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Data recovery firm: Some MacBook drives flawed

Leopard's Time Machine arrives just in time as MacBook hard drives may be …

UK data recovery firm Retrodata warns that a batch of Seagate drives used in some MacBooks seems to suffer from a manufacturing defect, according to InformationWeek. Retrodata says that the problem is confined to Seagate 2.5 inch SATA drives revision 7.0.1 from China. You can find out if you have one of those by selecting "About This Mac" from the menu, then clicking on "More Info...," and selecting "Serial-ATA."

Read/write heads can become detached from the drive and subsequently scratch the surface of the disk if the computer isn't immediately turned off. The scratching then renders data recovery largely impossible. Apple has acknowledged the problem by saying that it has "received a few reports" and is "looking into it." Retrodata feels the problem is severe enough that a recall is warranted and that Apple should replace the affected drives. In the mean time, the company recommends that users of these drives back up all their data and have the drive replaced themselves.

Note, however, that having a firm like Retrodata recover data from a dead hard drive can be an expensive proposition—most people will probably prefer to replace the drive and restore their data from a backup. In that case, there's no difference between a drive that suffers from a routine (electronic or mechanical) failure where data recovery would be possible and the "deep scratches" caused by a head becoming detached. Therefore, replacing the drive as a precautionary measure is probably not warranted if you make regular backups.

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