Remember the free battery replacement drive carried out by Apple for a few of its models of iPhone 5? Or the replacement program for 1TB Seagate HDD in iMacs? Well, history is repeating itself but this time with a few of the 27-inch iMacs for their 3TB drives.
The Cupertino Company has warned buyers by issuing a bulletin that in the all-in-one machines, “a very small number of 3TB hard drives may fail under certain conditions”. However, this is only applicable to the 27-inch iMacs bought between December 2012 and September 2013.
The 3TB hard drives have never been a part of base or entry level iMac configurations but have always been available for professionals and users who have more storage requirements for music, video, photos and other kinds of media. Until now, Apple has offered 3TB hard drives in its larger iMacs as an upgrade option, either as a standalone drive or as part of a Fusion Drive setup.
It has been discussed in a few Mac forums that some of the models bore the 3TB HDDs which arrived from a batch of faulty drives released by Seagate a few years ago.
Users who have registered with valid email addresses for the hard disk replacement have received notifications from Apple. To check whether the device is eligible, one can enter the serial number of the iMac on the Apple website following this link.
After taking a back-up of everything, the drive can either be replaced by an Apple technician at an authorized retail store or service provider (AASP) or at Apple store’s Genius Bar after getting an appointment. ON showing the receipt, Apple will replace the existing 3TB drive for free regardless of whether the iMac is under warranty. This worldwide program does not extend the standard warranty coverage of the iMac.
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In fact, users can even apply for a reimbursement in case Apple has replaced or repaired the drive on the iMac in the past for a fee. A back-up is essential since users will have to reinstall a new operating system (OS X) on the drive after the replacement. Apple has emphasized on data retrieval by issuing instructions about OS X recovery on the website.
The program will end on December 19, 2015 or three years from the date of purchase of the iMac whichever provides longer coverage; unless Apple extends the period of replacement which it usually does.
