Data Recovery - Failed HD on 2010 MacBook Pro

Question

Hello, I have had a HD failure, or at least what I believe to be one on my 2010 MacBook Pro. I updated to Mavericks from Snow Leopard in October and everything appeared to run smoothly. 2 days ago I was watching a video in Itunes I my entire system froze, however the mouse was still moveable as was the dock. Rather stupidly, i tried to load a couple of applications, they did eventually load, but were not function able. The pinwheel kept spinning, and trying to move the page windows only resulted in lag. The system then crashed completely, and I had to restart. It would not go past the grey screen with the apple logo.
For the past day I`ve tried on and off everything that I know how to do. PRAM and SMC resets, Apple Hardware disk (which resulted in an issue with one of my memory sticks. I switched them out, ran the test again, and the system simply crashed part way through), and Disk utility. After running Verify and Repair permissions/disk permission in Disk Utility, I received the message relating to an "uncorrectable error" and "This disk cannot be repaired."
I`ve had issue with this machine on and off for nearly the past two years. Disk utility has appeared resolve the issues, but sometime later something else would crop up. Kernal issues have become more and more frequent as have crashes, and I`ve suspected the HD is to blame. Back in Aug 2012 I had the logic board replaced under warranty, due to graphic issues and problems display games/video or other media and lag. This fixed the issue for a few months, then the kernal problems started and I have frequently (every few days) needed to restart and gotten error messages. The machine will no longer start up, and though most of my date is backed up, some of it is not, and I really would like to get it back. The apple logo will appear on screen for 30sec-1min then crash and automatically restarts.
System Info: 15' 2010 MacBook Pro
2.66GHZ i7
5400rpm HD
etc.
Also, I have tried booting up with the "Shift" key held and the following message has appeared multiple times on the grey/apple logo screen:
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xfffff80189cd7d4): "Process 1 exec of /sbn/launched falled, errno 2"0/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-24422.1.72/bsd/kern/kern_exec.c:3836
Debugger called: <panic>
0xffffff8100e1bdf0 : 0xffffff8018622f69
0xffffff8100e1be7d : 0xffffff80189cb7d4
0xffffff8100e1bef0 : 0xffffff80189ab867
0xffffff8100e1bf20 : 0xffffff80189dfe51
0xffffff8100e1bf50 : 0xffffff8018620b2b
0xffffff8100e1bf80 : 0xffffff80186dc7d3
0xffffff8100e1bfa0 : 0xffffff80186f35d2
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: init
Mac OS version:
Not yet set
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.0: Thu Sep 19 22:22:27 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2422.1.72~6/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: 1D9369E3-D0A5-31B6-8D16-BFFBBB390393
Kernel slide:            0x0000000018400000
Kernel text base:     0xffffff8018600000
System model name: MacBookPro6,2 (Mac-F22586c8)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 4597800225
My primary concern is Data Recovery if possible, then dealing with whatever the issue may be. If the HD is in fact to blame, I can replace it, but I`d really like to get the remain date that is on the drive if possible. Looking through the forums I see that others have had similar issues. I appreciate any help or suggestions that anyone can offer. . Thank you to anyone in advance!

Answer 1

Appfan42,
you’ve now discovered where the value lies in making regular backups — to avoid data loss due to a “single point of failure”. If the data that’s currently only on your hard drive is irretrievable through ordinary means, there is still the possibility of hiring the services of a data recovery company, but their services are typically quite expensive. Should it be necessary for you to purchase a replacement hard drive (or SSD), I’d highly recommend that you also purchase an external hard drive for use as a Time Machine backup destination, so that you can make regular backups, and thus avoid a similar situation at some future date.
That being stated, there is a chance that the problem is due to a faulty internal SATA cable rather than a faulty hard drive. The way to check that would be to purchase either a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter or an external disk enclosure, and move your hard disk outside of its usual place within your MacBook Pro. After that, boot into Recovery mode and run Disk Utility from there to verify/repair your drive while it’s external, and see if it will boot normally afterwards. If it behaves itself externally, then that could point to the problem lying with your internal SATA cable; that would also be the right time to perform data recovery and start making regular Time Machine backups.