My computer is part of the iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive replacement program. What is the best external modem to use in order to back up my files prior to me dropping off my computer.

As Babowa says, get an external disk. You should have one for normal backups anyway.
Actually, I'm a strong fan of having multiple backups. 3 copies including the original, 2 different backup formats, and 1 backup off-site.
And when you have your iMac in for service, if you have just 1 backup at that point in time you have just 1 copy of your data. I get paranoid about my data.
But if you are just making 1 backup, I would use SuperDuper (free for a full clone, and extremely good software, as is Carbon Copy Cloner, but it is not free anymore).
And then I would "Boot" from the clone, to make sure it was a good clone.
Booted from the clone, I would then use Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility to zero the original disk, as suggested by Babowa, so that when they replace the disk, the original disk containing your data is not in the hands of strangers. A single pass of zeros is more than good enough as an erase, as the chances are no one is going to spend the money needed to try and read the erased data. It is not like you have any super secret data, just stuff you do not want the casual data theif to get. You will find the zeroing options under Disk Utility -> Erase -> Security Options
Just make sure you actually boot from your clone before erasing your original. And if you are paranoid like me, make 2 backups, then erase the original :-)

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IMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program - how long does it take?

I started a new thread for this issue since the original thread has degenerated into a rant. I just got my love letter from Apple informing me that my new 27" iMac has the bad drive. I backup to an external USB drive using Time Machine, and I am planning to have my nearest Apple store replace the drive sometime in the next few weeks.
I am posting to ask if anyone has yet contacted Apple about this issue? I am curious how long it takes to swap the drives. Can it be done while you wait? Does Apple have any ability to clone the old drive's data to the new? Has anyone been able to arrange for in-home service as mentioned in the original thread?
Please don't use this new thread to rant about the problem. If you need to let off steam, please post to the original thread.
Thanks for the help!

Greetings from an apple mac newbie in UK. On the one hand, after getting the email today I was disappointed to find my brand new shiny mac 21.5 might have a fault on hard drive, on the other at least apple points it out! But doubly frustrating for someone that has just taken the plunge and converted from pc/microsoft rubbish after two decades and still finding my feet in macworld....and who upgraded to OS X lion this past weekend without a hitch (nervous as an XP SP2/SP3 veteran)...and had to pay for Lion because I bought my imac just a week to early to qualify for free Lion upgrade.
My decision on Hard drive is to wait and see, firstly to guage experience of apple turn around times/customer experience etc in UK and secondly because I would like to understand what kind of percentage of the seagate drives are faulty...I am backing up with time machine, the machine is under warranty and applecare too, so maybe no need to rush, there's a year yet at least.
Another consideration for me is that I bought my mac with dual drives - the 1TB Harddrive for data and the 256SSD for OSX/apps...idea was to keep the programs on the ssd as it is fastest and is best with less rewrites, the conventional hard drive then used for big data stuff like docs, music and photos. This needed a bit of custom set up involving apple support to get the right things on the right drives, so am in no hurry to muck that up!
PS does anyone else in the UK have my mac dual drive configuration...?

Replacing my iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive

I have to replace my iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive. I need to use Time Machine to restore my Mac- anyone have a step by step procedure to complete this?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you get your Mac after Apple has replaced its hard disk, they can give it to you with a blank hard disk or with Lion installed. I recommend you to make a clone with Carbon Copy Cloner instead of the Time Machine backup. It will make shorter the process of reinstalling everything again.
If it has got Lion installed:
1. Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and open Disk Utility.
2. Select Macintosh HD in the sidebar and go to Restore tab.
3. Drag your external disk to Destination box and press Restore.
4. When the restore finishes, restart your Mac.
If the hard disk is blank, it depends if you bought your Mac with Snow Leopard or Lion. If you bought it with Lion, do the same but pressing Command, Option and R keys. If you bought it with Snow Leopard:
1. Insert the OS X disc and press C key when your Mac starts.
2. Go to Utilities > Disk Utility and select Macintosh HD in the sidebar.
3. Go to Restore tab, drag the external disk to Destination box and press Restore

Permission problems in my newly installed hard drive from iMac 1 TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program. Is that normal?

Just got back my iMac with a brand new replacement hard drive through the iMac 1 TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program. With only apps installed, no files and fonts added, the hard drive already shows permission problems. Is that normal? The replacement hard drive is a Seagate again, ST31000528BAS. Do people like their replacement hard drive?

Just now looking at these... Last recall 2009 MacbookPro Video issues, I waited 4 years and it took 4 trips to apple store with video of the machine problems... Days and months past, finally with stern discussion with manager, got resolved. Now Drive recall on work machine... better take advantage now. IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT!
Should have thought of it... Have TM full back up... (will look into clone next time, now that I see this). Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH CRAP, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, "Oh, can't boot a newer system w/ old disk, that's why it won't read." PROMISES it'll be fixed, if you leave it over night... GREAT!
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... CRAP!! not running right... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still not solved. Evidently... either different account names caused problems... and/or they never restored personal "settings". Seems there are 3 ways to restor... Running Migration Assistant, Restoring after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM.
Can begin to make enough stink!! So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, liek having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! TICKED OFF!!!

1TB seagate hard drive replacement - SSD instead?

My 2009 27" iMac qualifies for the hard drive replacement programme, as I received the email from Apple and checked using their serial number submission page that mine does indeed qualify.
I was already considering upgrading to an SSD, so now I have questions...
Can I pay extra to have them fit an Apple certified SSD instead of the 1TB replacement drive?
Can I pay extra and have them replace the 1TB but also fit an Apple certified SSD as the boot drive, giving me a second internal hard drive which is the replaced 1TB hard drive? I was going to open up my iMac to see if the bracket and connections are there for a second hard drive, I have heard that they may not be present and that you also have to get a special hard drive (with an Apple factory-fitted temperature sensor) for some models, not sure if mine would be one of those models. If I ask Apple, they might do the fitting for free at least.
I have Lion currently installed, I have Mountain Lion too (which I got with my MacBook Pro). They are on USB flash drives. If I decide to send my iMac for the replacement, should I install the original OS that the iMac came with or Mountain Lion?
What liability do Apple or an authorised service centre have as far as damage to my iMac goes? We all know that these models had a problem with the screen backing causing a shadow, mine is not so bad but it is obviously there if I fill the screen with grey. If they make this worse, can I take it back and demand that they fix it? Will they be able to fix this at the same time that they replace the hard drive? It is something I was going to look at doing myself - try to secure the screen backing, after the standard two year warranty had expired (EU), which I think it now has. What if they scratch the casing or something else like that? I keep all of my Apple products in pristine condition, I will notice any scratches and be deeply annoyed by them.
With all of this in mind, I'm half-tempted to just ignore the recall and do the SSD upgrade myself, try to fix the screen backing at the same time, what do you people think? The nearest Apple Store to me is over 100 miles away, I would have to go to a local authorised reseller / service shop. I should probably give them a call and ask a few of my questions to them, but wanted to get an idea of what you guys knew or thought too.

I'm pretty sure that Apple will not authorize any work other than replacing the 1 TB Seagate drive. You will not be able to pay extra for any additional work. Your choses are to have the drive replaced under the terms of the replacement program or pay out of pocket for the work you want to have done. I had my Seagate 1TB drive replaced on site by calling AppleCare.

1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement -- how to best arrange

Folks:
My Late-2009, MacOS10.7.5 iMac contains a potentially failing HD, which Apple has promised to replace for free (Very Cool, thanks Apple!) as per the program described here:,
      http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/
My Mac is totally central to my work so I'm trying to figure out the best way to organize this to minimize down-time and uncertainty. I've been told the typical turn-around is two days... Hmm, add to that the BEFORE prep time for me to make a complete final backup and do a secure erase of the failing HD, and the AFTER time to restore everything to the new HD. Oh, wait, the instructions tell me I'm supposed to restore the OS from the DVD that came with my machine, which is an old one, so add a few more hours to install 10.6.2, then upgrade to 10.7.   Whew!   What if 2-day turnaround is firmly promised, but the techs all come down with the flu just after I drop off the machine?
Am I missing anything that would make this easier? Obsessing unnecessarily?
I've never dealt with the Genius Bar. Maybe I'll get a chance to see how busy the techs are before I haul my machine down to the Apple Store? Yeah, I should be able to save some time by using Carbon Copy Cloner for the BEFORE and AFTER. I'm already set up to do that.
What else?
(I have access to another, slightly older iMac, and I'm exploring how I might use it as an interim work machine -- another can-of-worms, which I'll post separately about.)
TIA

The AppleCare route went really well, as good as it can get. (5 Gold Stars for efficiency and minimized downtime!) Only about 40 minutes entrance-to-exit to replace the drive, thanks to a skilled and personable technician who came to my door, bang on-time. He initiated the first OS install and left --with my thanks-- as soon as it was under way, clearly working.   Followed by about 7 hours to get back to where I was (10.7) and do a TimeMachine restore of ~350GB. That's on top of about a day of preps, including erasing the disk-to-be-replaced and overwriting it with zeros, twice.
Hats off to the Apple ME's for a really elegant design of a very complex set of computer guts, enabling a very quick open-replace-close process!
So far, 1 day in, everything seems to work, including/especially two vital Adobe-licensed apps. The only glitch I've seen so far is a purchased iTunes cut that won't play.
Observations:
• The AppleCare rep tried to steer me toward "carry it in" service at a Genius Bar or service depot. Once I asked "Can't you send someone by to do it?" the process went very smoothly and quickly to the on-site visit.
• DiskUtility's "Erase Free Space" function gave me the worst time-to-completion estimates I've seen from an Apple app.   I couldn't find estimates ahead of time.   If I could have anticipated the time necessary to do a complete ~1TB 3-pass erase, I would have allowed enough time to do it. No reflection on the tech service intended, I'm confident they'll handle the old HD with discretion, just my extra caution.
• The restore roadmap was a bit obscure past the instructions, "re-install MacOS from the DVD that came with your system".   That was 10.6. Did I need bring it up to 10.6.8? Could I go directly from 10.6 to 10.7? I think an install of 10.7 was necessary, if only to create the recovery partition and the bootable system and utilities inside it; I don't think TimeMachine can do that, though it seemed to be able to recreate my existing configuration in all other respects. I did not need to bring 10.7 up to 10.7.5, I know now, as the TM full-restore says it erased the target before restoring. (Fortunately, I've never had reason to experience a full TM restore before!)   Knowing more might have shaved some time from the post new-HD process and made it a bit less tense.
• After the restore, I was a bit surprised that mail.app had to do a big rebuild before it would work; I wish I had known about that before-hand. Not surprised at Spotlight re-indexing. Spotlight gave a very good explanation of what was going on -- good job!
• App Store would not re-download my previous 10.7 purchase. Fortunately, I had made an ESD and I could install from that.   (Why wouldn't it re-download? What would I have done without an ESD? A trip to Apple store to get a ESD-thumb-drive?) Note:I see that iMac models a bit newer than mine seem to have a much more robust recover-from-the-net procedure available. Cool!
To repeat: .... as good as it can get!

TS3554 Tried setting login password on recently returned iMac after Seagate hard drive replaced. No space to type in a password or confirm it appeared so I chickened out and clicked on red dot to shut down window. I did, however, put my name as admin. now

Tried setting login password onto iMac after it returned from Seagate exchange hard drive. Upgraded from leopard, snow leopard and currently upgraded to Lion, so as to have iCloud.Typed my name in as administrator and waited for a space to appear to type in password and confirm it. No space appeared so I shut that window down. Put iMac to sleep and when I returned and tried to access computer, it asks for a password which I did not put in! Now I'm stuffed. Cannot get into computer at all. Help appreciated. I'm not a techno wizard.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
Reset the password > https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4101

Is apple still honouring the 1tb seagate hard drive replacements?

My Imac died, turns out it is one of the ones that was recalled, but I was never told. My local reseller said it was no longer under warrenty so I will have to pay to fix it. However I found this on apple site. http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac-harddrive. I dont have a apple store near so would rather have my local guy fix it, but dont know if it should be free or not? Thanks

The replacement recall officially ended April 12, 2013.
If you want a chance to have this free replacement honored, you either need to take your iMac to an Apple store for the free replacement or an authorized/certified Apple repair facilty.
Plus, you need to make sure your iMac's serial number qualifies your iMac for the free replacement.

Windows XP won't install on a Bootcamp partition Following replacement program of 1TB Seagate Hard Drive

Following 1TB Seagate hard drive replacement on a late 2009 machine running Mac OS X 10.6.8, bootcamp would not install windows XP on a disk partition. Now that this is upgraded from OS X 10.6.8 to Mavericks, is it possible to install windows XP on a bootcamp partition?

Make sure your "Function Key" lock is on. Mine did the same thing. I Have a new Microsoft multimedia keyboard and F8 would not work until I hit the "Function Key" lock on the keyboard.
Good Luck

I had to get my hard drive replaced from Apple, I lost all of my music obviously. My question is, how can I get all my music off of my iPhone onto iTunes? Since it's a new hard drive, the iPhone isn't recognizing this as it's home computer.

I had to get my hard drive replaced from Apple, I lost all of my music obviously. My question is, how can I get all my music off of my iPhone onto iTunes? Since it's a new hard drive, the iPhone isn't recognizing this as it's home computer.

You will need to use third-party software to transfer music from your phone to the iTunes Library. I recommend Phone to Mac - Pod to Mac | Macroplant.com.

I have an iMac 21.5 inch purchased in 2011 with a failing 1TB Seagate hard drive. Can I get a replacement hard drive?

I have an iMac 21.5 inch purchased in 2011 with a failing 1TB Seagate hard drive. Can I get a replacement hard drive thru the Apple Replacement Program? I did purchase the Applecare Plan but it expired in Dec. 2013.

FWIW, if you purchased the iMac in 2011 and purchased Applecare, you are covered for a total of 3 years. You mentioned yours expired in December 2013 - that cannot be unless you bought yours in 2010. If you bought it in December 2011, you should still be covered until December 2014 - if so, contact Apple/make a Genius Bar appointment quickly so the replacement is covered by the warranty. The hard drive replacement program might have expired, but as long as you're covered by Applecare, a drive replacement is covered.

My Hybrid 1TB Seagate Hard Drive will not work in my data doubler caddy installed in the optical bay

My Hybrid 1TB Seagate Hard Drive will not work in my data doubler caddy installed in the optical bay of my MacBook Pro

Thanks for all the advice. It looks like I have finally got my MBP working again (after two weeks of pain).
The WD HD works fine internally, but restoring from TM introduced a whole load more of issues/incompatabilities (see above). Eventually the only thing left was to re-build rather than restore:
i) mount the WD disk internally and install Snow Lepoard from the orginial installation disks
ii) get online, and after much trying download Lion (previously purchased). Perfrom all update.
iii) Connect my Time Capsule, identify my data, photo and music files and then copy them accross by hand
iv) install all the other applications (e.g. MS Office:mac, etc) from scratch.
This exercise has shown me that even though tools and procedures exist to address separate issues, when the complexity of inter-dependence is introduced there are a raft of problems that crop up.
Now I am back in business I will be using TM and CCC to take full and regular copies. I did this previously, which has saved me from losing my data and cherished pictures, but hopefully next time (and I'm sure there will be a next time) the recovery will be less infuriating.
BTW I got a refund on the Seagate Momentus XT. They guy in the shop said it wasn't the first time he'd heard of this issue with MBPs. Great.

Will the new 2012 iMac support 2 hard drives (HDD and SSD) like the 2011 iMac?

Will the new 2012 iMac support 2 hard drives (HDD and SSD) like the 2011 iMac?

Well, I'm not sure how anything can fit into a 5 mm depth, so I can see why they've removed the CD drive - there probably wouldn't be enough room for the laser, LOL. Can't imagine speakers, hard drive (of any flavor), logic board and so on and so forth. Fortunately, my iMac has Applecare through early 2015 so I'm set for a while; I may check out a Mini at that point - saw that it is configurable with a fusion drive, which would make it interesting for me.

Hard drive vs. flashdrive what is the difference

there is a hard drive on the Classic and a flash drive...what is the difference? which is better?

A hard drive refers to a more classic computer disk driver, where there is a spinning magnetic platter and a moving head that reads from that spinning platter. This is mechanical, and (although it has higher storage capacity for lower price) subject to physical damage if your ipod is dropped, has major temperature extremes, or too much vibration.
A flash drive refers to a disk drive that is simulated through solid state memory -- a circuit board with no moving parts. It is more resilient to vibration, but costs significantly more for the same amount of storage.

HT201250 Circle and cross through iTunes icon afte the seagate hard drive replaced and restored data from time machine backup.

Circle and cross through iTunes icon: had the seagate hard drive replaced and restored data from time machine backup. Why does the iTunes icon have a circle and cross through it? As though incomplete? tried everything and still Circle and cross through iTunes icon.

No it isn't something you'd find on the computer, it has to be custom installed from the 10.6 installer disc or Software Update if it wasn't before. It allows you to use older PowerPC applications on your Mac. On the other hand double check the version of iTunes you have does not require 10.7 minimum either.

My computer is part of the iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive replacement program. What is the best external modem to use in order to back up my files prior to me dropping off my computer.

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