Sudden Death

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So an emergency here! I have a Mac Pro with OS lion. My laptop has been working fine today! Suddenly it froze and I reboot it and now I see the blinking folder with question mark! I restart holding control and then I tried to diagnose and I don't see my hard drive anymore. What happens ? Did my hard drive just die? What can I do ?
 

chscag

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Go through your normal trouble shooting procedure: Boot to the recovery partition by holding down the command plus r keys. Then use Disk Utility to check the hard drive. If the drive can't be seen or you can't boot to the recovery partition, it's likely the drive has failed.
 
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So I held control and it took me to Internet recovery, I went to disk utility and could not see my hard drive! I only saw disk0 and Mac OSX Base System.i don't see my hard drive! Did I lose all of my data ?
 

chscag

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So I held control and it took me to Internet recovery, I went to disk utility and could not see my hard drive! I only saw disk0 and Mac OSX Base System.i don't see my hard drive! Did I lose all of my data ?

Unfortunately, if you didn't have a backup, then your data could well be gone. You can try using software to recover your data, however, since your hard drive can not be seen, recovery software may not work. Also, recovery software is expensive:

Disk Warrior 4

Data Rescue 3

Disk Drill Pro
 
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If Disk Utility did not see the drive sounds like it has gone to heaven. And sure looks like you have lost that data. Try installing a new drive, install old drive in an external caddy and download the demo version of Data Rescue 3 and see if there is any joy.

And you can use the external caddy and another drive to backup regularly so you don't get caught out again. Be assured ALL hard drives will fail as they are mechanical devices.


http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
 
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What could be a potential cause? I am so surprised since there was no sign at all for the whole day.
 

chscag

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Hard drives can fail anytime. Even new ones can fail, that's why it's so important to make frequent backups.
 
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Hard drives are like lightbulbs. They are designed, and generally do, work tirelessly for years on end. However, they COULD fail *at any given moment* with little or no warning.

I'm sorry this happened to you. I trust that when you get your replacement hard drive, you will this time also buy a backup drive to protect your data. We've all been in your position.
 
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I do have an external hard drive but I have not been able to back up my recent files lately, which I need for the moment. That is the only thing I am concern with.

Thanks a lot for your comment though! I guess I will have to back up my drive more frequently now.
 
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Backup weekly at least. Believe what noted Mac author David Pogue tells us. "There are two types of users. Those of us that have lost everything due to a drive failure, or those that are about to."
 

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