Apple acknowledge MacBook hard drive errors

November 27th, 2007 by Tom Krazit

diskutility.pngApple is investigating whether or not faulty Seagate hard drives are to blame for data loss on some MacBooks.


Retrodata, a U.K. data recovery firm, reported earlier this year that certain 2.5-inch Seagate drives used in MacBooks had a manufacturing flaw that causes the drive heads to scratch the surface of the drive and cause major problems. InformationWeek contacted Apple about the problem, and a company representative said, "We've received a few reports that some MacBook consumer notebooks may have hard drive issues, and we're looking into it." An e-mail to the same representative checking on whether or not that meant Apple was looking into the specific issue identified by Retrodata, or just MacBook hard drive issues in general, was not immediately returned.

You can figure out if your MacBook has one of the scarlet drives by checking the firmware revision number in System Profiler. If you scored a 7.01, Retrodata advises backing up your data and to consider replacing the drive. It's not clear if Apple owners are the only ones using the Seagate 2.5-inch drives in their laptops, although Retrodata said it hadn't seen similar problems with other drives, and it's also not clear how many varieties of Seagate hard drives Apple is using in its MacBooks.

Share and Enjoy:

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add your opinion

* indicates information we require to process your submission





Your e-mail will not be displayed
You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 and A..F
You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 and A..F