About that laptop...

[solarbird]

So the Mac Store called, and as expected, the HD is toasted, unrecoverable. That set it close to the $350 flat rate anyway. So since that hit the flat rate they said it's much better to ship it off to Apple and let them fix everything including the case at that same flat rate.

But then I got nervous because as I made a big point of telling them when I dropped the machine off, it has 1G RAM and 160G hard drive, not the stock 512M/160G. So remembering cow experiences, I called them back to see whether they remembered that. And no, of course they didn't. And yes, it'd bump it up a teir in the flat rate, a big jump. And The Mac Store's solution involves putting back in my old 60G drive (that I still have; it was kinda-sorta working but dying hard), letting Apple "repair" that, then charging me to upgrade it to replace the 60G with a 160G drive, or rather, a 250G drive, since they don't stock 160G, for an extra $240.

To wit: fuck you guys. Seriously.

The one remotely good thing that came out of it was that the 160G I have is under warranty, as it turns out. This unfortunately makes some things cheaper but many things worse, as it means a two-extra-week-or-so wait while the old drive goes to California for replacement.

To wit: Well, fuck me.

So I'll go pick up the machine and dead drive tomorrow morning and ship it off to California and generally be without useful computer and non-crappy shell-account email and hello no calendar and hello h8. Then I'll presumably install the fucker myself and reinstall OSX myself and hope the Time Machine restore works, because pay to replace the drive twice = fuck that. I'll deal without a CD burner. And with case cracks.

bah.

Oh, I found out why WinXP install disc wouldn't boot repair on kimo. kimo's optical drive decided it didn't like DVDs. No reason; just decided to say fuck 'em.

I hate computers.

Comments

[mundivagant.livejournal.com]

If it's really that expensive, why not just buy a new HD and install it yourself? I've done a ton of laptop hard drive swaps before, because field work == laptop death, it's usually not horrible.

[solarbird]

That's what I'm doing.

[mundivagant.livejournal.com]

Okay, just satisfy my curiosity here...do Macs take standard 9.5mm laptop hard drives, or do they have a proprietary format?

[djrock3k.livejournal.com]

When the drive in my macbook died, I went through the usual apple fuckery (concierge my ass. and I'm a test engineer, your "genius" isn't worth the t-shirt he is wearing...)
I finally bought a drive and after consulting the oracle (internet) installed it myself.
and yes, they take standard laptop drives.

When the G4 "sunflower" drive died, I didn't even hesitate. Both machines have drives three times the size of the originals. This thread inspires me to swap out the optical drive in the sunflower :) !

good luck Homegirl.

[solarbird]

nah, it's standard. But warranty = cost of shipping vs. cost of new drive.