03-11-2010, 02:44 PM

Hi!
I've searched hi and low, and have found kinda similar problems, but either they were slightly different from my problems, or the solutions didn't work for me. So therefore I try you guys.

Ok. Here goes.

First: My two year old MBP (last model before unibody) suddenly went dark. The sleep-light was still on. I turned it off, and ever since, when I try to boot it, I can hear the hard drive start spinning, but then after one second, it abruptly stops with a single clicking sound, and turns completely off. The screen remains totally black.

First thought: Hard drive is dead! I disassembled my MBP (have done this with other computers a lot of times - i know what i'm doing, don't worry :-) ) - took out the hard drive to rescue my data. Mission accomplished. First sign of no hard drive failure. I then formatted this drive and reinserted it into my MBP. Same problem.

Hmm. Might still be some part of the hard drive? I then found an old similar hard drive and installed into the MBP. Exact same problem. I've tried booting the computer with all sorts of buttons pressed down, but it's always the same.

So that's problem ONE!

Another slight problem is that I have inserted my OSX 10.6 DVD into the drive (it ate that DVD right up) but now it wont spit it out again.

So two problems:

1. How to fix MBP? Is it the motherboard that's dead?

2. How to get my DVD out of a computer that wont even remotely boot?

HELP! :-)

Claus

03-11-2010, 03:21 PM

Hold down the mouse button or trackpad button on start up, that may eject the disk

03-11-2010, 03:32 PM

He says the screen is black and nothing makes it light up. Sounds like something more serious than the hard drive. He tried another drive and same black screen.

03-11-2010, 03:47 PM

Thanks but I already tried holding down the trackpad. When I get the chance I'll try and connect a usb-mouse and hold that down, but don't think it will work.

It seems like a bigger problem, I agree, but it really puzzles me that the hard drive DOES start to spin, if only even for a second. I'm thinking - what makes it stop again?? Weird.

Another thing. After putting the DVD in the drive, I tried holding down the on/off button and that actually made the DVD start to spin for 3-4 seconds, but then followed by the click sound and then terrible silence.. :-(

03-13-2010, 10:05 AM

ok - DVD-problem solved. i disassembled the macbook completely, took out the optical drive and screw the top off this. i could then manually extract the DVD.

BUT

after having put it back together it's still the exact same problem when i boot.

it starts to make the sounds of the harddrive spinning, the little sleep-lamp on the front goes on, and then after 1 second the hard drive stops abruptly with a clicking sound and then it's all dead.

i'm not necessarily looking for an answer in regards to "what-to-do-to-solve" - i would be totally content with someone just telling me what might be broken?