Apple sent me a box to send it for repair and the next week it was in a worse state. This is mysterious, really. They changed the main logic board as well and the hard drive (and also the top case and they exchanged the battery). It doesn’t make sens that it wouldn’t boot at all.
More conversation with 800-APL-CARE and I was instructed to install an OS. Well, duh. There was one, said the installer. Anyway, I erased and installed, and did the software updates. The next step was to bring my backup on Precious. That was a mission for later at home, where my backup was. So I put the Precious to sleep.
And once at home, Precious didn’t wake from sleep.
More 800-APL-CARE action. I got to speak with a nice guy named Tim. We proceeded to some basic key-combo tests and as all of these failed, he instructed me to remove the apple-branded RAM and place my non-apple-branded one. No better. Precious wouldn’t boot. Tim made an appointment for me at the Genius Bar of the Cambridgeside Apple Store and gave me his e-mail address. I was to e-mail him if the genius couldn’t fix my computer.
There was nothing the genius could do. I was at the Genius Bar for more than an hour, repeatedly spacing out and thinking about the work I wasn’t doing, the frustration that my Precious was in such a bad state, the satisfaction that I purchased a replacement computer.
The genius decided to check-in Precious again for repair. I left the apple store and went on e-mailing Tim. He replied saying he’d call the genius, find out what he thinks the issue is, and get back to me with alternatives. I haven’t heard from him since.