Apple laptop hard-drive issue

[Valve Bounce]

I know there are some here who swear by Apple. Well, my daughter in America bought a laptop and now she tells me that her hard drive doesn't work, and the cost of repairing it is US$350. That sounds way over the top for a hard drive; does anyone know whether this is reasonable? She will be returning to Oz in September and I am wondering if the hard drive can be replaced here for less than that.

[Valve Bounce]

Sorry, I forgot to mention it was an Apple laptop. I don't know yet what model.

[Jag_Warrior]

It's out of warranty? How old is it?

[Dave B]

I've just bought a 1TB external drive for under £70, so lord knows how it'll cost so much to fix her drive. Does that cost include replacing software and data recovery?

[Roamy]

Valve - depends on many things. Seagate drives are normally warrantyed for 5 years. The model of the laptop will depend on the ease of replacing the HD. You can look in the online manual. Most of the newer ones are quite easy to fix yourself if you have any screw driver skills at all. Big drives are cheap now so it should not be that much . Of course if you take it to Apple out of warranty just bend over and let them take your wallet. If you change it yourself watch out for the ribbon connectors for the keyboard etc they are easy to screw up.

[Daniel]

Fousto, if the drive is OEM and came with the laptop it will only carry the laptop warranty and not the full 5 year Seagate warranty. As Dave said, does the cost include data recovery or is it just a hdd?

[Roamy]

yea data recovery unfortunately is a rip. If the drive still spins you can try to recover with software. welll with the oem rip then one should buy a laptop driveless and then install a seagate.