mac book pro 2008

[sparkywitmer]

so i have this mac book pro 2008. I go to start it up and it loads all fine, then when it gets to the loading screen with the apple symbol and the spinning gear, it stays their, does not freeze, but the gear keeps on spinning. I cant take it to the apple store because my current location. People at my work have told me it is my harddrive went bad, but i am not 100% sure. Please help me find out with is wrong.

 

[techiesteve]

It's more likely to be your hard drive failed or failing. Insert your install DVD, start up holding down the character C key, select your language, then run Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu. Click on your hard drive to the top left, then Repair Disk at the bottom right.

Does your hard drive show at the top left? If so can you see whatever you named the drive, i.e. Macintosh HD indented in below it, or is it greyed out? Does it indicate Smart Status failure?