Desktop Mac 3/4 years old 500 gb

shortchanged_2

I'm just balancing out the how wonderful apple products are posts.

thescouselander

I agree, I've never heard anyone claim in all seriousness that macs never go wrong - don't feed the troll.

Back on topic - I assume the white screen is appearing at boot up and if that's correct I suspect a corrupted plist file somewhere is the system. This isn't always fixed by a permissions repair or system restore but it's not difficult to sort out if you know what you're doing.

The problem will likely go away if the repairer replaces the hard drive and / or does a full rebuild but that's the nuclear option in my opinion and probably unnecessary.

macman

A new hard drive will cost exactly the same as one for a Windows PC-there's nothing Apple-specific about them.
Any competent repair shop will do the fault-finding process and then contact you with a price for the repair needed. You then choose either to go with the repair or not, if not you'll pay for the fault finding only, a price which you should have been quoted when you took it in.
If it is the drive, the cost will vary according to the capacity of the replacement you specify, you'll probably want to go up to 1TB.

stuart07970

Don't panic

You can diagnose this yourself very easily.
But you will need either a cloned backup of your drive or a copy of the OS on DVD or USB.

Then simply shut down the machine and then start it up and boot from the external drive/disk

If it starts up ok then it's your hard disk that has failed and a replacement drive is in order

Also have you checked your serial number with Apple as they had an out of warranty replacement program for iMacs of your age due to a faulty batch of Seagate drives

I had mine changed without issue

fred246

The repair man will know you have spent a fortune buying it in the first place so will be happy to pay a lot for the repair. People say that Audi owners are charged far more for the same repair than Skoda drivers.

JournalGirl

It's worth a try with Apple first. I've a problem with the display on a 4 year old Mac book pro. Made an appointment in the Apple Store ( I had the three year aftercare but that's expired too )

The guy looked at it without charge, asked me a few questions, saw his manager , and then came back to say they would repair without charge under consumer rights legislation. There are a number of reports about faults in these early Mac book pros but they seem to be taking care of it

almillar

shortchanged:

I'm just balancing out the how wonderful apple products are posts.

I haven't read any in this thread. Stick to the 'I'm thinking of buying' threads to give your opinion on them, and maybe add in what experience or knowledge your opinion is based on.
I've got experience of using and repairing PCs and Macs, just for info.

I've never heard of a completely white screen being caused by a duff HDD by the way, but we need more info from OP to help.

shortchanged_2

almillar wrote: »

shortchanged:


I haven't read any in this thread. Stick to the 'I'm thinking of buying' threads to give your opinion on them, and maybe add in what experience or knowledge your opinion is based on.

Well seeing as most peoples arguments for apple products are they just work and they never seem to go wrong, threads like this highlight that they do go wrong. People use the argument that they 'just work' to justify their inflated cost.

Now I'm not saying apple products are rubbish and they don't work, just the fact that they are overpriced designer goods that are no better than other offerings and have a snobbery value attached to them. Have you not heard the frequent claims of apple users 'you are only jealous of apple because you can't afford or wish you could afford one.' :rotfl:

macman

Those who rave about Apple products that 'just work' are generally referring to the operating system and application software, not the hardware. Under the skin, the components are the same as a Windows PC (although the build quality and finish is much superior). Or to put it another way, I wouldn't want to run Windows 8.1 on an iMac, but I'd be fairly OK with running OSX on a PC.

fred246

So all the extra cash goes on 'build quality and finish'. They must use some expensive paint on those Apples. I suppose 'soldered in RAM' is an example of superior build quality.