MacBook Hard Drive Issues. Any Suggestions?

I have a black MacBook from 2007 that worked wonderfully until...
On Monday I had the systems update request and allowed it to install the updates and restart after. When it went to restart it could not boot up properly... flashing question mark on a folder.
I tried to boot up from the installation disk and run the first aid, but my only option under first aid was "verify disk permissions." all of the other repair disk options were not available. When I tired to verify disk permissions, I got an error message indicating that the disk is unavailable.
I tried to reinstall the OS, but the HD doesn't show up as an option. In fact there aren't any available locations to install the OS according to the computer.
Tried booting up in targeted mode while connected to another Mac (MacBook Pro from 2011) via firewire. The black MacBook booted into targeted mode fine, but the MacBook Pro could not see the black MacBook. So, I couldn't run disk doctor or any other analogous program.
I've frozen the HD; I've smacked the HD (suggestions from other forums). No clicking noise, so I think it's logical, rather than mechanical failure.
Luckily I had pretty decent back ups, so the data isn't a big deal (although I'd like to have some of the files that are new since the last back up). But I'd really like to have use of my MacBook again, rather than a really expensive paperweight. Plus, I like the color, and Apple discontinued it...
Any Suggestions? Please Help!

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
Short answer: Sounds like your hard drive is completely dead. You likely need a brand new hard drive.
If you're near an Apple store or authorized repair center, they can fix you up.
If you're a do-it-yourselfer, the tech specs are: 9.5mm tall (or less) 2.5" SATA laptop hard disk, 5400 or 7200 rpm. Storage capacities currently available range from about 250GB up to 1TB though you might still find smaller capacities available at retailers. Solid State Drives (SSD's) will work, but are often 4x more expensive compared with traditional hard drives. You'll also need two tools, an uncommonly small Philllips-head screwdriver, a Torx driver, and your original OS X system/install CD/DVD's.
I have replaced several drives, and recommend Other World Computing (www.macsales.com) if you're going to order online and do the work yourself. They have replacement/upgrade info here
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade gives you details and prices.
and installation videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/OWCmacsales
Message was edited by: kostby

Similar Messages

  • My 13" macbook just stopped working. When you turn it on you get a white screen and hear a repetitive clicking sound on the left side. Is this the hard drive? Any suggestions on replacement drives?

    My 13" macbook just stopped working. When you turn it on you get a white screen and hear a repetitive clicking sound on the left side. Is this the hard drive? Any suggestions on replacement drives?
    Thanks

    Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
    When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. When it comes up is your Hard Drive in the list on the left?
    If it is, then click on the Mac OS partition of your hard drive in the left hand list. Then select the First Aid Tab and run Repair Disk. The Repair Disk button won't be available until you've clicked on the Mac OS partition on your hard drive. If that repairs any problems run it again until the green OK appears and then run Repair Permissions. After repairing use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for restarting from your hard drive.
    If your hard drive isn’t recognized in Disk Utility then your hard drive is probably dead.

  • Having trouble getting Time Machine to back up my external hard drive.  Any suggestions?

    I'm running Mountain Lion on my iMac and I've been using Time Machine to back it up to my Time Capsule.  Recently, the iMac's hard drive filled up, so I moved my iTunes library to a new Airport Time Capsule.  But I can't seem to get Time Machine to include the new Airport Time Capsule in its back up. 
    The only suggestion I can find is to make sure it's not excluded in the Time Machine options, and I can see that nothing is excluded.  However, when I go into Time Machine, the Airport Time Capsule is greyed out in the Finder window.
    Anyone have any ideas?  Thanks in advance, I'm a little nervous about having my iTunes library hanging out there without a back up...

    Linc Davis wrote:
    You can't back up the internal drive of the Time Capsule with Time Machine. It will only back up locally attached storage devices, not network devices. There's no way around it. You may be able to back up the TC with third-party software such as "Carbon Copy Cloner," but it will be very slow. The internal drive of the TC is only suitable for use as a backup device. It's not suited for storing original data.
    yeah well you can use the external hard drive as a data extension to the time capsule internal hard drive. like a RAID in effect...

  • MacBook Hard Drive Failure - Any answers?

    I am looking for a technical response as to why the hard drives on the MacBooks seem to be failing. Could someone please provide a detailed explanation of the reasons that hard drives typically fail, and more specifically to notebooks and Apple notebooks? I am curious as to why my hard drive may have failed two days ago.
    I have carefully reviewed the Terms of Use and this post complies with all Terms of Use.
    Message was edited by: Host

    Joel C. wrote:
    Typically a hard drive almost always is the weak link in any computer. It's the most "mechanical" of pieces. Just think there's platters spinning anywhere from 4800 to 7200 rpm's which is anywhere from twice to almost three time as fast as a typical car motor runs down the highway at 60 mph.The arm is seeking data within mili-seconds.
    The heads are mere nanometers from the platter surface. They could be placed further away from the platter at the cost of data density.
    I've read that the speed of the platters along with the distance from the read/write heads are about the equivalent of a 600 MPH jet aircraft travelling mere micrometers from a canyon wall.
    All of this leads to something that's just more prone to failure than say a RAM chip which more often either works or doesn't right from the point of manufacture.
    Hard drives are always near failure. That's the nature of the market demands for high capacity and performance at low cost.
    As far as warranties go, the manufacturer sells OEM drives at a discount with the knowledge that the OEM takes care of replacement within the machine's warranty period (typically a year or two). Aftermarket drives are sold with full warranties backed by the drive manufacturer (3-5 years seems to be the norm).

  • Hello, I reformatted my mac to factory settings. Since then I cannot reconnect to my itunes and iphoto libraries stored on an external hard drive. Any suggestions?

    I am using an old Imac G5 2.16 GHz intel core 2 duo.
    Its 8 years old. I had my iphoto and itunes libraries on an external hard drive. Li
    The mac was running slow so I backed up important stuff and then did a factory reset.
    Then I did upgrades to snow leopard.
    Its now running 10.6.8. Like I was before.
    Now that it is all reformatted, I cannot get it to reconnect to my iphoto or itunes libraries.
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Thanks

    Hi Terence,
    I tried the option key thing when starting both.
    For itunes when I select the folder on the external drive it says 'could not locate library file' or something like that.
    For iphoto the iphoto library file is there but it is not one I can select (it is greyed out).
    Sorry, not sure which versions they are. Am currently re-importing my itunes library so can't check.
    iPhoto is not opening today. Yesterday it would.
    Both versions would be updated as far as they could go on snow leopard.

  • MacBook Pro hard drive issue

    This is a 15" MacBook Pro circa 2008-2009. It suddenly won't start past the apple logo and all of my efforts to repair, rebuild, reinstall snow leopard, erase, reformat, etc have been brutally rebuffed. I have used everything at my command, disc utility, Disc Warrior, Tech Tool Pro, Drive Genius, etc, to no avail. I believe it to be hardware failure, specifically, the hard drive. Any suggestions, suspicions etc? Any input would be fantastic!
    Thanks,
    Rob

    Thanks. Yes, I have an external hard drive with which you can access the computer. Yes, I can you boot from an OS X installer disc.The information I derive from Disk Utility related to your hard drive is that 1, The volume will not mount, although it reds the drive and that it needs to be repaired. Once I get to repair,it only goes as far as repair, then when it gets to boot volumes, etc. at the end it either gives a memory warning, or says it fails. Other diagnostics point to hardware failure. If it was a RAM failure, nothing would happen, correct?

  • MacBook hard drive and SATA hard drive

    Can I use the Hitachi’s Travelstar 5K160 HTS541616J9SA00 2.5-inch SATA hard drive to, instead of putting their drive in the enclosure (it doesn’t come pre-installed), put my MAC Book (black model) hard drive in? I want to transfer the data from this hard drive into another MAC Book. My original computer had a problem with the board but I have my hard drive with data intact. I want to buy this SATA but am not sure if this would work, if I can put in the MacBook hard drive as if it was the SATA one... Help, anyone? Thanks!
    MacBook   Mac OS X (10.4.10)  

    Hi there,
    A number of people on NewEgg's product page for that drive say it's great for a MacBook, so I'd assume it's ok.
    You can put your old MacBook hard drive into any external USB2.0 enclosure and retrieve the data.
    Regards!

  • Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most  WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4.

    Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most  WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4. The OS compatibility  is much newer on the data.  Totally confused. Not a computer person.

    I haven't checked reviews recently but there's a difference between bare drives and drives with enclosures.  Western Digital made some of the most reliable drives last time I checked, though the enclosures weren't all that great.  It is convenient to get both in one package but I usually buy a highly rated enclosure and then put a highly rated drive in it myself.  OWC sells some good enclosures but if they put a so-so drive inside of it then the package is only as good as its weakest component.  If you get a package from them, ask them what drive is inside (some vendors have no idea what's inside  -  went to an Apple Store recently and they couldn't tell me what was inside some of their Apple brand enclosures).  My first thought if buying a new drive would be to buy a OWC enclosure with a WD drive, but chek around because I may be out of date.
    10 years ago Seagate was one of the best drives. Now they rate poorly in reviews.

  • Has anyone else been having hard drive issues with 13" MacBook Pro barely a year old?

    Has anyone else been having hard drive issues with 13" MacBook Pro barely a year old?

    Yes, BUT...
    ... there are many problems that are really easy to eliminate by replacing the Hard drive, including ones that have nothing to do with actual Drive Hardware failure. These include corrupted install of Mac OS X, its EFI partition, clobbered partition tables, or the appearance of Bad Blocks in a critical area.
    Any of these problems can sometimes be eliminated by re-initializing the entire drive and writing Zeroes, and re-installing from scratch. The trouble is, this process takes hours to complete, and is not guaranteed to be successful -- you may still need a new drive after all that effort.
    I learned from my Plumber that consumers have no appetite for solutions that might work, and detest return visits for any related problems whatsoever. You or your friend may have had your drive replaced, not because it actually failed, but because the situation was troublesome, and the provider thought you would not tolerate anything less than a crisp, complete fix on the first attempt. And based on the cost of technician time, it may have even been cheaper that way.

  • Incredibly slow MacBook, Internal Hard Drive issues...

    Good morning everybody! I'm apologize if this post is extremely wordy...
    I am extremely baffled by a particular issue with a MacBook 2.0GHz C2D which belongs to a friend of mine. The warranty is expired.
    _Brief history:_
    Several months ago, this MacBook could not find a bootable volume. The drive would not mount when booting from an external FireWire hard drive. It would not mount when the MacBook was put in Target Disk Mode and connected to another Mac. When booting from an external USB hard drive or with my MacBook Pro connected to the MacBook via Target Disk Mode, the MacBook booted up quickly. I came to the conclusion that the internal hard drive must have failed and needed to be replaced. Ultimately, the data was not recoverable from this drive.
    I then proceeded to swap out the defective Apple OEM Seagate hard drive with a known working Apple OEM Fujitsu hard drive. When booting from the Leopard Install DVD, the MacBook would boot incredibly slow, but would finally reach the Installer Language screen. When proceeding to install Leopard, the drive would take a very long time to have data written to it, and ultimately the install failed. I removed the new hard drive from the MacBook and placed it in an external USB enclosure, attached it to the MacBook and booted from the Leopard Install DVD. Leopard would install successfully. I removed the hard drive from the enclosure and reinstalled it the MacBook. When booting from the freshly installed OS, the MacBook would take a very long time to boot. The MacBook is extremely slow!!!
    I checked the Activity Monitor to ensure CPU & System Memory Usage was not going crazy. All Processes where normal with adequate CPU & Memory headroom.
    I took the MacBook apart thinking that the SATA Controller Cable might be loose. No, it was firmly in place. I reassembled the MacBook and booted it up again. Still incredibly slow!
    Finally, after several reboot attempts, the MacBook would book up quickly and operation was perfect. I applied all updates and continued testing the MacBook with great success. Gave my friend his MacBook back and he was grateful.
    _Now for the kicker..._
    My friend brought me his MacBook a week ago complaining that the MacBook was operating extremely slow (much like when I was initially testing it before). I verified the MacBook was slow when I tried using it. I tried several reboots and then it would get stuck on the gray Apple with spinning gear.
    I tried booting into Single User Mode, but it gets stuck on "Waiting for root device"
    I put the MacBook in Target Disk Mode and connected it to my G5 2.0GHz Dual Core. The hard drive would mount quickly on the G5 and I used Disk Utility to create a Restore Image. The disk operation would perform normally and the image would be created successfully.
    I then partitioned the MacBook's hard drive when connected to the G5, ejected and proceeded to attempt OS reinstall. No dice! The hard drive is not even detected by the Disk Utility on the Leopard Install DVD.
    Finally after several reattempts, the hard drive is recognized, but is extremely slow when trying to reinstall...and again, ultimately install fails. Using Disk Utility from Leopard Install DVD, the hard drive fails to unmount when I try formatting.
    I don't have Apple Hardware Test disc for the MacBook or Apple Service Diagnostics disc for this model. Running TechTool Pro shows hardware to be okay, disk controller onboard the Fujitsu drive is okay, but running SMART & Surface Scan takes a long, long time (which I'm certain will ultimately error out). Running Drive Genius takes a long, long time as well.
    Conclusion:
    I think the SATA Controller Cable is defective. I can't think of anything else that would cause disk errors or performance issues like this. Your input is truly appreciated!

    Even though no one responded to my post, I thought I'd share the resolution with the entire Apple community. I hope this information will be helpful to some of you with MacBooks or MacBook Pros that may be running painfully slow or may be exhibiting hard drive issues because your machine won't recognize the boot drive or fails to properly boot on a perfectly healthy S.M.A.R.T. verified hard drive. It just might be the hard drive connector/cable. Here it goes...
    I visited my local Apple Retail Store and asked a "Genius" at the Genius Bar about this issue and told him my thoughts about a possible failed hard drive connector/cable. First, he didn't even know what a hard drive connector was! Then, he arrogantly stated that he never heard of such a thing and that these cables never fail. Finally, he blatantly dispelled this as a possibility.
    On the contrary with my experience, I have had many failed PATA controller cables that required replacement when supporting the desktop PC's at work. I have personally owned and supported many Apple manufactured laptops and desktops and have never encountered this issue on a Mac...until this MacBook!
    So, after looking at the Service Manual for the MacBook, I went over to my local Apple Authorized Service Provider and purchased the Hard Drive Connector Apple Part #922-7579. I replaced the original cable, reassembled and proceeded to boot the MacBook with the Leopard DVD installer. The Fujitsu drive was immediately recognized and was able to be formatted and Leopard installed without incident. The MacBook boots off the internal hard drive as normal again and works nice and fast again.
    Thank you all for your time!
    :D

  • My Apple Macbook hard drive crashed and I had to replace. Now trying to reload CS5 and having issues. When I click download from Adobe download page, a screen pops up saying "Access Denied". I have serial number, but don't even get to a page to enter. Ple

    My Apple Macbook hard drive crashed and I had to replace. Now trying to reload CS5 and having issues. When I click download from Adobe download page, a screen pops up saying "Access Denied". I have serial number, but don't even get to a page to enter. Please help…Thanks!!

    Make sure you have cookies enabled and clear your cache.  If it continues to fail try using a different browser.
    You can also download the trial version of the software thru the page linked below and then use your current serial number to activate it.
    Be sure to follow the steps outlined in the Note: Very Important Instructions section on the download pages at this site and have cookies enabled in your browser or else the download will not work properly.
    CS5: http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-cs5-direct-download-links.html

  • Do i need to shut down my macbook pro before carrying it around? Considering hard drive issues

    I am a uni student. I have a MacBook Pro early 2011. been using it for 3 years now.
    i have a couple questions just out of curiosity.
    do we really have to shut down our mbpro before carrying it around?
    couldnt we just leave it sleep mode?
    i mean, is it harmful to our hard drives if we put our mbpro in sleep mode and move it around?
    does apple have a mechanism that kinda "stops" the hard drives from spinning in sleep mode?
    I wanna know for sure, since some told me that it's okay to move my mbpro around in sleep mode, and some told me that it's not okay and i have to shut it down first.
    i did occasionally transport my mbpro in sleep mode.... and i think.... i'm having some hard drive issues.
    Thanks before for your kind answers.
    Best Regards,
    Moses

    Moses,
    your MacBook Pro has a sudden movement sensor which will park your disk’s heads in case it senses a sudden G-force change. By default, this sensor will be active. Carrying around your MacBook Pro while it’s sleeping (and applying some common sense while doing so) should not be harmful to its hard drive.

  • My macbook hard drive stopped working and I loaded another hard drive and can access time capsule but it doesn't show any of my old files and I don't understand why

    My 7 year old macbook hard drive stopped working and I put in another hard drive but when I went to restore my information from airport time capsule it only shows today and nothing older.  Help?

    Did you do a TM backup after you installed the disk? It may write over the previous backup.. but it should actually start a new one.
    Read the info about using migration.. see http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
    Or the Mac is probably looking at the backup as from a different computer.
    See the details of how to use TM to restore to a different Mac.
    Q17 here. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    I would read through 14-17 carefully.
    You should be able to do a full recovery of the TM backup to a USB drive plugged into the computer.

  • Hard drive issues

    Hi all. I'm looking for some help with my late 08 macbook.
    I've recently installed snow leopard, and I've been having some problems, and I'm worried about the hard drive. Anytime I try to either download new data to the hard drive (ie. software update/transfer of files from external hard drive) it freezes after a short while, and the drive begins to make a strange noise. Not quite a clicking noise but a loud dull almost grounding noise with some form of clicking or like a lever closing 2-3 times. The noise continues, and the computer completely freezes.
    I've re-installed the osx and done a restore from a previous version (leopard), and the problem re-appears. I've repaired the permissions and the disk. Whenever I repair the disk it states the disk is ok. I can use the computer, and no problems until I try to load something onto the hard-drive.
    Any ideas?? Is my hard drive shot?
    Thanks very much

    Hmm can't say from that if your hard drive is shot. If you have an external hard drive big enough (my late 08 macbook has a 160GB hard drive) I'd suggest either using Time Machine to make a backup of your data or Disk Utility's restore feature to copy the data to the drive.
    After you do that (or if you're not able) try booting in single user mode (holding cmd+S on startup) and typing the command "fsck -fy" (no quotes) this should check for problems with the filesystem structure and repair them. If it gives you messages like "Volume cannot be fixed", keep trying. It often will yield a different result.
    If this does not solve the problem, I'd make sure you have your data backed up, boot with the OS install disk, and reformat the hard drive.
    Sidenote- my 160GB drive isn't quite cutting it, so I ordered ($53) a 7200RPM 320GB notebook drive for it last night. I'd consider that, too, if you're going to be reformatting anyway.
    Best of luck!

  • Hard drive issues after update 10.10.3

    Question also posted here:Hard Drive Issues (Both new and old)
    I'm trapped in a HDD nightmare with my MacBook Pro mid-2012.
    I updated to Yosemite 10.10.3 (with the Photos app). A couple of days after the update, I was watching a movie on my TV screen via HDMI. In the middle of the movie I removed the HDMI cable from the MacBook Pro and everything freezes. I forced shut down (Note: My HDD was encrypted). After I forced shut down, I tried to turn on and the loading screen would never stop loading - like, 14 hours stuck with the progress bar. Since I have backups, I decided to access DU and format my HDD. I tried everything. For real. Every command line I could type on Terminal to format, repair, erase and/or partition. I read almost every issue-related questions on the forums and stack exchange groups for a week (even posted my issue here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/181090/erasing-and-partitioning-hard-dr ive-from-internet-recovery?noredirect=1#comment215695_181090).
    So, I decided that it was a HDD failure and bought a new one.
    I bought the Seagate 1TB SSHD Hybrid  - ST1000LM014. Installed the new fresh disk and guess what? All those same problems again. I´m not able to restore from Time Machine because it doesn't recognize the disk in the restore page. But the disk is recognized in the DU. When I try to erase or partition the new SSHD, the same old errors: File system formatter failed. Yes, I tired GUID Partition Table, all of the security options, etc.
    Please. Any light that you can throw at this issue, I'll be very grateful for. BTW, the new SSHD is recognized and the SMART Status says: Verified.
    Any ideas on *** is going on?
    Thanks in advance!
    MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), i7, 8GB RAM

    After I erase the hard drive (I assume one pass of writing zeros is good enough, 7 passes not needed?) do I turn off the laptop, then turn on and insert the Install Disk? Will there be a prompt telling me when to put in the disk? Or do I put in the disc right after erasing?
    One pass is fine. If you've previously backed up your hard drive to an external hard drive using SuperDuper!, which is what I use and recommend, or another program, if it created a bootable drive, you want to boot off of it, bring up SuperDuper! and copy the drive back to the internal hard drive. SuperDuper also makes the drive bootable. When done, reboot, and you should be all set. If you're using Time Machine, you'll want to install the operating system, then restore the Time Machine backup. SuperDuper! is available from http://www.shirt-pocket.com/superduper/superduperdescription.html
    Finally- should I update the OS? Is there a problem with the newest update that caused this crash, or was it just a spurious glitch/bad luck?
    I've been running 10.5.8 for awhile with no issues, and would recommend moving to it.

Maybe you are looking for