AppleCare Keeps Your Hard Drive?

My wife has a MacBook which stopped working. She has Apple Care. Took it in to the local Apple Store, a week later it's ready to pick up.
They said the hard drive died and they replaced it. She asked to have the old drive back, just in case, as there are photos etc... that weren't backed up and has hope they may be recoverable.
They absolutely refused to give her back the dead drive, the explanation being that Apple makes them send replaced hardware in as part of the Apple Care agreement "or they wouldn't make any money off Apple Care and couldn't afford to offer it anymore."
It's after hours here so I can't talk to an Apple Customer Service Rep.
It seems like madness that it should be my concern if Apple can profit from their warranty service.
Anyone else had this happen to them? They told my wife she should have made recovery attempts before bringing it in, but perhaps they could have told us that when we dropped it off? Keep in mind we didn't even know what was wrong with it at the time...
It just seems to me that the laptop and everything in it was ours at time of purchase, they have no right to hold onto it just because they were forced to honor a warranty claim.

Kappy wrote:
The hard drives are not returned when they are replaced. The dead drives will be returned to their manufacturer where they will be refurbished if possible. However, if the bad drive is accessible you can ask the Apple store that replaced the drive to transfer your data to the new drive. They should be able to do that for you. I've even heard that they may be willing to recover data from a corrupted drive if data are recoverable. I don't know if they do this free of charge, however.
I can't think of any hard drive manufacturer that would actually want to refurbish a returned hard drive when it would be far cheaper to just make a new one on an assembly line than take apart an old one to repair it. What they might want a dead hard drive for is failure analysis.
However - after Seagate's little dustup with the Apple OEM Firmware 7.01 drives, Seagate has instituted an OEM hard drive warranty program. They used to just make OEM hard drives the sole responsibility (without warranty) of the computer seller. Now they'll take back failed OEM drives during the warranty term for an exact replacement or credit towards new drive purposes.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty&_returns_assistance/oem_warrantystatements/
But if the old drive is completely inaccessible then your data are lost. The only chance you might have had would be to send the drive to a data recovery service. Such service is generally very expensive. However, you would have had to handle that on your own. Once you have Apple replace the drive they will keep the old drive and return it to the manufacturer.
I noted that this would not be unique to Apple. Their warranty and AppleCare terms recommend backing up all data before sending any equipment for repair.
You will need to talk with the store manager to see what they can do to help you. You can qalso call AppleCare and talk with a service representative. And, yes, they have every right to keep the old drive. Perhaps you should have told them you had data you needed to recover before you left the computer for the service. The door swings both ways, you know. But I think if you talk with the store manager about the situation they may be able to work something out to help you, especially if you ask nicely.
I'm guessing that by now they have no idea where that drive would be. It's probably in a pile awaiting return to the drive manufacturer.

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