Three weeks ago, I purchased myself a more-or-less top of the line second generation MacBook Pro… specifically , the $2499 configuration. Two weeks ago, I got it, and began to love it. One week ago, at CES, a slithering Samsung representative — his bifurcated tongue a nesting ground of sibilant s-es — handed me a press kit CD that, once inserted into my MBP’s superdrive, stubbornly refused to eject itself. And a couple days ago, Apple charged me over $200 dollars to get that SuperDrive replaced.
At no point was I actually to blame for that drive failing, but I did make some blunders in actually dealing with the Apple Store Geniuses that cost me a couple hundred bucks. My tendency is to get furious with Apple, but another Internet bitch session isn’t going to help anyone. Instead, I want to lead you guys through the problem I had and how I interacted with the Apple store representatives, which gave them all the excuse they needed to charge me a significant charge for something that was probably a manufacturing or shipping issue… even if the end result is just so much navel gazing.
The first thing to keep in mind is that discs get stuck in Apple’s SuperDrive all the time. It’s not an uncommon problem, so when it happened to me, I followed the usual steps:
• I held down the eject key, dragged the disc to trash, and tried to eject through the finder.
• I rebooted my MacBook Pro while holding down the mouse button, which forces the SuperDrive to try to spit out the disc at startup.
• I tried booting up in Open Firmware (Command+Option+O+F ) and typing ‘eject cd.’ Update: As a commenter below points out, I tried, based on Twitter suggestions… but it just locked up my machine.
Nothing worked. This was the exact point where I should have taken the computer to the Apple Store, but I resented the long walk through the Boston snow. It seemed like such a stupid problem on which to squander an afternoon waiting in line, or dealing with condescending and overly chirpy Mac-tistas.
So I started looking at homebrew solutions. And there my troubles began…
Essentially, one of the most common DIY solutions for ejecting a stuck disc from a SuperDrive is the business card trick. What you basically do is fold a business card, slide it between the gate mechanism — a small bend of metal that sits at the mouth of the SuperDrive, holding the disc in while in use — and the top of the drive. Then you leverage it down until the disc pops out. There’s numerous Google results for this method, and for most people, it seems to work. It didn’t work at all for me.
So I scheduled an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Cambridge Side Gallery for 11am the next morning. When I arrived, I informed the Genius assigned to my problem about the issues I was having, and what I’d tried to do to fix the problem. More or less, this is exactly what I said:
“I have a disc that refuses to eject from my MacBook Pro’s SuperDrive. This is literally the first disc I’ve inserted into it since buying the computer a few weeks ago. I tried all the usual tricks, like booting up with the mouse button held, and even going into Open Firmware. It didn’t work, so I tried using a business card to hold down the gate mechanism, but that didn’t work either.”
You can probably guess at which sentence my Apple Genius’ face went stony. He asked if I minded waiting a minute, and went into the backroom to open up the case and look at the drive. A couple minutes later, he came back with my disgorged SuperDrive in hand.
“Okay, John, this is your SuperDrive. I’m showing this to you because I want you to see the problem. Do you see the gate mechanism here? It’s buckled inwards, forcibly bent. It literally can’t withdraw, which is why the disc was stuck. Unfortunately, our warranty does not cover user error… and the price of replacing a SuperDrive is regrettably steep. It will cost $450 with labor to replace”
The process from that point was angry, but tedious. I became purple with anger and struggled to fight it down, since it would accomplish nothing. But I felt my words had been twisted, to the result of paying almost 20% of the laptop’s price as a premium: the ejection problem was the reason I had tried to insert a business card into the drive, not the cause of the issue. I told him I understood he was just following policy, and that I had no issue with him, but I still needed to speak to his manager about this. After much negotiation with the manager, I managed to get the price of the repair down to about $200, and realized that was as good as it was going to get. And that was the end of it: within an hour, I had my laptop back with a functioning SuperDrive.
Still, I made a lot of blunders. Here are the lessons learned:
• If you want Apple to fix your computer, don’t try to solve the problem yourself with DIY repairs: This is a good rule-of-thumb for all warranty repairs, in truth, but Apple is a company that wants you to play things their way, and the guys who work at the Genius Bar are all true believers. There’s no wiggle room.
• If you do try DIY repairs, don’t admit it: I think it’s obvious to everyone — even the Apple Genius and his manager that I dealt with — that a sliver of cardboard can not be used to bend metal. But once I admitted to having crammed something besides a disc into the drive, they had no reason to believe I hadn’t been trying other things, like keys or screwdrivers or nail files.
• Humanizing yourself won’t work: Once Apple told me that I would have to pay $450 to replace my SuperDrive, I dusted off a favorite old tactic of mine to get my way. “Look, I just paid $2500 for this laptop, I’ve had it two weeks, and this is literally the first disc I put in. If you were me, what would you want to see happen here?” All I got was a blank look in return. He literally had no idea what I was saying. It was like talking to an alien, and it’s all because of that aforementioned “true believer” stuff: in my situation, an Apple Genius would want to pay Apple that $450 so they can continue to make excellent products and achieve record profit margins, end of story.
• Appealing to brand loyalty probably will work: The manager caved on the price of the repairs once I pulled out my iPhone and iPod, both readily at hand, and told him that I was a long-time ProCare customer who had purchased this MacBook Pro to replace a last-generation MacBook Pro.
• Appeal to reasonable doubt: The second biggest mistake I made after admitting to tampering with my SuperDrive was not appealing to reasonable doubt. “How do you know I bent the gate mechanism? This was the first disc I put in. How can you be confident this isn’t a production like accident or a shipping mistake?” This may not have worked, but it was worth a try.
• Once I knew the problem, I could have probably fixed it myself: As I was walking out of the store with my fixed MacBook Pro, it suddenly occurred to me that the gate mechanism could probably have been bent back into place manually, if only I’d known that was the issue. It may not have worked, but bending a piece of metal back is worth a shot before dropping a couple hundred bills. Of course, this sort of thinking is basically what cost me $200 in the first place…
I’m still angry about the whole thing, but I actually feel like it was a valuable lesson. When you walk into an Apple Store, it really is like walking into the external pod of a mothership… and, when you enter an alien culture, you need to take your cues on how to act without spurring your host to consult the index of “How To Serve Man.” I didn’t know how to handle myself, and I lost an arm, but luckily talked them out of eating the leg. Maybe next time, I can manage to get away with both.
But behind the calm and rational tone I’m adopting, let’s not forget one thing: everyone in that room knew I was being screwed. Everyone in that room knew that I was walking away $200 poorer for a problem that could well have been Apple’s fault, just because I said one of many things that allowed them to justify screwing me. My only stroke of luck was it not being double that.
Update: John Biggs over at Crunchgear has some more words of wisdom on the subject. His biggest tip:
My main tip is this: Act stupid. You don’t know anything about computers. You buy Apple products, after all. Go in, say “My computer is busted.” Have an iPhone problem? Restore the thing to the bare metal and walk in saying “I don’t know why I can’t make calls.”
You didn’t pull out the “I blog for Boing Boing Gadgets” card? That’s respectable.
Pork Musket is right, I’m afraid I would have handed them that before the machine. However, your integrity may vary.
It could totally be me reading way to much into it, but the way you wrote how the tech brought you the broken drive made it seem like he was acting like a master shoving his dogs nose in shit.
I once took in my 1st Gen MacBook to the Genius Bar because the battery wasn’t working properly, resulting in random shutdowns. Dispite displaying all the characteristics that Apple’s website stated would result in a no quibble battery exchange, I sat there while the “Genius” took an hour to update my operating system, without telling me and without my permission, then told me I should run the diagnostic disc myself, and that if I wanted the battery exchanged, I would have to leave my laptop with them for two weeks (!) for testing. They are not Geniuses by any stretch…
In any case, we don’t have to put up with Apple’s rubbish service any more, now we have the Hackintosh.
What a second… they call it a BAR? That’s downright insulting, to call it a bar when I can’t even get a whiskey soda.
I physically cringed when I got to the part where you told him about the business card attempt. Ouch!
John,
You know what you did wrong, so I’m sure most of the comments are going to be kind of obvious. Looking back would you rather have had a walk in the snow and $200 in your pocket? Just because you read something on the internet, doesn’t make it true..!
If you’ve got warranty, use it. I just took my 14 month old white MacBook back to the Apple Store because the plastic had cracked on the front edge of the wrist rest. Purely cosmetic, but annoying to put your wrists on the broken edge. I had the extended warranty, and within 1/2 an hour I had a new top cover, keyboard and trackpad. For free.
And I don’t know what kind of service Anonymous (#4) thinks they’re going to get with a Hackintosh, but I’ll stick to the service I get under warranty at the Apple Store thanks.
The good Apple giveth, and the good Apple taketh away. I feel like I get nickled and dimed by Apple for at least few hundred bucks a year, but last time they failed to repair my PowerBook G4, they exchanged it for a new MacBook Pro and transferred my data, for free (third failed attempt on a warranteed repair, and I maintained an apparent good attitude).
I’m trying to figure out how you got into OpenFirmware on a MacBook Pro.
Yes, it is, but to be honest I wish he had. We, the little folk of the consumer electronics world, spend a lot of time and energy being hypervigilant about the various ways that companies can screw us before, during, and after a purchase–and we still get screwed pretty much every time.
There’s something cathartic about reading the stories where the Big Tech Blogger gets the shaft, only to have the company quail in fear and offer abject apologies and free shiatsu massages once he whips out the magic blogger card. I mean, I get why it doesn’t change anything either way, but that’s how I like my consumer-rage-porn to go.
(Although with Apple it might not have worked anyway.)
So you did something that you knew was a bad idea, then admitted to doing it, then you got angry when they called you on it? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt when you say that you didn’t cram anything else into your machine, but you know perfectly well that for every person like you there are a dozen who did and are just trying to scam Apple for free repair work.
The only thing ridiculous here is your fake outrage and your gall to complain about getting a deal that you don’t deserve.
@9 — Well, I tried to do it, rather. Someone on Twitter suggested it, but the button press just locked up my whole computer repeatedly. You’re right, that sentence doesn’t mention any of that, which I had meant to. Appending. Thanks for the catch!
I own a number of Apple products and this kinda bothers me…Apple should reasonably expect folks to do things like this and just suck it up. The drive can’t cost them more than $50, and they’ve surely made more in profit from your MacBook Pro. While what you did was dumb, I’ve done similar things in the past. Apple should support hacker culture to some level, sure if you brought in a case that was cracked or a mobo that was fried ’cause you jumpered the CPU with a paperclip, you should pay. But reasonable “I tried to fix it myself” attempts like this should be expected and not penalized, IMHO.
But the competition is worse, so I’ll shut up now and be happy with my Mac world.
The dumb card always trumps the “I know what I’m doing” card. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be Googling things and asking for help at the Genius Bar. It makes you look like you don’t know that you’re a dumbass.
When receiving tech support, go along with their steps even if you’ve already tried something. It’s possible that you’ve done it incorrectly, or that it will work the second time. You save yourself a lot of time by listening to the experts.
Also, if you persevere and let THEM figure the problem out for you, even if you’re pretty sure what the problem is, it can come out drastically in your favor. I had an entire computer replaced– and upgraded 5 revisions (17″ white iMac to 20″ aluminum) because the Apple tech support couldn’t properly identify or repair a software issue.
Especially with the new computers, unless you are trained to work on them, out of warranty, or just don’t care if you completely ruin it, DO NOT try to do anything to your hardware.
Apparently lighter fluid can get glue out a carpet.
It might. But in my experience it cant. It just ruins your carpet t the lever you would imagine lighter fluid and glue would.
Here’s the lesson I learned from this story:
Don’t buy Apple crap. Ever.
I’ve never dealt with the Genius Bar before, but every time I’ve called the AppleCare line, I’ve gotten excellent — and very fast, even with shipping — service. This includes the time that I was sitting on the couch with my iBook in the middle of a huge work project when my 50-lb dog jumped on top of me and the iBook, killing it dead.
I admitted to the Applecare person what had happened and it was absolutely no problem. I firewired as much stuff off of the hard drive as I could onto another computer, and I shipped it off. Within a week, it was as good as new, and I paid nothing. After that experience, both my partner and I became extremely loyal Apple customers.
I know from plenty of firsthand experience that the above is true. I’ve needed repairs done immediately for tings that were Apple’s fault and couldn’t wait a week for my computer to be mailed back to me.
The Apple Genius Bar in NYC is usually jam packed but I’ve been met with generally friendly people that want to help (and maybe show off how much smarter and Apple-philic they are) and so I alwats act dumbfounded.
Most recently, my Macbook was always shutting down randomly, which is also a common problem (sheesh) which happened once during an upgrade, causing me to lose MS Word. After trying to solve it on my own with no luck, I came in and found out the battery was unable to hold its charge and also that it would be ~$125 to replace but the guy, since it was 1am and I’d waited +1hour, was nice enough to fabricate some bs to allow my warranty to cover it. Never once did I mention that I tried my ow solutions. I played the idiot and they were the beneficient tech geniuses. Getting Word replaced was not gonna happen however.
When I was a younger man I used to like to fight with tech support. “I’ve already done that! And this, and this, and this!”
Then I matured to the point where I realized that on a tech support call, I was essentially arguing with a cloned version of myself from a few years ago. Back then, if somebody assured me that “they knew how to do it” and “it was still broken”, apparently, “They were really just lame-o jackasses that didn’t know their computer from a hole in the ground.”
So now when I call tech support, I mentally check out for awhile and my biggest problem is usually supressing a gleeful tone when I say things like, “Wow, even THAT didn’t work? I thought for sure you had it that time! Computers are hard!”
just one more reason why people lie about “what really happened”… ’cause they’ll get screwed if they tell the truth.
I only mention this because I didn’t see it mentioned in your description –
I’m not particularly familiar with those drives, but on many other machines there’s a pin-sized whole into which a straightened paperclip often releases the mechanism (mechanically) – Your machine may not have such a whole – or it may, and instead this activity might “shag” the machanism – but knowing this fact might get you out of do-do one day.
I am sorry for your loss
It’s kind of a crap shoot… There’s always the chance that the same thing could have happened even if you didn’t tell the “genius” that you tried to pop the door open.
SOP in a broken superdrive situation is probably to remove the drive so the disc can be removed, at which point he’d have had a great view of the bent drive doors.
I’ve never taken my drive apart (last one I did was my iBook which had a pop-out tray), so I don’t know how the doors are constructed, but I know aluminum can be made pretty thin, to a point where a business card could bend it. If water can cut through steel, a business card could bend aluminum.
Big news, Apple shop staff are just as mean-spirited as the staff in any other shop, computer or not.
I once took a shaver in to be repaired after it just stopped working one day. The guy behind the counter asked me where I kept it. I said, in the bathroom, where else would I keep it? He took a sharp intake of breath and started to explain in a condescending way that water and electricity don’t mix. I interupted him to point out that the thing was three years old and well out of warranty, so he didn’t have to give me that shuck and jive, just tell me how much it was going to cost to fix it. I swear, he looked almost disappointed.
Say it with me now, John.
Liiiinuuuuux
Ubuntu is a nice flavor. Try it.
and
vs
THIS. Full of fail vs high likelihood of success in life. Victimistan vs Hopeland. Add your own meme here.
Anyone who has ever worked in computer repair has seen all sorts of obvious end user inflicted damage from people who are obviously playing stupid as to how that condom got stuck in the PSU fan in the first place, why the laptop screen seems to have been scratched with the edges of a coin, etc(1). Also you can go back and forth on the quality of the Genius Bar folks all you like, but my experience has been better with them than with alot of authorized Apple repair places.
(1) My personal favorite repair was the HP LaserJet that wouldnt print because it was filled with thousands of small roaches.
I just recently took a busted Cinema Display to the Genius Bar, and despite it being nearly a year out of warranty, they elected to fix it for free.
I didn’t play dumb, and I didn’t try to fix it myself. I didn’t get upset when the guy told me the repair was $500- they just volunteered to fix it for free because “the cost seemed a bit steep for a Cinema Display that looks brand new”.
Another time, the button on my iPhone wasn’t working. I brought it in and they replaced it- no questions asked, right on the spot.
I guess the point is that I’ve had great experience with the Genius Bar, and like you and others have said- when you admitted to trying to fix it yourself, you open up the possibility in their mind that you had maybe monkeyed with it in other ways.
Had it been me, I would have just brought the thing back to Apple and said that it was two weeks old and not ejecting a disc. I’m sure they would have just arranged for it to be fixed without giving it so much as a second thought.
he didn’t get to Open Firmware, it does not exist on an intel mac.
@24 Anon
Wait, Linux would have done the hardware repair for free?
another way you can get a disk out of a Macbook is through the Disk Utility. just select the offender and press the nice round blue EJECT button – surprised that wasn’t on your list of methods…
there’s no Apple Genius Bar in my neck of the words (or Apple Store for that matter), but during my recent trip to NYC I went in to exchange a product and was out in 7 minutes (yeah, I timed it cuz I hate waiting in lines and figured it was going to be a while). some little blue-shirted ‘genius’ spotted me, pulled me out of the line and completed the exchange on his portable machine. no paper necessary as my receipt was on my iPod and he emailed the new one to me.
you’re bound to get questionable service everywhere, but how often do you actually get it well done???
I accidentally dropped my iPhone 3G off the desk and onto a concrete floor. There didn’t appear to be any physical damage, but when I tried to use it, the LCD screen didn’t work. The touchscreen part worked, but the display was black. I was able to receive calls and call my wife using 1Touch call, because I knew where to swipe my finger and press, but that was it. I made an appointment with the local Genius Bar & went in. I handed them the phone and told them the LCD screen didn’t work. As they were swapping it out, they asked if I kept it in my pocket (I don’t). They also said it sometimes happens to the phones. 10-15 minutes later I walked out with a new iPhone 3G.
The key was to not volunteer that I’d dropped it.
I’ve seen a couple of “the Genius Bar sucks” posts here, and I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. For my money, they should have fixed it for free…
That being said, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them in the Apple Store at Willowbend Mall in Plano, TX (suburb of Dallas). Yeah sure, some of the salespeople know less than I do about things, but they’re always pleasant & helpful. And the folks at the Genius Bar are quite good. It’s a real breath of fresh air after having dealt with customer “service” at HP and Dell in the past
I have a Acer Ferrari that has the same type of drive. It sucks in the disk and spits it out by software command. Never an issue with it in the 3 years I have owned it. There is a mechanical eject button it but no little hold for a paperclip to trigger the eject. I bet Apple declined to add the eject button for aesthetics.
Stories like this are why I’m such a fan of Tekserve, the large, independent all-Mac shop in New York City. They’re quirky as hell and sometimes maddening, but they’re also not uncritical communicants of the One True Apple Way. In fact, when it comes to service issues like this, they often act as a sensible buffer between their customers and the Apple borg.
As per Pat’s comment, from personal experience in NYC’s Apple Store, I’ve seen an Apple “Genius” give a woman her computer’s death sentence AND and helpful bit of info that the service she needed Apple to do would be much cheaper if she went to TekServe. So, not all of them are douchebags.
I am not sure why anyone would get so upset about this as if it were Apple’s fault. Every warranty agreement I have ever read clearly states that the minute you tamper with the product or try and fix it yourself the warranty is void. This isn’t just Apple’s policy. I have always had pretty good luck with the Genius Bar in my current town, and I also had great luck with Tekserve when I lived in NY, but really, the moral of this story is not as #16 stated “don’t buy Apple”, or that the customer got screwed, but rather don’t void your warranty by sticking crap into your computer when you could just go get it fixed for free and save yourself some money and headaches.