Macbook wont start, how can I save my data?!

[9sam1]

Ok so my macbook freezes on the apple logo on start up. It seems there is a problem with the hard drive, I've tried multiple fixes, fsck, disk utility etc. etc. Can't even boot up into safe mode.

I think I'm going to try to reformat the hard drive and see if that works. I am just wondering how I can back up my data? I've got an external hard drive, and I think there is some way to back up your data using the disk utility? Can someone help me out and walk me through it?

 

[chscag]

If you can't access the hard drive on your MacBook you won't be able to backup. The time to backup was when the drive was working OK.

Even if you could reformat the drive, that would destroy all data. The best suggestion I have is to replace the hard drive and then put the old hard drive in a USB carrier or use an adapter and try to extract data that way.

You'll need specialized software to do that. I recommend Data Rescue 3. You can download a trial version and test to see if you can access the data on the drive.

 

[9sam1]

The thing is. When I run the repair thing in disk utility. It tells me my hard drive is OK, and the hard drive is still being recognized by the computer, so it's not like it's completely **** the bed, are you sure i'll need to replace it?