Late 2006 Macbook questions.

Hello lovelies.

I need a little help. Can anyone tell me what this means? I ran tech tool deluxe on my mac and I'm wondering whats the deal with this. I had the apple care plan for 3 years and no problems. Unfortunately now its done and I got this message.

Any help is appreciated!

Looks like your HD is failing, and it's time for a new HD,
Definitely time to keep current external backups.
You can try booting from your install disk and running the AHT, as well as going to disk utility, and repairing the disk.

Yikes! I don't even have an external hard drive for back ups. I think my HD is only 40 gb.

Is it going to die out on me soon, in other words?

No one can answer that.... I wouldn't be using the computer until you get hold of an external HD at the very least. You can pick one up (320GB) for around $50 or less, that you make 2 partitions.
One partition for Time Machine backups, and the other as a bootable clone (which I would highly recommend) using Carbon Copy Cloner - Home or SuperDuper!.
With the clone this means that you can still use your Mac if your internal HD dies until you get a new internal HD.
A good internal HD will set you back $80-$100.

Oh ok. I guess I better look into getting the back up HD for now.

Uggh. It just kind of confusing. I'm not good at the whole backing up process, that's why I never did it. I guess I will now!

Thanx! I might have more questions later tho'.

I have so many valuable files on my mac too! 

That's ok.... Backup's are essential, and easy.
To partition the new external HD, when you plug it in, go to disk utility and select the Ext HD in the left column.
Click the partition tab and select under volume scheme, 2 partitions.
Click on one and format as Mac Os Extended (journaled) and name it Clone.
Click on one and format as Mac Os Extended (journaled) and name it Time Machine.
It will look something like this:


Come back for instruction on time machine or the clone or both when you are ready

Netty4mac said:

I have so many valuable files on my mac too! 

Click to expand...

I really wouldn't be using your Mac until you get the backups sorted.

Thanks so much! I'm searching for an external HD right now.

Does it have to be 320GB??

Nope, can be any size you want.
Any of these will work.
OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro Bus-Powered FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0 and 2.5" SATA Portable Hard Drive & SSD Solution
Because Im in Oz, I'll have to leave it upto others here to advise you on what and where to get, but OWC is good.
Otherwise, and computer stores will have ext HDs.
I'd just go for the cheapest Mac compatible Western Digital like this My Passport for Mac 250 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drives ( WDBAAB2500ACH )

I'm looking into eBay right now for one.

This is the internal HD I would recommend.
Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 7K500 HD20500 IDK/7K 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive
You could actually get that and an external enclosure like this USB 2.0 Bus Powered Portable Enclosure Serial-ATA 2.5" NoteBook Hard Drive Solution
Then you can use the above HD as a backup HD until your internal HD dies, and then swap it out when it does.
If you went for this method, I would just use it to make clones with CCC, and then when it came time to swapping HDs, all you would have to do is swap them, and your Mac would be up and running as it was with the old HD.

Hope I'm not confusing you too much

Umm no not really.

I was thinking, I could back up my mac to the external HD and then also just boot off of that instead of the old internal HD is that possible?

I've been planning on getting a new mac

I'm planning on getting a new Mac within the next few months. That's why.

Sorry for the double post I'm on my iPhone typing. Haha

With the CCC clone, you can boot off that, but with a USB enclosure, it will be slow.
For decent speed, I would get the firewire enclosure, in which case you would need something like this.
OWC Mercury On-The-Go Portable 2.5" FW400/US... (MSTG400U2) at OWC

Oooh ok. So the external HD needs to be FireWire not USB?

So my computer will run slow if it's USB?

Doesn't need to be, but is really preferable for speed.
For your Mac, if it's going to be firewire, it needs to be firewire 400.
In the future if you get a new Mac with firewire 800, you can get an adapter like Amazon.com: Sonnet FireWire 400 to 800 Adapter (FAD-824): Electronics
Otherwise, you could get an enclosure that supports 400 and 800.

Netty4mac said:

So my computer will run slow if it's USB?

Click to expand...

Yep... usable, but slow.