My hard drive is broken....... now what do I do?

I was using my Macbook pro the other day and it started making a terrible noise which sounded like the hard drive arm beating the life our of my hard disk. I shut the computer down and now when I crank it up it just has a blue screen and the horrible noise of the hard disk. No brainier, something is wrong with the hard drive, but here's my question... I live in Savannah Georgia, or as I've seen from the support maps, the black hole of apple support. The only certified service center is an AIS computers store that I've heard nothing but horror stories about, it's even on youtube a guy rants against that store so now I don't know what to do. I don't want to give them my computer so fear that i might get it back 5 months from now still broken. I have the extended warranty but I don't know what to do and where to send it?? I need my computer back, please help!!!!!

Since you hard drive is broken, there is two things you can do. The first is call Applecare and see if you can send it in to have it repaired. They send you a box to ship it in, and it is actually a very simple process, the only problem is that it could be lengthy due to what nature the problem is. The second thing you can do, is look on craig's list and see if there is someone in your local area that you can contact and have him repair the computer for you then and there. I have done that with several things and it worked well. I have never done it with a mac because I live in NJ and there are many stores in the area that service them. You could try that too.
The other option is if your mac is old, buy a new one.

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