What is happening to my MacBook

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Ok so ive been using my macbook pro for over a year now with NO problems whatsoever.

i took it out of my bag today and i couldnt find my power cord so i used my friends macbook power cord to charge up my macbook

i was browsing the web and was trying to save some pictures when it suddenly started making these weird cricket type noises on the upper left hand side of the computer

all my programs froze and then i had to manually shut down the computer..

i flipped the computer over and took out the battery then put it back in...

i re-started the computer and it continued to make the cricket noises and it would freeze on the grey startup screen with the apple logo and a circulating "load" symbol underneath it...

i manually shut off the computer again and started it back on this time i just let it run...it took about 10 minutes for it to prompt my password...i entered in the password and it took another 10 minutes for it to load to my desktop...as of now its still loading all i can see is my original dsktop image no files no programs no nothing...

its still making those cricket noises as we speak


I HAVE NO IDEA what is going on!?!? could it be because i used the wrong power cord? did i get a virus? what the heck could it be???

omg im getting really scared its making lots of weird noises right now!
 
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UPDATE: after 30 minutes i now see a fragment of the "Spotlight" tool on the upper right corner. nothing else has loaded thogh

its still making those weird clicking noises

what does this mean?? whats going on????? :(
 

dtravis7


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Are you still plugged into your friends power adapter? Is his the exact same machine?

Are you sure the clicking is coming from the left rear and not the left front? The Hard Drive is in the Left front and if it's dying can make those clicking sounds.

I would run the Apple Hardware Test off the Install DVD and see if it finds anything wrong. On the Intel Macs I believe you hold down the D key right after the Startup Sound with the OSX DVD in the drive to run the Apple Hardware Test.
 
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Are you still plugged into your friends power adapter? Is his the exact same machine?

Are you sure the clicking is coming from the left rear and not the left front? The Hard Drive is in the Left front and if it's dying can make those clicking sounds.

I would run the Apple Hardware Test off the Install DVD and see if it finds anything wrong. On the Intel Macs I believe you hold down the D key right after the Startup Sound with the OSX DVD in the drive to run the Apple Hardware Test.

No i am using my own power adapter now.

his is a white macbook mine is a macbook pro.

the clicking at first came from the left rear and then now that its been "loading" the clicking is coming from the left front...

if the harddrive died wouldnt it NOT be able to load to the desktop screen at all? i mean i can see the little picture i had set up as my desktop wallpaper...i can also see the spotlight tool on the upper right corner (part of it)

ughhhh i am sooooooo scared i have SO many files on there!!
 

dtravis7


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Another quick thing you can do is open Disk Utilities in the Utility folder. Click on the Hard Drive and check the SMART status on the bottom and see if says Failing or OK. I would run the hardware test though from the DVD.
 
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Another quick thing you can do is open Disk Utilities in the Utility folder. Click on the Hard Drive and check the SMART status on the bottom and see if says Failing or OK. I would run the hardware test though from the DVD.


disk utilities in the utilities folder??? where is the utlities folder?
i cant access anything from my desktop...
 
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OK so i talked ot a manger at the apple store and explained to him my issue he said it might be that my comptuer is trying all that it can to operate based on what little memory it has left

(before i tried saving the pictures my computer only had about like 50 mb left)

he said that i could try holding the
apple option p + r button upon start up or hold shift button to disable plugiins

and that might work? does anyone else know what would happen if my computer used up all its memory? would it just stop functioning? isnt there some kind of safety feature?
 
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the manager guy also suggested that i unload some of my content onto a separate hardware or connect it to another mac..how would i do this???
i do have another mac ..so someone pls tell me how
 
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Holding the "shift" key while starting, will boot into Safe mode. It checks the startup drive and only loads only what's necessary to run. You may be able to use it to boot, so you can delete some files.

Use Target Disk mode to connect to another Mac. It will allow your Mac to be used as an external HDD.

This may help as well.
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
 
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You may want to try fsck as well. Here are some situations in which fsck may be necessary.
  • Your Mac OS X disc isn't available.
  • Your optical drive isn't available.
  • You can't start with a Safe Boot.
 
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Holding the "shift" key while starting, will boot into Safe mode. It checks the startup drive and only loads only what's necessary to run. You may be able to use it to boot, so you can delete some files.

Use Target Disk mode to connect to another Mac. It will allow your Mac to be used as an external HDD.

This may help as well.
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html


wen i try to boot up in safe mode the computer shuts down completely ...
any idea why that is?? :(
 
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You may want to try fsck as well. Here are some situations in which fsck may be necessary.
  • Your Mac OS X disc isn't available.
  • Your optical drive isn't available.
  • You can't start with a Safe Boot.


i tried the FSCK it gave me an error message! :(
 
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i have no idea what to do now...

is that whole target drie thing fool proof??? should i even bother going thru the trouble? is there a chance that it wont work like everything else? :)

-how about resetting the nvram or whatever i tried resetting the pram nothing happened

-lastly i read about something called discwarrior do u think that wil help???


UGH im so frustrated!!
i dont know what to do
 
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How much will an appointment at the "Genius Bar" cost me? im getting desperate

im getting desperate to fix this freakin problem on my computer..
can get past login but desktop wont load properly...

tried everything from resetting pram to blah blahb lah NONE Of it is working!!!

i dont have applecare...

how much will having an apple guy at the genius bar cost me :(
 
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They will look at it for free.
 
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i tried the FSCK it gave me an error message! :(
Can you post the error message?

And it is possible your HDD is failing, as Dtravis7 mentioned.
 
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My experience has been quite good with the genius folks. They will troubleshoot as far as can be done before they will recommend service.
 
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To fix an Invalid Sibling Link.
  1. Boot into Single User mode.
  2. Run fsck -yf
  3. Note the filesystem. (For example /dev/disk0s9 )
  4. You can also get the info from Disk Utility, under disk identifier, by selecting your named HDD and select info from the toolbar.
  5. If repair fails and mentions Invalid Sibling Link...
  6. Type fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s9 (replacing disk0s9 with your info)
  7. Type reboot
 

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