Apple Formats Hard Drive for Cosmetic Issue

So I sent my Apple Macbook in for service for the well know discoloration problem and the "Geniuses" formated my hard drive! I immediately called them to complain but it seems for some unknown reason they only take complaints in the morning. So called back the following day and I issued the complaint. Surprisingly they actually had a reason as to why my hard drive was formated (it wasn't a good reason but a reason none the less). Basically they said that it was formated because I had a password on it and they could not get into the machine to test, which I told them that the login prompt alone was test enough and then asked why they didn't call for my password before they formatted and they said the person who took the original call should have asked me for that information which I immediately told them I was never asked for that information and that I would have happily given it to them if it avoided formating my hard drive so the representative looked at the audit log for the original call and saw that the tech never asked me for my login information among other things (which was a big mistake on there part) and then I asked again since they saw that the information was missing and that there was a password on the computer why didn't they call me before formating my hard drive (they did after all have all of my contact information), the representative had no answer to this. So I went on to explain how formating people's hard drives for no reason was a bad policy especially when their computer was sent in for a cosmetic reason. Anyway the complaint has been logged and now I may or may not get a call back from Apple. So far no call in five days which is why I figured I would post this, I guess if they don't call I'm pretty much SOL. So a little word of warning to anyone sending a computer to Apple for repair don't put a password on it and backup your files even if it is only a cosmetic issue.

So -- everyone is always saying you should back up
everything, but HOW? Do you all have DVD drives or
external hard disks? Is there another way to do it?
I have my most important documents on a pen drive,
and my photos on a CD, and of course I have my
application CDs, but nothing else. It took me MONTHS
to get all my settings the way I like them and to
download all the freeware I like to use, and I would
have been HORRIFIED if my disk had been reformatted
when my case was exchanged, just HORRIFIED!
So do you all just invest in DVD writers and/or
external hard drives, or just what do you do to keep
it all backed up all the time?
Get an external Drive, you can pickup a 250 gig drive for less than a hundred dollars these days.
To the OP it's a shame that your drive was formatted and it should not have happened. However, this is why people backup their drives so when something unexpected happens, drive corrupt, bad customer service etc. you have all your important data and settings preserved.
Mac Mini 1.66 Mac OS X (10.4.7) 60 gb hd, 2 gb ram, 250 gb ext drive, 5g ipod, 2g ipod

Similar Messages

Formatting hard drive for project compatibility PC /Mac

I'm editing a project for a friend who uses PC. I bought a Lacie Quadra d2 drive for the project. The media files I'm being give are DV and WMV files, which my friend will copy to the drive.
So my question is: Will there be any compatibility issues and is there any way to avoid them?
Should I (or how should I) format hard drive before giving it to my friend? And will I be able to take drive back as is and work with the files?
I appreciate any guidance.

Download this free driver: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/index.html#download and you can format the drive as NTFS, which both of you can read and write.
Once installed, NTFS will appear as a formatting option in Disk Utility.

FORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR USE ON MAC AND WINDOWS

I'm going to start working on scanning a lot of old family photos and getting them put on an external hard drive for my parents. I'd also like to eventually put old VHS family home movies on the hard drive as well. However, I'm not sure what to do about the hard drive. I know if I format it to be compatible with my Mac it probably won't be compatible with their PC. I read about the FAT32 option but I saw something about a file not working if it's over 4 GB in size. I'm thinking maybe some of those home movies will be larger than 4GB. I also saw an exFAT option. If I go with that will I be able to scan the photos on my Mac, get the home videos converted and put it all on the hard drive will all of it be visible and usable on their Windows PC?
Thanks for your help!

matahari_1946,
if you’re not yet backing up your Mac’s internal hard disk, I’d recommend first that you purchase an external hard drive for yourself for exclusive use as a Time Machine backup destination; that way, in case of a disk problem, you won’t permanently lose all of your scanned photos and imported movies.
A 4 GB file limit does apply to FAT32 filesystems. If their version of Windows allows, the external disk which will hold those photos and videos should be formatted as NTFS from their PC, so that they can watch video files over 4 GB. (It’s unlikely that an individual photo file would be over 4 GB.) However, OS X doesn’t come out of the box with NTFS support. The exFAT filesystem is able to hold files over 4 GB, and it is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and newer, but it’s optimized for flash drives; it’s more “fragile” on hard disks than other filesystems are. As a workaround, you could format a flash drive to have exFAT, copy videos over 4 GB onto the flash drive, and then use your parents’ PC to copy the videos from the flash drive to their NTFS external disk. Other alternatives would be to look for third-party software for OS X which supports reading from and writing to NTFS disks, or third-party software for Windows which supports reading from and writing to journaled HFS+ (the default OS X filesystem) disks.

Tricky stuff: formating hard drive for Mac and Windows

Don't know how to format an external USB hard drive for these purposes:
#1. Store a bootable backup for my MacBook (Intel)
#2. Must be readable and writeable by both Mac OS 10.4 and WinXP (mainly for file storage)
Can I do 2 partitions, with Mac OS Extended (journal) + GUID to serve purpose #1, and MS-DOS + Master Boot Record to serve purpose #2? My research suggests no, it seems both volumes must use either GUID or MBR? Thanks

Hi,
I have two Western Digital external HDs with nearly exactly these specs.
Partitioned them with GUID partition scheme and have Partition 1 as bootable OSX clone and partition 2 with FAT32 for file storage/sharing between OSX and Windows.
So, what you want is what I have/use right now.
Regards
Stefan

Will formating hard drive fix mounting issue

Tried to update OS X on my MacBook Pro and after reset the installation failed. I can now no longer run start up on my hard drive, nothing appears. I've tried to verify my hard drive which worked, but it cannot repair. The hard drive was unmounted in disk utility but now won't mount again. I have no time machine saves either. Mostly non essential school work is on the hard drive but will formatting it solve the issue? Or do I need to bring it in to the Apple Genius Bar later this week?
Thanks!

To be more specific, I was trying to update OS X Maverick

Format Hard Drive for Capture w/ FCP and use on PC?

Can someone tell me how I can format a hard drive that will ultimately be used by a client with only PC's -- so that I can capture video on my Mac using FCP?
In the past, I thought FCP broke up captured video into 2 GB segments when a hard drive was formatted for MS-DOS. But tonight I formatted my client's external hd using Disk Utility and the drive wasn't even available under system settings on FCP.
I'm really not at all PC-savvy anymore...can someone tell me if there is way to do this?
If it matters, I'm capturing home video from several sources: Canopus ADVC-300, and mini-DV tapes using a Sony camcorder.
Thanks!
Jenny

Thank you so much. The NTFS-3G did the trick. I have one more dumb question (again...I'm completely PC-illiterate). Would .dv be the best format for me to capture video again for a client who is a home user of a PC? I was planning to capture with FCP (in .mov format) -- but perhaps for ease of use for the client, I should use Toast or iMovie and capture in .dv?
Again...thanks for your help. This is the first time I've encountered this situation!
Jenny

Can't format hard drive for time machine

I couldn't find a better community for this question so here goes: I just purchased a 1 TB Toshiba hard drive to use as a Time Machine device. I installed the NTFS software, but know I understand that I need to format it in HFS+ (MacExtended Journal) in order to make it work with Time Machine. I have attempted to do this with Disk Utility but I keep getting "file system formatter failed error." what to do?

If this is the inexpensive Toshiba USB drive I suggest you exchange it for something else as they tend not to work well with Macs.
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Help formatting Hard Drive for best compatibility with Mac OSX 10.5!

I have a 1TB hard drive that I recently purchased. I would like for format it for best compatibility with Leopard. I must be doing something wrong because everything I try, I get an error.
Here's the details of my drive.
What do I need to do in Disk Utility?
Disk Description : WL1000GS A1672 Media
Total Capacity : 931.5 GB (1,000,204,886,016 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB
Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 240077140FFF
Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record
Main Partition (Only managed to get it's name to CORY.):
Mount Point : /Volumes/CORY
Capacity: 931.5 GB (1,000,204,853,760 Bytes)
Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
Available : 931.3 GB (999,959,166,976 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No
Used : 1.4 MB (1,507,328 Bytes)
Number of Folders : 0
Number of Files : 0

Looks like that's working. My problem was I didn't select GUID Scheme. Thanks.
EDIT: Yup that did the trick. Thanks so much.

Formatting hard drives for HD

I am preparing to transfer my first AVCHD footage from a demo Panasonic HMC150. I am using FCP7 on a new MacBook Pro 3.03GHz with 8GB RAM. I am planning to use two 1 TB internal hard drives with a 2 bay Blacx eSata dock through a Sonnet eSata Express34 card. How should I format the drives to work most efficiently? Also, will this system handle the HD? I think my plan is to convert to ProRes for the edit but I am really not sure yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Echoing others - don't use RAID. It'll only create problems.
I have two 1 TB Firewire 800 drives for video editing - one is exclusively my scratch disk, well the other I use to store project files, still images, exported files, encoding files, etc.
I did some speed test when I first got the drives and there was a negligible difference in speed between the RAIDed drives and un-RAIDed drives.
I would suggest you purchase a 2 TB USB drive to use a time machine volume. I know Time Machine isn't an ideal backup solution (I often turn it off when I'm editing) but it works.

How do I re-format an Apple 3TB Hard-Drive for use as a Time Capsule?

I have an Apple Time 3 TB Capsule that is also a WiFi Router - I've removed all backup data (from my iMac Time Machine) and I wish to reformat the drive and reset it as a Time Capsule (I wish to rename it besides "Data" if possible). This Time Capsule and Router is the earlier flat version Apple produced before the current vertical standing Time Capsule and Router. Any help, greatly appreciated.

All Time Capsule drive formatting is done via Airport Utility under the Disks tab. You can find more by clicking on Airport Utility Help in the Help menu and searching for "erase."

Advanced Format Hard Drive not recognized by HP DV6000 Controller

Hello,
I have an HP DV 6000 laptop (6276 I think, I'm at work can't check) that came preinstalled with a Western Digital 160gb 1.5gb/s 5400 RPM drive (Vista) that failed a couple of weeks ago. So i bought a Western Digital 750 GB WD Black SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB drive to replace it. I read about people having some problems with Advanced Drive Format hard drives not being recognized by their controller, but also read that depending on the controller and specific Dv6000 model laptop they had-one wouldn't run into problems.
Well sure enough, when attempting to install Windows 7 I received the error that the hard drive was not detected. After researching online I came across an article on WD's site that noted
"Our SATA II hard drives use autospeed negotiation. This enables our SATA II drives to automatically detect the motherboard data transfer rate, making it backward compatible with SATA I data transfer rates. However, some older SATA I controllers are unable to support autospeed negotiation and cannot recognize the drive. This “drive not detected” condition occurs when a chipset is incapable of correctly negotiating the data transfer speed with a SATA II hard drive."
my drive is a SATA ||| but I'm pretty sure it's the same problem. The site goes on to say a fix would be to "purchase and install a third party PCI or PCI-Express Second Generation Serial ATA controller card for your Serial ATA hard drive(s)."
My question(s) are.
1)Is the problem that I am trying to install a Sata ||| hard drive on a laptop with a controller that will only recognize SATA | hard drive?
2) Or is the problem that the hard drive is an Advanced Drive Formatted hard drive and I need to buy a hard drive with out that specification?
3) Or Should I buy a SATA controller card as WD suggests on their website and if so will this definitely allow my laptop's controller to recognize the new hard drive and proceed with the installation?
4)Or Should I just return the hard drive and buy a SATA | non Advanced Drive Format hard drive? (question 2 basically)
Thanks for your help!

Hi @jasmine00
Welcome to the HP Support Forums.
I certainly understand your issue with the drive upgrade. Unfortunately it is a bit of the nature of notebooks, the sacrifice of a large amount of upgradeability, in exchange for compactness and portability. Whenever a new technology comes out, older notebooks are never really going to be easy to upgrade, it at all. Normally the unit as a whole is tested with a set list of hardware, and only those items are supported.
That being said there is this document that could be helpful with your problem.
Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PC...
And for your reference:
HP Pavilion dv6000 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service Guide
Malygris1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click Accept as Solution if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
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HP System Recovery DVD incorrectly formats hard drive (WIN Vista HP SP1 64-bit 510141-001)

HP Pavilion DV4-1225dx
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
AMD Turion x2
I had previously posted the issue as "HP System Recovery Fails on new HDD", however it appears that the reason it is failing is due to incorrect formatting of the hard drive:
Went to purchase the oem HDD @ Tiger Direct (Hitachi 0A56415 Travelstar 5K320 Mobile Hard Drive - 2.5", 5400 RPM, SATA 3G, 250GB, 8MB Cache) but found it was out of stock. I purchased the suggested replacement (WD Blue 320GB Mobile Hard Drive - Designed for everyday computing - 2.5", SATA 3Gb/s, 5400RPM, 8MB C...)
I have attemptted the System Recovery several times each failing with errors. But after each failure the HDD is found to be incorrectly formatted as documented in the following link:
System Recovery Fails on new HDD
hp G71-340US WIN 7 HP 64 Bit
hp pavilion dv4-1225dx VIsta HP 64 Bit
hp pavilion zd7000 WIN XP Pro
hp pavilion xv886 WIN Millennium / WIN XP Pro
hp deskjet 6980xi
hp pavilion xt236 / ze4200 WIN XP Media Edition

Slolearner,
After doing a little research, I believe your issue may be related to your new hard drive being an AF (Advanced Format) drive. Please see "WD Scorpio® Blue™ SATA/PATA Hard Drives", which indicates your WD3200BPVT may an AF drive.
Please see "Cannot Recover the PC after Replacing the Hard Drive with an AF Drive (Windows 7 and Vista)" for information on this subject. While this document isn't for your specific computer, it is generic enough that it applies to your situation. If you wish to use your HP Recovery Discs successfully, you may need to purchase a non-AF drive.
If your computer boots into Windows, please see "Identifying an Advanced Format Hard Drive" to download and run the HP Advanced Format Hard Drive Information tool.
If it is an AF drive, please see "Preparing Advanced Format Hard Drive for Windows" and "Improving the Performance of an Advanced Format Hard Drive" for more information on the subject and possible steps to be taken to resolve your issue.
Lastly, it may be necessary to follow Paul_Tikkanen's advice and install Windows Vista from a Microsoft Windows Vista installation disc as follows;
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
If you can still read the 25 character Microsoft Vista product key on the bottom of your PC, you can make your own plain Vista installation media and use that to at least get the OS on your PC.
Here is how to do that if you can read that key:
Please click on the link below, click on the Windows Reinstallation Guide [27-07-2013] pdf link on the upper left of the page and then read the instructions for doing this starting on page 302.
http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
You may also consider purchasing a copy of Windows 7 and installing that instead. Windows 7 SP1 has much better support for AF drives than the previous versions of Windows.
Please click the white KUDOS star to show your appreciation
Frank
{------------ Please click the "White Kudos" Thumbs Up to say THANKS for helping.
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This is a user supported forum. I am a volunteer and I don't work for HP.
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HP 13 Split x2 (on loan from HP)
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HP a1632x - Windows 7, 4GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6450
HP p6130y - Windows 7, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6450
HP p6320y - Windows 7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GT 240
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HP p6787c - Windows 7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GT 240

I need to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Air as it is almost full. Which one should I buy?

Do I need to buy an Apple external Hard Drive for my MacBook Air?

There is no such thing as an Apple hard drive, ...Apples doesnt make same.
avoid western digital if possible.
Yes, having an external HD is necessary for data backups and keeping large media files for packing around etc.
you need data redundancy.
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
Best small HD for the money:
2.5" USB portable High quality BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $117
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

Compatible hard drives for OS 10.5.8

I want to upgrade to Snow Leopard (I realise I'm behind the times), but need to back everything up first. Can I use any old external hard drive for this, assuming I format it correctly? I've been look at the Toshiba stor.e partner (it's cheap!)
Thanks in advance for your help.

Yes, you can use any formatted hard drive for backup. If you intend on using it for more than one use when you replace your existing hard drive, cheap may or may not be the best longer term answer. I like, and use, external hard drives from OWC, where many of the cases use Oxford chipsets, which work well with macs, and come with a 3 year warranty. For example, here's one that's very portable.

How to format new hard drive for Apple TV when you can't use old HD

I need to know how to format a new HD to install in my Apple TV where I can't use the old HD to clone or otherwise create the new structure on the new HD.
I have an Apple TV that was syncing to a Mac Mini that had a defective HD and logic board. I was unable to backup the Apple TV to the Mac Mini for some time before I had the mini repaired by AppleCare.
When the mini came back, it registered on the Apple TV as a new computer and I couldn't sync with it without losing hundreds of dollars of content.
All was okay until the other night when Apple's defective update for the ATV erased ALL my content. I updated it to 3.1 this morning, which Apple indicated might fix the problem. It didn't. The old content is all gone.
My ATV is out of warranty, so I removed the old HD and copied the files from the "Purchased" folder to my mini. That saved most 101 items that I purchased since 12/08 (but not all for some reason). I lost all content prior to 12/08 that I purchased, as well as some content since 12/08 that I purchased.
I need to keep the old HD untouched until I can purchase data recovery software. I'd like to just put a spare IDE HD in that I have into the ATV and just start over with what is in my Mac mini iTunes.
So, how does one do that? I'm not gifted with vast Unix knowledge or experience and I don't want to clone the old HD and risk losing more data if it writes to the HD for some reason.
Thanks.

Hi Atagahi,
Firstly, have you emailed Apple iTunes support indicating your issue? There have been instances in which Apple will allow re-downloading of all content you've purchased on the iTunes store.
Secondly, I highly recommend you get an external usb hard drive, attach it to your mini and use it as a Time Machine drive to keep your iTunes purchases safe. It's a fact of life that all hard disk drives will eventually fail. The Apple TV should never be used as any kind of permanent storage space; think of it as a 'temporary holding' zone. And as you've unfortunately already experienced, a glitch wiped out all content on the Apple TV.
As regards your original question, it seems like there have been folks who've done just that...taken the internal drive in the Apple TV out and attached it to a mac and copied files from the Apple TV hard drive. I have not had to do such, so I cannot offer any help here except for Linda's suggestion on googling the net for solutions.
Good luck and hope you get all your purchased content back Atagahi!
Message was edited by: Alec

Apple Formats Hard Drive for Cosmetic Issue

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