What can I do now?

Question

I know, I know: I should have BACKED UP! Here's the letter I wrote to Apple today:
I am very, very disappointed with Apple, after being an Mac user for over 10 years!
I just received a phone call from the Apple Store at Sherway Gardens, here in Toronto, ON and was told my 500GB Hard Drive was shot, after they had my 24" iMac for one week.
I purchased this brand new 24" iMac only 10 months ago in August/08, and never had any problems with it until last week. After waking up from the "Sleep" mode, I got the flashing file folder with the question mark so I phoned Apple Support, went through a couple of test procedures, and was told it sounded like my HD was shot.
I took it to the Apple Store, the Genius hooked up his HD to it, said everything looks good. He disconnected his HD, restarted my iMac, and it started up fine. He said that his HD may have corrected whatever was wrong with it.
I took it home, started it up the next day, it ran fine, and I put it to sleep for about 8 hours, and I went out and bought a Maxtor 640 GB External HD so I could do a backup. Then when I awakened it, I got the flashing file folder with the question mark again. Thus, no backup was able to been done!
Monday, June 8th back to the Apple store, where a different Genius hooked up his HD, and he said it didn't recognize my HD. He said to leave it for repair, and they'd check the internal cables first, and if they were all OK, then they'd have to replace the HD with a new one. While I was waiting for the Genius this second visit, I was talking with another customer who was also waiting for his appointment. He had the exact same machine as mine, and the same problem. He said he had done some investigating, and found out that the Hard Drives that Apple put into these iMacs were FAULTY. His serial # prefix was the same as mine (W88), and he bought it from the same store, around the same time, so I’m wondering if this has been a common complaint with the 500GB HD in the 24” iMacs (early 2008). If so, then *why weren’t they all recalled* for replacement?
After paying over $2800. for this iMac (the “best” I could get at the time of purchase), I think Apple should be responsible for transferring all my data to the new HD, OR, should consume the cost of having it done by a Data Recovery Service, which I understand could cost between $500 and $2400. Please advise.

Answer 1

Paul,
+I know, I know: I should have BACKED UP!+
With all due respect I think you said it in your very first sentence. That being said Apple isn't responsible for losing your data, they provide an excellent back-up tool in Time Machine and after that it's our responsiblity for our data.
Also I am sure Apple would have made an announement if there was a high incident of failure on a component. That you happened to run into someone else at the Apple Store with the same problem really doesn't mean there is a problem with the millions of machines shipped with the same configuration as yours. My best guess is this was a cruel cooincidence.
My suggestion, buy Apple Care while you still can and get yourself an external HD then begin using Time Machine.
Regards,
Roger