Macbook bricked? Help needed urgently.

Hello all,

I was copying about 90gb's of stuff from my Macbook over to an external, it got about half way through before I got an error message saying one of the files it was copying (I think it was an mp3 or a RAR file of an mp3) was corrupt and it could not copy it.

I clicked 'ok' and it seemed to carry on copying.

20 minutes later it was on the same place in the transfer, no more than before. I clicked 'stop' thinking it had crashed and I'll have to start over, but nothing happened. I carried on clicking it for a few minutes but it stayed as it was.

So I held the power button down and it switched off.

When I switch it back on I get the Apple welcome sound, but nothing else. Well, a white/grey screen.

I've tried to boot into safe mode buy holding down 'C', 'Shift', and whatever else Google suggested, but to no avail. I'm running Leopard, though the Mac came with Tiger originally in October. I've inserted Disc Utility disc ('Disc 1') that came in the box, but nothing happens.

And now the disc refuses to eject.

I have an appointment with at the Genius Bar on Tuesday but urgently need my macbook to work NOW. (Work reasons)

First post here, please help.

Can you boot into Single-user mode? (hold "apple" and "S" keys while booting)
Make sure to unplug anything connected to the Macbook.

If so, at the prompt, type fsck -fy It will force check and repair the HDD, if needed. If it does repair, run it as many times as neccesary, until it reports no errors.

To boot off the install disk, hold "c" while booting.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303124 (startup commands)

Ejecting CD's
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106882

I can't boot into SU mode, I held Apple and S and nothing happens.

In fact, I can't boot into ANY mode.. holding C does nothing either.

All I get it the apple tone when it starts up and a white screen.



Any other ideas?

Thanks

ps. The disc is still inside and refuses to come out.

if you absolutely can not wait...


this will work best if you have an SATA drive in an extenral enclosure - especially one you don't mind reformatting.


swap out the drive in the macbook with a spare (use ifixit.com for instructions - it's super easy).

put the old drive from the mb in the enclosure / you might be able to wait on mounting the new one in the macbook for now if you have another computer to test the old drive first.

check to see if the old drive now in the enclosure mounts to another computer (another mac should be able to see it fine if it's not toast - a pc may see it but probably won't know what to do with it unless you have a program like mac drive installed).

if you don't have a spare computer - which you should, since you're online - you could use your restore disks to load OS X on the spare drive that was in the external enclosure.

if you can see it just fine, then the drive should be ok and you can get your important data from it.
if you can't see it at all anywhere on any machine, then the drive may just be toast.
the bad if it is the HD - you lose that data unless you're willing to pay top dollar for some forensics type data recovery place to recover it for you.
the good if it is the HD - your macbook is not toast, just throw a new SATA drive in there and use your recovery disks to rebuild.

Since eric's got the practicals all covered, the purely academic answer is that, if you're stuck between the boot chime and seeing the metallic apple, then boot.efi can't be found.

Hey Eric, thanks for your reply.

eric said:

if you absolutely can not wait...


this will work best if you have an SATA drive in an extenral enclosure - especially one you don't mind reformatting.


swap out the drive in the macbook with a spare (use ifixit.com for instructions - it's super easy).

put the old drive from the mb in the enclosure / you might be able to wait on mounting the new one in the macbook for now if you have another computer to test the old drive first.

check to see if the old drive now in the enclosure mounts to another computer (another mac should be able to see it fine if it's not toast - a pc may see it but probably won't know what to do with it unless you have a program like mac drive installed).

Click to expand...

I was going to try this out but decided not too. 1) I'd like to know what's up with the current HD when I visit the Apple store tomorrow, and 2) I'm worried I'll void my warranty?

The whole point in my copying over all my HD's stuff was because I was planning on replacing the 120gb inside it with a 320gb I've just bought for it.

eric said:

if you don't have a spare computer - which you should, since you're online

Click to expand...

How ironic, but I haven't been able to reply to this post since yesterday because we had a power cut, and when the power came back on 10 minutes later my mum's PC wouldn't switch on. She wasn't in and I had no idea what was wrong with it, so I had NO INTERNET (!!!!!!!!!) all day yesterday. TV's boring.. so I went to sleep.

techound1 said:

Since eric's got the practicals all covered, the purely academic answer is that, if you're stuck between the boot chime and seeing the metallic apple, then boot.efi can't be found.

Click to expand...

Well... I get the boot chime, but nothing else. Just a grey screen. No "seeing the metallic apple" or anything!

Any ideas!?

Gash said:

Hey Eric, thanks for your reply.

I was going to try this out but decided not too. 1) I'd like to know what's up with the current HD when I visit the Apple store tomorrow, and 2) I'm worried I'll void my warranty?

Click to expand...

Gash,

Don't worry about the voiding the warranty by moving the hard drive. You can take out the original and replace it without any concern. Matter of fact, the Macbook manual shows you how to do it...

My best idea at this point would be to go ahead and take it back to the Apple store today.

Noel

Noels said:

Gash,

Don't worry about the voiding the warranty by moving the hard drive. You can take out the original and replace it without any concern. Matter of fact, the Macbook manual shows you how to do it...

My best idea at this point would be to go ahead and take it back to the Apple store today.

Noel

Click to expand...

Hey Noel, thanks for you reply.

I thought I'd be alright taking out the HD, but wasn't 100% sure and decided to just leave it in as I didn't want to have to explain myself to the Mac Genius dude when I take it in for my appointment tomorrow. I just want to be able to say I turned it off, and when I turned it back on it wasn't working..! Which is what happened!

Life without my Mac is very hard.

Hi guys, thanks for all your help.. just to update anyone who was curious.

I took my mac into Apple (Regent Street, London) and a Mac Genius tried to recover the HD, however to no avail. Unfortunately it was a goner!

They replaced the HD for me, a job that supposedly took 5-7 days.. only I got a call back 5 hours later saying it was ready to be picked up!!

I love Apple

Gash,

Glad they got it fixed for you so fast. It's a shame you didn't get all your files backed up before that happened. I feel your pain there, man... I've been there before myself.

Noel