Nightmare!

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Let me start by saying that I LOVE APPLE! I have been a loyal customer from my first Apple IIc that my parents bought me in 1984 to the Powerbooks 170 and 500 that got me through college. Today, our home is filled with a Mac Pro, a MacBook, three iPhones, three iPods, one iPod Shuffle, one iPod Touch, every version of iLife and iWorks right up until today's iLife 11 and iWork 09. Hopefully, Christmas morning will bring an iPad. My wife and I also proudly display the Apple logo decals on our cars.



This is why I am so disappointed right now. The company that I love so much has all but abandoned me.



Four years ago, I paid over $6,000 for my Mac Pro. The person who sold me the computer assured me that it would last 6-7 years. Well, that was optimistic. Over the past few months I've been working with Apple to get my Mac Pro to get and remain stable. The machine was literally freezing-up two-three times per hour. Most of the time, the beach ball just taunted me. Other times, I could move the cursor around but couldn't select anything. And there were more than a few instances in which the monitor just went black.



Over the months I bounced back-and-forth from phone support to the Genius Bar back to phone support and...well...you get the picture. Some people told me it was a hardware problem, so - on their recommendation - I replaced the hard drive. That didn't do anything. Others said it was a software issue and the Geniuses assured me that everything was okay after my visits to them.



Today, my computer is on my desk in shambles lying among countless wires and codes. Time Machine only has back-ups to last Monday, 12/20. Here is what is lost thanks to Apple's "help:"



-10 years worth of pictures

-12 years of professional work (I work in advertising so most of the stuff are commercials and ads that cannot be replaced.)

-A full quarter's UCLA grad school work worth of papers, homework, research and notes. I am missing a paper that I was working on. I was on page 65 of what is probably going to be over 100 pages. I saved this on my internal drive and backed it up on one of my four external drives. Gone.

-A chunk of my right index finger. As I was walking-up my stairs coming home from my latest Genius visit, I fell carrying the 20 pound Mac Pro. I lacerated my finger on one of the metal handles (pictures on request). I ended up in the emergency room that night only to find out the wound was too wide to stitch-up. It bled for three days. I hurts, and both the ER doctor and my own doctor agree that there will be a "significant" scar.



So what is Apple willing to do? They are willing to wave the $35 incident fee, or they suggest that I take it back to a Genius to see what they can do. That's it. Good luck to me.



The one shining spot in this whole situation is a senior tech support person named Justin. As much as he wants to and try to help, however, he's hampered by what's happened to date.



I'm disappointed. I feel after all these years, Apple has completely abandoned me.



Any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    I sympathise with the trouble you have gone through.



    Backup, backup, backup... To the cloud if necessary.



    Apple is not perfect, they can suck at times due to sheer volume of what they have to deal with now, being so large.



    Beyond 3 years of your full AppleCare, all bets are off on hardware and software stability.



    I don't trust many people or companies with stuff I can do myself.



    All critical contact information is on my iPad, iPhone, MobileMe cloud and my MacBook. Emails are spread between two to three Gmail accounts, work account and MobileMe account. Notes, bills, banking and receipts are in physical copies in my drawer and on the cloud through Evernote.



    OSX, Windows, Office install discs are in DMG on my Macbook and on physical media. My MacBook is Time Machine'd to an external USB hard drive.



    My web design/development portfolio is on my MacBook, Time Machine'd to external hard drive and on iDisk.



    My dad has a Macbook and my mum an iBook. My old iPhone 3GS is with my mum. Worse case scenario for work I use their laptop and iPhone, or I buy a new one refurbished.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    Again, I sympathise. It sounds like you have been through hell. Apple, at times, can help, certainly they do better than other companies. But you have a role to play now, I would suggest.



    Think about your most essential things you need to salvage and what you need.



    What documents exactly do you need?

    Any chance of recovery using third-party "deleted files" recovery tools/services?

    Four years can be a long time, maybe start fresh with a new Mac. I know this sounds hideously painful, but a fresh start can be essential.



    In the long run, you can learn and be certified in Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) - you will have a good understanding of how Mac OS X Client does things and what approaches to take. It is actually the best reading to do on "how to master your Mac" even though it sounds like "high-level certification".



    I know some of what I said sounds crazy, in any case I wish you all the best. One step at a time to recovery.



    I have had a tumultuous history with Apple over the past 8 years in many ways (working for them, against them, different resellers, different hardware, free hardware, dead hardware, weird people, earning money, spending insane amounts of money)... but in the end at this stage I feel more in control knowing what to expect. It can be difficult. Something so close to being so wonderful and perfect, yet hampered by annoying niggles and occasionally downright disaster.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    Also, you could consider burning critical information to DVD and storing it somewhere other than home or work or the cloud.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    If you replaced the hard drive, and that wasn't the problem, then what did you do with the old drive?
  • Reply 5 of 10
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by truetifoso View Post


    Time Machine only has back-ups to last Monday, 12/20. Here is what is lost thanks to Apple's "help:"



    -10 years worth of pictures

    -12 years of professional work (I work in advertising so most of the stuff are commercials and ads that cannot be replaced.)

    -A full quarter's UCLA grad school work worth of papers, homework, research and notes. I am missing a paper that I was working on. I was on page 65 of what is probably going to be over 100 pages. I saved this on my internal drive and backed it up on one of my four external drives. Gone.



    I don't follow how there can be a recent Time Machine backup and a backup to an external but suddenly it's all gone. Also it seems you are looking to vent rather than find any solutions considering the exact same thread is posted here too:



    http://forums.mactalk.com.au/19/96086-nightmare.html



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by truetifoso View Post


    As I was walking-up my stairs coming home from my latest Genius visit, I fell carrying the 20 pound Mac Pro. I lacerated my finger on one of the metal handles



    I think this is really something Apple needs to sort out. Those machines are the heaviest I've ever seen - they are actually 40 pounds (20kg). It's nice that they feel sturdy but the handles on the bottom buckle easily under the weight if you drop them down and Apple definitely make the metal edges way too sharp on all their products.



    The enclosure is 15lbs out of the 40lbs total weight. The 1kW PSU is 6lbs. 1.5lbs per hard drive.



    I guess the big corporate buyers will be the ones who determine what is needed inside it but now that it is taking the role of the XServe, I think a redesign would be a good thing. Dropping the power consumption would be priority as server centres need to keep that low. They would need to still allow 4 hard drive bays but instead of 4 drives + 2 x optical, it can be either 4 drives or 2 drives + 1 optical and get the height down.



    They have 1TB 2.5" 7200 RPM drives so they can even move to the 2.5" drive form factor, put 6 bays in and still save height and more importantly weight. SSDs are mostly 2.5" too.



    They can easily use less than a 1kW PSU too.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Also, you could consider burning critical information to DVD and storing it somewhere other than home or work or the cloud.



    Burnt DVDs and CDs are only a TEMPORARY solution!

    They become unreadable about 5 years after burning.

    So if you have important data stored on CD or DVD burn it to new disks every 3 years!
  • Reply 7 of 10
    He was trolling... But...

    How could someone spend $6000 on a computer and not afford a simple back-up???

    He hasn't really lost ANY data if he has a backup.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    I don't get it. He said Time Machine only had backups to last Monday, presumably when he replaced the hard drive, but why didn't he restore the prior backups to the new drive? And where is the old drive?



    This is, like, Basic Computer Maintenance 101 here. UCLA should expel you for not knowing how to do this.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rokcet Scientist View Post


    Burnt DVDs and CDs are only a TEMPORARY solution!

    They become unreadable about 5 years after burning.

    So if you have important data stored on CD or DVD burn it to new disks every 3 years!







    You actually believe that, don't you? I have burnt CDs from 1998 that still work perfectly fine. DVDs from aught two.



    This is just like "hard drives die after [insert number] years". They don't. My LC II and LC 575 hard drives are still perfect.



    I'd trust a hard drive over disk media for backups, also because you have one 3.5" box instead of a massive spindle of disks, but there's nothing wrong with having disk backups and no excuse for not having one at all.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    DVDs and CDs develop bit errors over time. The quality and type of the original media, the settings it was burned with, and its storage conditions all affect how long it takes to become unusable.
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