Comments on: Another MacBook Pro issue? ‘Clicking and beeping’ noises could be caused by hard drive conflict

By: zaphod

zaphod — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:34:31 +0000

get hitachi drives if you want an upgrade.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:56:48 +0000

I have a 13″ MacBook Pro and I fitted a 500GB Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B 2.5″ drive. Had it going for a week now. Sweet as…. No noise to speak of and lots of room

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:01:30 +0000

I tried upgrading the hard drive in my 2008 Mac Book Pro to the 500GB Seagate Momentus (the model without GForce protection) and within minutes my new drive was clicking and slurring away. I promptly got a replacement from a different supplier (hoping to get one from another ‘batch’) but I had the same problem with that one too!! I gave up on Seagates Momentus drives in the end and settled for a 320GB Western Digital.

By: 13ft

13ft — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:37:05 +0000

The issue is quite real. Within 24hrs of unboxing my new MBP 15″ I noticed a very high pitched chirp. This happened during a spin up cycle (also rather loud for a laptop). The issue was not confined to a particular application usage. It was not alterable using the hard drive cycle settings in the power manager. To ensure it was the HDD I silenced the speakers. In a room with normal ambient noise this was noticeable. In a quiet room it was painful to hear.

I called Apple (now 48hrs after delivery) and explained to them the issue with details of what I’d done. They quickly escalated this to a higher level tech. After he reviewed case notes we spoke. He asked me how I’d like to see it resolved. I asked for a hotswap on the drive. He seemed very agreeable to this and checked to see if it was possible. It was not. He told me that he’d list the machine as DOA and would initiate a replacement.

Since the MBP was technically a custom build (edu employee discount) the new one took 9 days to arrive – the same amount of time it took for the original purchase.

The new one seems to be flawless. All during the process a woman named Shang from the Asia offices was in touch with me for tracking the replacement. I have to say, while the other techs provided good service, her communication and service was really exceptional. I did find the turn around on the swap a bit long, but she was exceptional.

I do think that buying a first run of any macs has always been problematic. This is the first and last time I’ll do so. I’ll wait for few months next time.

By: Gryphyn

Gryphyn — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:14:26 +0000

***Stop spreading lies about Apple products. This is all in your head. You will forget this article and go back to blogging at your coffee shop.***

By: thebonafortuna

thebonafortuna — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:13:40 +0000

I’ve had too many problems to ever switch back to WD, but do hear good things about them lately. Personally, I usually buy Seagate and have good experiences. Samsung is another drive I’ve purchased a few times and had good experience, but I never hear anyone mention them.

I think so long as you stay away from 7200.11 (that’s the one, right?), you’ll be OK. And even those are supposedly OK now. This sounds like its more a problem with some tech built into the drive which is conflicting with tech built into the Macbook. It doesn’t sound like something Seagate – or Apple – did wrong…just a conflict that is arising, from what I see here anyways. These things happen.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:00:28 +0000

4) Don’t buy a mac!

Sorry, I had to fill my trolling quota for today. :P

I’m surprised that Seagate’s taken a lot of flak lately. I remember when they used to have higher quality drives. I recently switched back to buying WD drives from all I’ve read about Seagate’s performance issues.