My MacBook had a complete and total failure today. Complete hang, followed by a failure to reboot, and then a frustrating inability to even get far enough into a boot sequence or diagnostic to even identify what the failure might be. So I walked it over to the Apple Store, and even though the computer was out of warranty, they hooked it up to their fancy diagnostic systems, deduced that it was a faulty HD cable, and then performed the repair. After all that, they only charged me $20, and that was for the new cable. I only waited about 10 minutes, and my computer came back with a cleaned screen and keyboard, as a bonus. I guess the fingerprints and cookie crumbs offended their hipster sensibilities. Not that I'm complaining.

All in all, the most painless catastrophic system failure I've ever experienced. Although I gotta wonder if this is killing the independent service and repair market for Macs?