[cwbven]

Dear All,

I purchased a MacBook Pro in July of last year (2006). Up until last week I was very pleased with my purchase. The only problem I had experienced until now has been a defective battery which was immediately replaced (due to my warranty status).

Last week, my neighbor's MacBook Pro developed a problem with his firewire connection --- unfortunately his MacBook Pro was no longer under warranty protection and he did not purchase Apple Care.

This got me thinking.....hmmmm....perhaps I should purchase AppleCare before my warranty runs out --- so I did, I purchased it on Wednesday, June 20th at the Apple Store in Manhattan Beach, CA.

I discovered that within the AppleCare Protection Plan there was a disc known as TechTool Deluxe (a diagnostic tool from a company called Micromat). I decided to use TechTool Deluxe to better know the state of my Mac ---- according to TechTool Deluxe everything was fine.

A few minutes later I started to surf the web with the TechTool Deluxe CD still in my drive. My computer locked up and I was never able to re-boot it again.

I took my Mac to the Genius Bar on Friday, June 22nd where they informed me that my hard drive had crashed. I explained to them that it crashed after installing the Apple Care diagnostic tool (TechTool Deluxe). My complaints fell on deaf ears --- my only option was to get a new hard drive.

I figure I lost about $125 dollars worth of iTunes Music along with various irreplaceable photographs and files. I have since purchased an external hard drive for backing up my files, nevertheless I can not shake this feeling that the Tech Tool Deluxe software had a negative impact on my drive.

I am going to share my experience with Mac consumers via blogs, e-mail, and conversation. I really think that Apple should provide me with some compensation --- at least try to retrieve the files from my old hard drive or give me an iTunes credit. The "geniuses" at the Genius Bar told me they could try to retrieve the files --- at a cost of US$2,000 ---way too much money for me.

I used to be a big fan of Apple....my sentiments are beginning to change.

An angry/frustrated MacBook Pro/Apple Care customer,

Carlos Sanchez

[CharlesS]

Well, DiskWarrior is usually the recommended disk maintenance tool on Mac OS X. However, if TTD didn't actually find any problems to fix, then it didn't really do anything, and therefore couldn't be responsible for the failure of the drive.

Furthermore, if the hard drive actually had to be replaced, that would imply a failure at the hardware level, which could not have been caused by any software.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you, but from what you've told us, it sounds like it was most likely coincidence, and not caused by the TTD software (I'd still use DiskWarrior instead, though).

[mavherzog]

It COULD be that your hard drive was close to failure and that the diagnostics the tech tool disk ran through simply put it over the edge. Who knows?

I'd go through the same exercise again and see if it trashes your new hard drive.

[Kanga]

Sorry to hear of your data loss. Hard Drive failure is something we should all prepare for by constantly creating backups of our important data. From my personal experience I have had an older Mac 5500/225 PowerPC that had a drive that is still as solid as a rock. I have also had the horrible experience of losing data.

The truth is that there are no concrete guarantees that your Macs Hard Drive will last a pre-determined period, hence the warranty on it. The warranty will not cover the loss of your important photos, documents or music etc.

IMHO it would be very difficult to prove that having the TTD disc in your drive caused the Hard Drive to fail.

[jonswan]

It sure stinks of coincidence though, doesn't it? I sympathize hugely. Of course you should regularly back up important data/photos, but we're talking about a pretty new machine. Of course it can't be proved that TechTool did the damage but I think you have a pretty good case, plus Apple support this company by giving out their products WITH their Applecare. How about going back or choosing a different Apple store and trying again? - in full, diplomatic mode of course.

[Sherman Homan]

Apple has been shipping Tech Tools with Apple Care for years. It has been run countless times to diagnose problems with hard drives. There is no way that it caused a problem on a healthy hard drive. As CharlesS pointed out, it didn't find any problems, therefore it didn't do anything. In the remote possibility that the drive crashed while TTD was looking at the drive, then that could have happened to any other software program. Hard drives have motors, bearings and tiny magnetic heads that float in a ten-thousandth of an inch above spinning metal platters. Sometimes they last for years, sometimes they fail out of the box. I do not think TTD can be blamed.

[kga1978]

Did you by any chance defragment your hard drive using TTP?? I have had a lot of problems with this tool on earlier occasions, so I would certainly stay away from it, regardless of whether it is the direct cause of your hard drive failure or not.

I agree that it is likely that your hard drive would probably have failed anyway, but TTP probably pushed it over the limit... For future reference, always use DiskWarrior....

[mduell]

Software doesn't cause hardware to crash (assuming the disk really did have a hardware failure, and not just some corruption that reinstalling everything could take care of). Just bad timing.

And you don't have any effective backups? That's insane. And yes, professional data recovery is expensive.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by kga1978 

Did you by any chance defragment your hard drive using TTP??

The software Apple supplies with AppleCare is TechTool Deluxe, which doesn't have a defrag tool like TTP.

[OreoCookie]

I've changed the title so noobs don't get strange ideas. TechTool did not cause the harddrive failure. Also, neither AppleCare nor TechTool Pro are substitutes for backups (iTunes reminds one regularly to backup the music you've bought).