hey guys, forgive Me if i overlooked this while searching. My girlfriend has a Macbook pro, not sure of the year, not that old Maybe 2 years or so (has the trackpad with the button integrated into it and the black border around the screen, and it appears My end parenthesis and M button aren't working on Mine, but anyway. It all started when her Mbp wouldnt boot, gets to the loading circle and stays there, so i tried to reset the praM and all still no dice, wont boot in safe Mode, kernal fault there, passed hardware test?!?! don't even understand why. Tried disk utility and it wont even let Me repair or verify, and the hd shows up but sometimes not the "Machintosh HD" option. So after screwing around and chasing My tail for a while i said what the **** i'll use her external hd, install the operating system to that and see what happens, so now it boots from the external no problem. Now even though it would be nice to get it working again at this point she really only wants her files off of it, shes a graphic designer and needs them, I'm pretty sure her files are still there, why you say? well when i was foolin around with it i saw them! Not sure if it was when i was attempting to do a disk image, which didn't work, or not but i know they are there. My question is, now that i can boot it from the external drive, can i get her files back, or better yet, fix the factory hd? Sorry about the long post that probably doesn't Make sense but thanks anyway