Is my hard drive dead? White screen/blinking Q mark/clicking

Hi,
I'm trying not to panic here but I'm worried my HD is dead and that I've lost all of my data. I left my computer on "sleep" mode all day today, not plugged in. When I got home just a bit ago I couldn't start up the computer. It keeps going to a white screen, clicking noise, and then a flashing question mark icon. I've been trying to look online now using my PC to figure out what's wrong.
I just tried using my startup disc to boot up. I was able to do that and choose Disk Utility but then my HD did NOT show up on the left hand side. The only things that showed up there were my DVD drive and the startup disc.
I have some really important data/photos that I can't afford to lose. Am I screwed? What should I do? This Macbook is from 2008. All of the updates are current on it, I think. I've never had any problems before with the HD.

Ugh! I can't afford this! Yeah I have some really important files that I didn't get a chance to put on my external HD yet. I'm afraid to find out how much that will cost to recover. Is it POSSIBLE to get them back?
How much does a new HD cost? Did me having it unplugged on sleep cause it to die?
And, now how do I get that startup disc out of my laptop??

Similar Messages

  • Hard Drive Dead? Help!

    Hi, so I recently bought an enclosure for my old HD that died out on me, I suppose? My mac was asleep, then I pressed any button on the computer to wake it up, then I clicked on Mail right away, and it froze for a while.. so I held the power down to restart it. When it restarted, it gave me a white screen with a folder with a question mark on it. I was told my HD was bad. So I changed it, now my mac is up and running. BUT... i need my old files from my old HD. I bought an enclosure, plugged and played.. nothing comes up. How can I get my old files? Please help!!!!

    This one has an outside chance of working. But if it doesn't work, _be warned_, might make the data completely unrecoverable through a professional data rescue service. I've only heard about this and never done it myself. You put it in the freezer. Not sure why this is supposed to work, but it might.
    _Much safer to try Data Rescue first. I would try this only as a last resort._
    For others, try googling hard drive dead freezer and see what you think.
    http://hacknmod.com/hack/how-to-recover-dead-hard-drive-data/
    I can tell you from experience that it in fact DOES work…most of the time. I have managed to recover data 3 times from dead drives, and have also not managed to recover data about the same amount of time. So, it is fair to say that for me, it worked 50% of the time.
    I placed the drive in two zip lock bags expelling as much as air as possible before zip locking both bags. I left it in the freezer for approx. 12 hours with no luck, but after freezing it for extended periods of time, it worked like a charm. It is also important to note that this is generally a one shot deal, if it works, you’re in luck, but you must get as much data as possible from the drive because once it dies, it is rare that you will gain access a second time.
    The 3 times I did manage to get the data back, I exhumed only the data that I absolutely required. In other words, only the data I created or files that I placed on the drive.
    I too, found it hard to believe when I first heard it, but after losing 3 years of tax returns I HAD to try it. Fortunately for me, it worked like a charm.

  • Gray folder with question mark-- is my hard drive dead?

    I have a white 13 inch MacBook that is about 3 years old and runs on Mac OS X 10.4 (I believe). In the past year, it has been running more and more slowly and programs keep freezing. I was going to ask for more RAM for Christmas, but decided to try a few maintenance steps first. I ran a VirusScan this morning (using McAfee), and when I came back into the room, my computer had frozen past all help. I powered it off with the power button, and now, when I try to start it, a gray screen appears with a question mark. I have tried some of the support steps listed to get it working again such as trying a safe boot (didn't work) and resetting my PRAM (didn't work). Is my hard drive dead? Is there any way I can get my files off the computer? I haven't backed up in about 3 months, and I am very upset because I have a lot of important papers and photos on my HD.
    Thank you..

    Hi corimazz and welcome to Apple Discussions!
    It is possible that your hard drive has kicked the bucket, but the folder with the question mark just shows that the computer cannot find a valid system when it starts up. There are a number of possible reasons for this.
    Do you have the 10.4 install disk? If so, insert it into the optical disk drive, restart the computer and hold down the C key during startup. Once the computer is booted to the install DVD, select your primary language, then look for the utilities menu and from it select "Disk Utility".
    In the Disk Utility, you should see a list of available disks, which we hope will include your hard drive. If the hard drive does not appear in the list, it is dead. If it does show up, select it and click the "Repair Disk" button to see if the problem is being caused by directory damage that can be repaired.
    If the drive is truly dead, you are going to have to decide how much the data from the last three months is worth to you. There are companies that have quite good records of recovering data from even very badly damaged hard drives (sunk in rivers, burned in fires, etc) but they are not cheap.
    In the USA some data recovery options include:
    DriveSavers.com - 800-440-1904
    www.ontrack.com - 800-872-2599
    www.lazarus.com - 800-341-3282
    Once you have the drive out (it's a simple process to remove) it can be replaced with a new one.
    I hate to say it, but keeping backups of important files is vital to safe computing. Both the Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems make this a much easier process using the "Time Machine" application.
    Best of luck.

  • Is Hard Drive Dead???

    Hello,
    Thanks for anyone that posts and helps me out here. These forums help alot.
    I have iMac G5 Isight (model before intel) 200GB HD 2.5GB Ram.
    Stopped working and saw blue screen with question mark the other day. uh oh.
    Attempted restart -> not solved
    attempted safe mode -> didnt work just shut down
    attempted single user mode (fsck) -> did not work (catalog file I/O error invalid node structure)
    attempted Disk Utilities off startup disk -> not work (failure on exit error keys out of order)
    sighed.
    bought Disk Warrior (as this helped others w similar issues)
    Attempted DW (fingers crossed) -> message said error "speed reduced by disk malfunction" also could not replace original directory b/c of disk malfunction. Comparison could not be performed and recommended backup and to look at preview.
    everything critical is backed up. no problem.
    everything non critical I dont care about.
    So now, the question is...
    Is my hard drive dead?
    If so, should I reformat it or is it "permanently wounded" and will have PTSD and cause further problems down the road.
    Or, should I bite the bullet and get a brand new Hard Drive??
    thanks so much !!!!
    mike

    Ok.
    now that I have some time going to do erase and install.
    I suppose info is on the apple support website for the exact steps.
    I remember reading somewhere to do settings all to zero?
    I was running Tiger latest version.
    I have a brand new Leopard disks here that I was going to upgrade to before all this happened.
    Should I just boot off the new Leopard disks?
    Or
    Should I boot off Tiger and then upgrade everything afterwards?
    thanks again

  • Folder with ? at startup - is my hard drive dead?

    At startup I got a folder with a question mark.
    I started up from MacOS 10.5 DVD, opened disk utility and my hard drive was not shown in the available volumes.
    In System Profiler, under serial-ATA, it says "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices.
    Tried to reset the PRAM, it did't help.
    Is my hard drive dead, or is there something else for me to try?

    sorry to say but yes your hard drive died....it has just happened to me last week....18mth white macbook. I hope you have everything back up....(I had just got a external hard drive and was going to back up the day it died...sods law!)
    Took it to the Apple store and they replaced the drive....fantastic service...got it back in a day.
    so lesson to all...back up.

  • How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?

    I have a seagte back up plus. I pulled my hard drive out without ejecting it and now finder dosn't find it but I see it in disk utility (although I cant repair permissions) How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?
    Thank you so much for any help

    In Disk Utility you need to see a volume or partition in addition to the drive.
    If all you see is the drive, then when you ejected it you proably corrupted the volume or partition on the drive.
    If that is true then your chances of getting anything back are slim at best.
    About the only thing I know that might work not is to send the disk out to a service for recovery. This is going to cost like $$$$.
    Is the data worth that much?
    Allan

  • White screen of death with clicking sound?

    i got a White screen of death with clicking sound after crashing in boot camp with winXP, i try to put in the macbook installed disc, but nothing happened & i cannot reject the CD, is it the hard drive problem & how can i fix it? do i have to replace the hard drive....

    It appears that Apple knows about the problem now: http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/04/apple-admits-to-macbook-air-screen-problems-in ternally-software-fix-coming/
    The only problem is that I ended up buying a new Macbook Air and Apple is taking back my other one. The wanted me to send it in and have them replace it, but it's my only computer and I can't be without it for a week. It would suck if they come up with a software fix and replacing it was not necessary.
    Support was very helpful and worked with me for a few days trying to isolate the issue. I don't get the horizontal lines (I get a solid grey, white, black or blue screen), so I am not sure if my issue is the same as the one that Apple is recognizing.

  • My macpro has white screen wit ? Mark on folder wot does this mean

    Hav a white screen wit question mark on it screen wont open can anyone help plez or is it a warranty repair as its only 10 months old  thk you

    The Macbook cannot find a bootable volume (hard drive).
    You can attach external hard drive (with OS X installed) or installation media (USB flash drive or DVD) and boot from there.
    Then launch Disk Utility and try to reformat your internal hard drive.
    Always keep a bootable clone of your system on an external drive for occasions like these.

  • I want to disconnect my hard drive from my iMac, if I right click on either of my drives nothing comes up, if I try to move them to trash, one goes in the bin but the other will not, how do I get rid of that one please?

    I have two hard drives for my iMac, I cannot right click on either icon to 'safely disconnect' either drive, but I can send one to trash.  The other however will not go to trash so how do I disconnect this one please?

    Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
    ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
    ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
    Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
    View ▹ Show Log List
    from the menu bar.
    Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
    When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
    Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
    Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

  • Most of the time when I turn computer on I get the white screen and question mark.  Sometimes it will turn on and work but often the spinning disk starts and especially when opening Iphoto and it generally freezes

    Most of the time when I turn on the Mac I get the white screen and question mark appear.  Sometimes it will turn on and work. But often the coloured spinning wheel starts up especially after trying to use iphoto it freezes and a couple of times the screen has then gone black.  The computer seemed pretty warm yesterday when this happened.
    Any suggestions of what I should do to fix it would be greatly appreciated.
    Kate

    See this on the question mark when you start up: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US
    See this on the spinning beach ball: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

  • How to erase a Macbook Pro Hard drive when the screen is dead

    I have a Macbook Pro (2007) with a dead screen and a motherboard issue. Just bought a new macbook and i was planning on transfering the hard drive over and selling my pro on ebay for parts, Is there anyway i can securely delete my data from the computer without seeing it on the screen before i decide to sell it?

    Be sure your dead Mac isn't covered by this program:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
    If it is, you can get a free repair, and it would be worth a lot more on EBay.
    Good luck!

  • How to wipe the hard drive on a screen-dead Powerbook G3?

    The display on my 1998 G3 Wallstreet Powerbook recently went black and the computer made a noise that I understand is called The Chimes of Death, although the hard drive still makes whirring noises. My local and trustworthy Apple repair service assures me the Powerbook wouldn't be worth repairing even if they could get the parts for such an old machine.
    Is there a way to wipe the hard drive and make my data irretrievable before disposing of the computer?
    If there's no way to wipe the hard drive, I'd like to find out: (1) How to remove the hard drive. (2) The best way to destroy the hard drive or at least make it forever unreadable (can my shredder eat it?). (3) The correct way to dispose of a Powerbook that has heard the Chimes of Death. (From what the repair service says, I assume nobody would want it as a donation.)

    Turtlewiz,
    I would not be so quick to pronounce it dead:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14438
    I would try the suggestions in the above article. Will it boot to a CD?
    As far as wiping the drive, it is easy as long as you can see a display so you can follow the steps necessary. You just open Drive Setup in the Utilities Folder on the CD > select 'zero all data' in the Initialization Options; do it a few times if concerned.
    Removing the HD is relatively easy: Just lift off the keyboard and the heat sink, then remove the HD.
    http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/3.0.0.html
    Hit the HD a few times with a hammer and nobody will bother with it...it has a glass platter.
    Nothing to offer on the recycling except Good Will may still take it as "non-working" since there are Mac users looking for such bargains.

  • How to erase a early 2008 iMac Hard drive when the screen is dead

    My early 2008 iMac's Graphics Module has died for the third and last time. I want to erase the Hard Drive before I offer it up for sale as parts or just re-cycling. But with the Graphics Module dead it will not boot up, therefore no display. So how do I erase my data and restore to a clean OS?

    Make sure that your old Mac will boot into disk mode then buy this Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter

  • Is my ipod hard drive dead?

    since yesterday i have been having problem restoring my ipod.
    when i restore my ipod through itune the restore goes somewhat fine ipod reboots, apple with progress bar then the plain apple logo and it stays there for 5-10 min and goes to do not disconnect and does not appear in itunes.
    at this point i use windows to safely remove the ipod after which it takes about another min for the ipod to pull up the language selection screen.
    then when i plug it back in it takes around another 5 min to show up in itunes (does'nt matter is itunes is open or closed) or itune may not open at all but the ipod still appears in My Computer.
    when he ipod does finally appear in itunes i get the name screen like normal and i go though setting what music to sync like always but during the sync i get a -69 error.
    to note my mp3s are all good and it doesn't fail at any consistent point. fails to sync at random intervals.
    overall the ipod operates very slowly and i can't sync to it at all.
    my guess is the hard drive is dead/dying.
    i have done every re-install, file removal, and reset trick i could find including putting the ipod into disk mode. nothing works
    NOTES:
    iPod is 5th gen with video 30GB 2006 ver. (also when i got it)
    no warranty anymore.
    what i want to know is if my ipod needs repair and how much it will cost

    well i am pretty sure the hard drive is dead.
    my disk checks indicate alot of bad sectors.
    so does anyone know how much a repair will cost?
    i really like this 30GB the new classic models start at 80GB and cost $250 which is too expensive and i have no need for such space. my entire collection only spans between 7-8GB and i don't even keep a third of that on my ipod right now its only 271 songs. however 30GB offered plenty of future expansion room so thats why i got it.
    so does anyone have any info?
    NOTE: i am also curious about the SDRAM test output in my last post. could there be another problem with me ipod too?

  • Hard Drive dead? - Failed to Issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts.

    Hello, i think my 13" 2.53Ghz Unibody (mid2009) MBP's hard drive has had it's last spin. I was using it normally in bootcamp, when windows7 froze, so I rebooted holding the power button....windows wouldnt start any more...ok, so i tried to boot into OSX...stuck at the loading screen with the apple.
    Went into verbose mode and it stops at "Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing..." Google says this has to do with the hard drive.
    Did a extensive hardware test (boot + D), all OK, booted from install disk and tried to run disk utility, but it crashed when trying to locate the drives (didn't even list the drive on the right pane). Single User mode wont load either, will give the same COM RESET message. I am literally out of options here.
    Is there something i can do to either fix this or verify 100% that my hard disk is truly dead?
    I have a backup in timemachine so the data is ok, but the timing couldnt be worse, i have no time to fix this now and needed a working laptop, highly frustrating.
    thanks for any tips

    nobrex wrote:
    Hello, i think my 13" 2.53Ghz Unibody (mid2009) MBP's hard drive has had it's last spin. I was using it normally in bootcamp, when windows7 froze, so I rebooted holding the power button....windows wouldnt start any more...ok, so i tried to boot into OSX...stuck at the loading screen with the apple.
    Went into verbose mode and it stops at "Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing..." Google says this has to do with the hard drive.
    Did a extensive hardware test (boot + D), all OK, booted from install disk and tried to run disk utility, but it crashed when trying to locate the drives (didn't even list the drive on the right pane). Single User mode wont load either, will give the same COM RESET message. I am literally out of options here.
    Is there something i can do to either fix this or verify 100% that my hard disk is truly dead?
    I have a backup in timemachine so the data is ok, but the timing couldnt be worse, i have no time to fix this now and needed a working laptop, highly frustrating.
    thanks for any tips
    Welcome to the Apple Forums!
    Your HDD is probably dead, since the error doesn't appear to indicate something wrong with the motherboard. Just buy a new 2.5" HDD. I don't know about prices in Brazil, but here in the US, a 1TB drive runs for around US$100. Also, check on eBay for people who upgraded their drive and are selling their Apple drive. Some will ship to Brazil, and you can score those for $50-100.
    I hope you backed up your hard drive. If not, you'll have to do the whole reinstallation process.

Maybe you are looking for