HD that came with the laptop… possibly a whole 2 or 3 years after you buy laptop.
3. Once your Applecare expires, the warranty on the hard drive expires.
SO in hindsight I think it would have been better to do the replacement independently because:
1. I keep the hard drive that’s dead and know I’m the only one that is handling my own data.
2. Depending on make and model I can buy a faster, bigger HD.
3. Most importantly I can buy something like a Seagate HD that carries a 5 year warranty. Your free Applecare new hard drive might die again after Applecare expires – forcing you to do it on your own with your own wallet anyways.
Now I know Powerbook HD’s are easy to replace on your own. I know nothing about the newer MB / MBPs – but I think you could find a repair place somewhere that does it at a fair price.
Lastly… why aren’t you using SSD yet?
Perhaps your video takes up enough space and all but if I were you I’d go SSD then have mirrored external (RAID) mechanical drives at 1 TB a piece. 
Also – yea it’s technically inaccurate to say your “laptop” died as in logic board failure or something but I don’t get the need but why the total crabby pants attitude?
Cheers!