Hello
I wonder whether anyone could kindly give me some advice please?
I have a Macbook, about 20 months old, running 10.4.
Last night it froze for no reason and I couldn't do anything, not even Force Quit applications as it was totally unresponsive. I turned it off by holding the power key. When I restarted the macbook it had a grey screen and flashing folder with a question mark in.
I googled and found loads of info on what I needed to do.... but I'm having the following probs.
When I boot pressing C the machine will not startup from DVD. I've tried this about 50 times! On one occasion only it DID, but when I selected the Disk Utility it got stuck on Gathering Disk Information with the cogwheel and wouldn't progress past there. I haven't been able to get back to that stage again.
When I boot pressing D with DVD1 in the drive - nothing happens.
When I boot pressing T I have managed to get the firewire logo to appear twice.
When I boot pressing shift or Command-V or Command-S -- nothing happens.
When I boot pressing Control - the mouse pointer appears but the blank screen remains. At this stage the caps-lock key will light if pressed, whereas on trying the other boot sequences above it will not.
I have reset the NVRAM which appeared to work because it reset my volume level (previously on mute) so I now hear the start-up tone... but it hasn't helped my problem.
I now don't get the flashing folder when I try and start up... I just get the grey screen. After a period of time it will spit my DVD out and the flashing folder with question mark reappears.
My wife has a Macbook Pro so I've just ordered a firewire 9 to 6 pin cable and if I can get my Macbook to boot into firewire mode again I will try and see if I can grab any of my files from the hard drive. But to be honest there is nothing on my hard drive that I am that worried about, so if I can't salvage anything it doesn't matter -- I certainly don't want to be paying for any attempted data recovery.
I have a few questions it anyone can help:
- Does it sound to you like this is just a hard drive failure or could it be something more catastrophic?
If it is just a hard drive failure then I don't really want to be paying my Apple service centre for tell me this....... not least because they are 40 mins drive away but also because the instructions/pics I have seen make it seem like it's a very simple job to change my own hard drive.
Therefore if I were to buy my own I'm not really sure what to get? I don't really need anything bigger than 250 or 320GB. I don't know what make is good or who is a good online retailer?
For example these 3 are all £59.99 but one is 160GB, one 250GB and one 320GB and the spec all looks pretty similar to me:
160Gb 2.5" SATA Hard Disk Drive Apple MacBook/Pro/Mini - Apple Mac Store
Hard Disk Drive Apple MacBook/Pro/Mini 250GB - Apple Mac Store
- Scorpio Blue 320GB Hard Drive Upgrade for MacBook & Mac mini Mac One stop Shop
Many thanks for any help.
I wonder whether anyone could kindly give me some advice please?
I have a Macbook, about 20 months old, running 10.4.
Last night it froze for no reason and I couldn't do anything, not even Force Quit applications as it was totally unresponsive. I turned it off by holding the power key. When I restarted the macbook it had a grey screen and flashing folder with a question mark in.
I googled and found loads of info on what I needed to do.... but I'm having the following probs.
When I boot pressing C the machine will not startup from DVD. I've tried this about 50 times! On one occasion only it DID, but when I selected the Disk Utility it got stuck on Gathering Disk Information with the cogwheel and wouldn't progress past there. I haven't been able to get back to that stage again.
When I boot pressing D with DVD1 in the drive - nothing happens.
When I boot pressing T I have managed to get the firewire logo to appear twice.
When I boot pressing shift or Command-V or Command-S -- nothing happens.
When I boot pressing Control - the mouse pointer appears but the blank screen remains. At this stage the caps-lock key will light if pressed, whereas on trying the other boot sequences above it will not.
I have reset the NVRAM which appeared to work because it reset my volume level (previously on mute) so I now hear the start-up tone... but it hasn't helped my problem.
I now don't get the flashing folder when I try and start up... I just get the grey screen. After a period of time it will spit my DVD out and the flashing folder with question mark reappears.
My wife has a Macbook Pro so I've just ordered a firewire 9 to 6 pin cable and if I can get my Macbook to boot into firewire mode again I will try and see if I can grab any of my files from the hard drive. But to be honest there is nothing on my hard drive that I am that worried about, so if I can't salvage anything it doesn't matter -- I certainly don't want to be paying for any attempted data recovery.
I have a few questions it anyone can help:
- Does it sound to you like this is just a hard drive failure or could it be something more catastrophic?
If it is just a hard drive failure then I don't really want to be paying my Apple service centre for tell me this....... not least because they are 40 mins drive away but also because the instructions/pics I have seen make it seem like it's a very simple job to change my own hard drive.
Therefore if I were to buy my own I'm not really sure what to get? I don't really need anything bigger than 250 or 320GB. I don't know what make is good or who is a good online retailer?
For example these 3 are all £59.99 but one is 160GB, one 250GB and one 320GB and the spec all looks pretty similar to me:
160Gb 2.5" SATA Hard Disk Drive Apple MacBook/Pro/Mini - Apple Mac Store
Hard Disk Drive Apple MacBook/Pro/Mini 250GB - Apple Mac Store
- Scorpio Blue 320GB Hard Drive Upgrade for MacBook & Mac mini Mac One stop Shop
Many thanks for any help.