House fire damage to iMac

We recently had a house fire at our town home cluster.   Our unit was damaged with smoke residue.  The visible damage was in the room with our one year old 27 inch iMac.  Is there some documentation or insurance standard that will allow for replacement?  Everything with the insurance company is a fight and we fear the iMac failing a month or two after the claim is settled.  Their response is "If it turns on it is OK".

It may cost you a bit out of pocket, but you might be able to take it to a service provider and have them do a diagnostic and open it to see if there is any visible damage. But, as varjak paw, the insurance company can just ignore it, but I would think with a written evaluation it would be harder for them to do so. And if they don't find anything wrong, it may give you peace of mind.
That being said, if the damage to your apartment was only smoke and the computer was turned off, there shouldn't be too much smoke residue drawn inside and once you clean off the outside, it should be fine.

Similar Messages

  • House Fire/Smoke Damaged 27"imac

    I had a kitchen/house fire recently(no one was injured). Fire mainly in kitchen, but smoke damage throughout the house. I managed to get my 27"imac out of the house, but could not save mouse or keyboard. I rather forcefully pulled the imac loose from the cord and got it outside, but smoke did envelop it for a short period of time. No apparent fire damage to case or screen.
    At the suggestion of my insurance company, I took it to Best Buy to have them get pictures and music from harddrive. They were unable to get it to boot, they kept getting "no bootable device or media found" or something to that effect. Best Buy told me that they could attempt advanced data recovery at a cost of $499. Insurance will pay for it, but I hate to pay them that amount of money.
    Does anyone have any ideas? Should I get a universal mouse and keyboard and try to recover the data myself or do I pay Best Buy the money and take my chances on their tech savvy?
    If I did purchase mouse and keyboard for imac, would a universal mouse and keyboard work and what are some things I could try after hooking up the imac?
    Thanks for reading.

    Hi, First, glad no one got hurt, I would imagine by just pulling out the power cord & assuming your Mac was running & you where actually using it, You may well have damaged the HD..
    Whether via insurance or your own pocket, I would contact an Apple Approved Service Agent (reading from other Posts BestBuy have never had good repair results) Have your Mac inspected & I suspect you will need to replace the HD.. maybe invest in a HD external case (OWC) and see once you Mac is up & running you can retrieve some of your info from the old HD..Professional Recovery is expensive with no guarantees.. SJ will be over the moon that you chose to save your 27"Mac instead of the cat""
    Re:- K/B & Mouse, once the AASA has repaired the Mac treat yourself to new Apple units.....L
    Message was edited by: elmac

  • Every time I fire up my iMac a window pops up saying "Mount notification quit unexpectedly" and it gives me the option to either "Reopen" it or click OK, which gets rid of it. What is this please and how can i stop it?

    Every time I fire up my iMac a window pops up saying "Mount notification quit unexpectedly" and it gives me the option to either "Reopen" it or click OK, which gets rid of it. What is this please and how can i stop it?

    Hopefully this will help you.  Try placing your iPad in recovery mode again.  You may have to try this a few times.
    iOS: Unable to update or restore

  • Replacing purchased songs after a house fire destroyed everything?

    I had a house fire a few months back and it destroyed everything that was electronic. I had around 320 purchased songs from itunes on my desktop, laptop, iphone, and I had my documents and songs backed up on an external hard drive. The fire destroyed all of those items. I was able to re-download purchased apps for free but I'm running into trouble with replacing my purchased songs. Has anyone had any luck arranging this? I did everything I could think of to protect my files but the fire won.

    You're drilling down to the wrong thing, then.
    Go into the part about itunes music and then choose lost or missing purchases.
    THere will be an email button near the top right when you get to the correct place. They don't make it easy.
    Bummer about the fire!

  • HT4527 i lost my computer in a house fire and was wondering if there was any way to get my music back

    I lost my computer in a house fire and was wondering if there was any way to get my music back does i tunes save your stuff online or am i screwed

    Restore it from a backup, or use these instructions to redownload it through the iCloud.
    (94049)

  • Lost Touch in house fire can I retrieve serial number

    I lost Touch in house fire, can I retrieve serial number.  I  have used it for years.  I have three various iPods but none seem to show up in my items registered. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place.

    - iOS: How to find the serial number, IMEI, MEID, CDN, and ICCID number

  • Display housing is damaged.

    my matchbook pro 15" mid 2010 display housing is damaged and seems to be pulling away at the hinge connection. Is this something that can be repaired by someone who i s handy or does it need to be done by a specialist?
    Thanks

    MedlockDustin,
    for TextMate, you’ll need to download TextMate 2.0 alpha, since earlier versions of TextMate aren’t supported on Mavericks. The file will be named “nightly”; save it to your desktop. Once the “nightly” file has finished downloading, rename it to “TextMate.app.tar.bz2” — that will give it the “BZ” icon on your desktop. Once it’s been renamed, you can double-click on it, and TextMate.app will appear on your desktop. Use your administrative login to move TextMate.app to your Applications folder.
    Regarding the “unidentified developer” message displayed by trying to open git 1.8.4.2, please refer to this Apple page for the workaround.

  • House fire

    So i bought an Ipod touch this last january, in june the house that i had my ipod in had a fire and the ipod was burned. it was less than a year old so it had the warranty on it still. my question is: will apple refund my money or give me a new ipod since it was under the limited warranty?

    Sorry, but the warranty does not cover physical damage. Perhaps your house insurance policy holder would be able to assist.

  • Verizon won't honor bundle offer AND probably caused my house fire

    We had a Verizon Fios salesman come around door to door with a bundle package offer. One of the attractive parts to the offer was a "Free 30 day trial". When I questioned where that offer was on the paper work he wrote it in along with the number of boxes, the date of installation, the special price offer and other details. Before I had the installation done I called Verizon to verify the free 30 day trial. I was told it is only "free" if you cancel within 30 days of installation. That made sense so I allowed the installation. It took them a full week to get one of the phone lines working! I was told my "trial" started from that date. With in weeks I had a fire in my garage. The fire started where the Verizon equipment was plugged in. The fire inspector from my fire department showed me the place the fire started and told me he believed it was from the Verizon equipment. We have been in the house 25 years. All electrical the electrical plugs had been in place for 20 + years  were installed by professional electricians, been inspected by the city building inspector and had city issued building permits. Our garage was burned beyond repair. It must be torn down and rebuilt. It was an attached 3 car garage. It was only because of excellent building codes and a wonderful lady jogger who woke us up at 7 AM on a Sunday that the fire did not burn the house down completely with us in it. We could have all died before we awoke. The house has smoke damage through out. We have had to move out until repairs can be completed. We lost 8 six week old Springer Spaniel puppies who died in their pen of smoke inhalation. The day after the fire  (within the 30 day free trial offer) I cancelled the service. When I canceled the service they told me they did not and could not offer a 30 day "free" trial. I told them their salesman did offer it and put it in writing. They continued to tell me that it was not so. I have it on the contract but they don't want to believe me. I told them I wanted to "dispute" the charges but so far I have not even been able to get the information on how to do that. I had already paid the first months bill. I can't get them to give me a credit. They continue to bill me for service I am not receiving and have "interrupted" the phone service. Since the fire burned all the wiring to the house we couldn't answer a phone that couldn't ring anyway. No one at Verizon seems to give a concern or care about the problems or my request to dispute the bill. I haven't asked them to take responsibility for the fire, just credit me for the free trial period and not charge me for their equipment that burned. They are ignoring that request. No one from Verizon cares about the problems!
    No I would like to see if they allow this post or remove it.

    My parent's live in southern CA and their home burned due to the FiOS modem.  My mom asked me to search the web about it to see if this had happened to anyone else.  I was surprised to see it has happened to a lot of people.  Some during instillation and some after it had been running.  What, if anything, is Verizon doing about this problem.  Be it an instillation issue or an equipment issue, it deserves attention and either way, Verizon is at fault.  My parents have just started their investigation and it is all in the beginning stages.  I was curious what has happened since your fire and if there has been any resolution in your case.  

  • Office fire, damaged cs5 installation disk, adobe will not replace

    So...we a small fire in the office that was quickly contained but the admin's workstation was damaged which contained the various installation discs for all of our software, including Adobe Design Standard CS5, which was purchased at a retail store (not downloaded).  I woudl like to reinstall our software on a new computer, however, Adobe tells me that I cannot because 1) I did not purchase it by download therefore I cannot download a new copy--that is NOT available to those who purchase their copy at a retail store,  2) They cannot send me a replacement disc because now that cs6 is out, they only provide replacement discs for the current shipping version--ie unless you are talking about CS6, they do not supply repalcement discs.  Basically I am out of luck?? This can't be true.
    Is Adobe actually saying that no matter what the cause of having a damaged, stolen, or lost installation disc for a previous version of an adobe product, my only option is to purchase a new copy???  This is completely ridiculous! I purchased a license for their product, therefore i have license to use their product! 
    If someone has any advice on getting around this it would be very helpful!

    Albertw617 I am sorry you recently had a fire which damaged your installation media.  I hope everyone is ok?
    In regards to replacement media we do no longer have CS5 available.  Some users have reported being able to follow the steps listed at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/981369 to obtain older version software. 
    Alternately if you have your serial number you can also qualify for the upgrade to Creative Suite 6.

  • Have I damaged my iMac with notched RAM upgrade attempt?

    i have a 21inch iMac, mid 2011 2.5ghz and decided to upgrade the RAM from 4 to 8gb (2x2 to 4x2) as this was supposed to be very easy (and only cost £35 or so from MrMemory) The problems started with getting the new RAM module in - basically I couldn't! Watching videos and reading instructions said it did take a bit of force, but I was really forcing without the module clicking into place. That **** tape seemed to be stopping it from sitting right. After several hours of swearing the tape broke and now the modules seemed to be finally sat in the slots. Turned on. Nothing at all! No beeps, nothing! Taking out the modules, I read up that the pairings may matter, but after the cat jumped on me, I don't know which ones are the new modules and which are the originals! Thought I would try putting pairs in to see if i could at least get it going. But now I'm getting nothing but the dreaded 3 beeps. I've tried all,combinations of the 4 2gb modules. Looking into the iMac's memory bay, I'm wondering if all my forcing has damaged it as I see a few loose metal strands in the memory slots? Plus those tapes are in bits so I've had to use long nose pliers to remove modules. Has this supposedly easy upgrade been so badly botched by me, I've knackered my Mac??!

    Try to boot in Safe mode, see if you are able: Hold down shift and then power on. For wireless keyboards, hold down shift after the chime.
    Safe Boot
    Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk

  • How do you transfer from mini to imac with fire wire if iMac has Lion and mini has snow leopard

    My logic board has gone on my mini(intel) and I need to transfer this machine to an iMac(with Lion) how do I do this as it doesn't seem to be working with my disc.My update to Lion was purchased as a download and the only disc I have is snow leopard to reboot.

    If your Mac mini has a dead logic board then you will not be able to boot it at all, not even in Target Disk Mode. You would either have to get the logic board repaired, or remove the hard disk and either put it in a disk enclosure or connect it in some other way to the iMac.
    The fact that the two Macs ran different versions of OS X is irrelevant, once you have the drive connected to the iMac you can run the Migration utility to migrate the user account and data.

  • Help Me Put Out the Fire in my iMac

    Help! My Mac is Smoking and I Can't Put It Out
    I have a couple of friends who are having serious problems with their iMac. I am trying to help them. If this e-mail rings a bell, let me know. Thanks so much
    21.5" iMac late 2009. *We had a problem last summer and power supply was replaced. *About six weeks ago after 10.6.6 upgrade it seems to overheat using processor intensive programs and the screen would flash on and off. Similar to a neon light bulb that pops and flashes before finally stabilizing. *Except the screen flashes a number of times and then goes black. *Resetting the SMC and PRAM seemed to help for a few weeks but it started up again recently and redoing those settings have helped until a couple of days ago. *Typically, we leave it in sleep mode when not in use. Tuesday when Carolyn woke it after about 24 hours of sleep it started flashing immediately. *I unplugged, reset SMC and PRAM and let it sit in off position for a couple of hours, it powered right back up and has worked fine since. *I've come across a diagnostic widget that monitors so I'm going to download it and see if it reports any HW malfunctions. *My suspicion right now is that either the power supply or processor fans are malfunctioning. *I've read comments on the Mac discussion board relating to runaway processes since upgrading causing potential overheating although my Activity Monitor looks fine.

    Hi Bruce,
    Have you considered the display may have a hardware issue? Have they taken the computer to an Apple Authorized Repair Center, or a http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/>Genius Bar to have it looked at?

  • What kind of connector is required for the fire wire on iMac early 2009 ?

    Need to connect my external hard drive for downloading using the fire wire input. The old fire wire cable will not match with the compuyer input

    Try buying an adapter from Firewire 800 to Firewire 400
    http://store.apple.com/au/product/HA833ZM/A/belkin-firewire-800400-9-pin6-pin-2m ?fnode=51
    Pete

  • I pulled the plug, did i damage my iMac?

    After installing the latest security update 1.1 from my software update it seemed to go well until the restart. The screen went grey and the circle kept spinning and spinning. I tried to shut down using the button on rear but nothing, it just kept spinning. Finally I pulled the plug. I started it up again using the back button and it started fine. Installer log says the update is installed. I checked HD with disc utility from the install disc and repaired permissions which was OK except for the usual Suid warnings. My question is, did I do any damage to my machine by pulling the plug? Do I need to do any other maintenance to make sure all is well.

    It all depends on what it was doing while the spinning was occurring.
    There are a few issues that could come up.
    Data in buffers may not have been sync'd to the disk. So depending on what that data was (update files, documents, etc.) it could be lost.
    Permissions or access controls that were being applied could be missing or corrupted - but your repair of permissions should have taken care of that.
    Files that were being uncompressed at the time may never have been uncompressed and you could end up with mixed up versions of files.
    My recommendation would be to:
    - Hold down 'command-v' when you boot this next time from right after the chime to when you start getting data on the screen. This will take away the screen masks when the system starts and stops.
    - Re-apply the security update and let it finish. You'll be able to see what it's doing as it shuts down, so it should make things a little more comfortable than just watching the icon spin.
    - If you are always impatient with updates, you may want to make verbose booting permanent. You can do this by editing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and adding a -v between the two string tags under the kernel flags key.

Maybe you are looking for