Macbook Pro Hard Drive Problem - Please Help

My macbook pro had a hard drive failure so I went out and bought a new hard drive and got it to work with the Mac OS, although 2 days later it crashed and now it is not being found when I use the disk utility (Cmd-R), I even ran a hardware test and showed no trouble found.
Should I return this hard drive and get another?
Or is there another problem that is occuring?
I have a Macbook Pro (mid 2012)
Thank You.

I just installed a new ribbon cable for the hard drive...Now I get a new error that is popping a message saying "2003-f", this happens when I try to go to the online recovery (CMD-R). I tried two different hard drives and still won't let me get to the utility.
Someone please help, my mini semester classes have started for my University, and I am stuck with no laptop.
Thank You.

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G4 Powerbook Hard Drive Problem - PLEASE HELP!!

I have a powerbook G4 15 inch alu. It is running OSX version 10.4.11
My system profiler tells me I have a 74.5GB hard drive with 69.34GB used, but I had wiped the HD in September 2008 and reinstalled the OS and few other programmes and files, so this shouldn't be the case at all.
I have found that my the problem is with my Users folder - within Users, my user account (the main account, I have another account setup so my mum can use her iPhone) has 67GB used. But when I go into my user account (clicking through the icons, after double-clicking the MacintoshHD desktop icon), none of the folders within my account run to anwhere near 67GB. Totalled, they come to around 10-15GB at most. There's a good 50GB or so of hard drive that just seems to be missing.
I ran Drive Genius to repair permissions and that eliminated a couple of GB of this 'missing space' but no more than that. How can I go about finding and reaccessing my lost hard drive space?
FWIW - I reinstalled the OS in September because this was my University laptop and the result of 4-5 years use had resulted in loads of unwanted files. I saved the important stuff to discs and then reinstalled because it was much easier (I thought) than trying to find and get rid of all the unwanted stuff.
Please please help. At the moment, the computer is running fine if a little sluggishly (understandable given how much of the hard drive is 'used'), but I had a nasty experience earlier this year with my G5's hard drive crapping ut and really don't want to end up in the same boat with this one. I also need that extra space back so I can use some programmes I can't install or work with as things stand.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this and respond, I don't know enough about computers to have any clue as to how to proceed, so your help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

eww - will do and report back.
cornelius - apologies for the ambiguity there. Hope this clears things up a bit:
Users folder = get info says 69.34GB used
Double-click on the Users folder and I get three folders - the shared folder, my mum's account folder, and my account folder. My account is the main/master account.
The shared folder is empty. My mum's account folder has a couple GB used, mine has 66.5GB used.
I double-click on my account folder, and get icons/folders for Desktop, Library, Movies, etc (the usual stuff). When I do Get Info for each of these, the sum of GB used by them is about 10-15GB, nowhere near the 66GB supposedly used.
If it helps any, the File System is Journalled HFS+
S.M.A.R.T. status is verified, and Drive Genius, Disk Warrior, and Disk Utility aren't picking up anything bad other than the corrupted permissions I repaired prior to making this post. Repairing permissions only freed up a few GB more space, still got 50 missing GB to locate and free up. Or start saving for a replacement HD, but if this is a sign of a crash, I'd rather know now so I can plan for that.
Many thanks to both of you for responding so quickly - hopefully this problem is solvable.
It doesn't make sense, there's nothing else which could have used those 'missing' GB. And, as I only reinstalled everything in September I know there's no way the few programmes I've added and 10 or so CDs I've copied onto the G4 could account for the missing 50GB. My HD should have most of its space free - minus the space used by OSX, any OSX updates, and literally a handful of small apps and files.

External hard drive problem, please help!

I have a SEAGATE external hard drive which I had associated with Time machine so its file system was HFS+ journaled.
when i turn the hdd on a window pop up comes on the screen telling me to either initialize, ignore or eject.
if i go to disk utility the hard disk shows as disk1s2 and that its format is FAT32.
trying to repairing it/fixing through Disk utility gives me the following error
Verifying volume “disk1s2”
** /dev/disk1s2
Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
however if i go to terminal and type fsck -f -y /dev/disk1s2
after a few fixes the following output was given
Andrew:~ Andrew$ fsck_hfs -f -d -y /dev/disk1s2
** /dev/rdisk1s2
Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=1024 cacheSize=32768K.
Journal replayed successfully or journal was empty
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
** Detected a case-sensitive catalog.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking Catalog hierarchy.
** Checking Extended Attributes file.
** Checking multi-linked directories.
privdir_valence=13289, calc_dirlinks=35218, calc_dirinode=13289
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** The volume Everything appears to be OK.
so here it recognises its name and everything.
what's wrong?
Thanks!

amarkitanis wrote:
when i turn the hdd on a window pop up comes on the screen telling me to either initialize, ignore or eject.
If you don't have any data on the drive, you may want to initialize the disk. Otherwise I would check out DiskWarrior.
Cole

Macbook pro hard drive problem- failed? worth it?

yesterday my computer froze. so i manually restarted it. it now get stuck at the gray screen for a good 10 minutes and then the blinking question mark/folder appears. when i boot it from the CD, disk utility sees the drive but says "unmounted". i can start the computer on firewire mode (this also takes about 10 minutes of holding down "t" before the gray screen goes away and firewire logo appears) but i didnt have the correct cables to attach it to my friend's mac to see if i can actually recover some data through firewire. seems unlikely though. the computer is still under warranty. most everything is backed up except for 5 years worth of emails that i had to download off the internet when my university cancelled my email address. i want my emails/recent documents pretty badly....
does the following sound like a good idea?: i have the apple guys replace my drive (so i have a working computer). i keep the replaced hard drive, put it in an enclosure, hook it back up to my computer and try to recover data then (disk warrior etc or freezing it). ALSO, is putting the old drive in an enclosure really difficult? i used to install memory cards on my desktop pc before but thats about all the experience i have with hardware. what do you think my chances of data recovery are?
edit: just found out that if i wanna keep the old hard drive i would have to pay for them to replace it, although its still under warranty.....i definitely wanna keep my costs to a minimum....so what if i buy an external hard drive, load the OS on in, and then try to do some data recovery from the original hard drive like that? would that work?
Message was edited by: harddrivefail

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
The best deal would be to try to recover your data before you send your Mac off to have the failing drive replaced. I gather you have most of your stuff backed up, but not the most recent emails and documents, which you really do not want to lose.
Here is something you can try. Go ahead and buy a new external hard drive--one at least the same size as your internal drive. Get a firewire cable and your friend with the other Mac. Using FireWire Target Disk Mode, mount your drive on your friend's desktop. Also mount the new drive on your friend's desktop.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Then use a cloning utility like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your internal drive onto the external drive.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
You can download either of these to try out for free as often as you like. If you want to unlock Super Duper's more useful features like Smart Update, you can register a copy for $28. CCC is donation ware.
Once you have made the clone, boot from it and see that everything is OK and that all your recent data and emails are there and intact. If they are not, you may need to try a data rescue program like Data Rescue III.
The clone you create will be an exact copy of your internal drive. Once you have created the clone, you don't need to worry about your dying drive--you can let Apple replace it. When you get your Mac back, you can probably just clone back from the external drive to the internal.
It may be that the dying drive will not let you make a good clone, but you may still be able to end up with copies of your documents and files. If you are worried that the clone may be corrupted and maybe untrustworthy, you can always restore from your older backup and then just add the more recent stuff from the clone.
If you can, buy an external drive with both USB and FireWire capability. Once you have the new internal drive installed and your data on it, you can still use your new external drive for backup.
Good luck!

Acomdata Hard Drive Problem - Please help!!

I purchased an Acomdata HydridDrive 250GB USB 2.0 drive today for my MacBook. When plugging it in, it shows up on the desktop like a CD and you are supposed to install "SecureHD_Login_V126.pkg" . So I run it and everything goes as normal... it selects my MacBook's HD, asks for my password, warns me the installation will require a reboot... then it says "There were errors installing the software" and "Please try installing again". Well, I've tried several times with no success. According to instructions, I have to install this before I can mount the drive because it has password protection or something. There are no forums or any useful help on Acomdata's website. Anyone know what's wrong?

monkey paw,
That's correct. I use the built-in "rsync" command line utility to create and maintain backups. It's a very powerful tool, if a bit less than user-friendly. Best of all, a command line incorporating it can be used in an Automator Action, which can then be double-clicked to run the backup whenever the external drive is connected.
If any of this sounds interesting, open Terminal, then type:
<pre style="overflow:auto; font-family: 'Monaco'; font-size: 10px">man rsync</pre>
and press <RETURN>. You will then have displayed the rsync "manual pages." Use the arrow keys to scroll up and down, or use the spacebar to go page by page.
Once you become totally lost in these man pages, come back here for specific help on using it, if you like
Scott

X40 2382-ECU Hard drive problem - please help!

I have a X40 2382-ECU thinkpad. I ran PC-doctor program and found the S.M.A.R.T. status test and short self-test both failed while the rest of the rest of the tests passed. After that, I ran a "chkdsk" comment from window and found no error. I was just wondering what does the result from PC-doctor means. Does that mean I have to replace my HD? Is there any other way to fix it without getting a new HD? If I have to replace HD, which HD will be capatible with my system (I'd like to upgrade the HD if possible - it only has 40gb now). Thanks!

Welcome to the forum!
I'm afraid that no good news will come from me this time around: the fact that your HDD has failed PC-Doctor tests suggests that it's on its way out. If I were you I'd clone the drive (or backup all the important stuff at least) yesterday.
Your X40 uses a 1.8"/4200rpm Hitachi drive, which are no longer in production. The biggest size available was 60GB, and these change hands at about $125-150 for an unused drive in the original unopened packaging, and that's on eBay...
Good luck.
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

My internal hard drive isn't being recognized on my macbook pro but when I put the HD in my Mac Pro (desktop), the desktop computer recognizes the HD. When I insert the installer CD on my laptop, it also doesn't recognize my hard drive. Please help!

My internal hard drive isn't being recognized on my macbook pro but when I put the HD in my Mac Pro (desktop), the desktop computer recognizes the HD. When I insert the installer CD on my laptop, it also doesn't recognize my hard drive. Please help! Thank you!
I've also been getting an image with the folder and question mark. I've tried everything on the apple support page but it doesn't seem to work either.

Well, I tried all of your suggestions and they didn't work -- no surprise because I was trying to backup to my external c.d. disk. Duh! The application for the home is in the mail.

My macbook pro hard drive went bad and i bought a new one and installed it. Now i have the old corrupted hard drive in my hand and i am looking to recover my files from it, any suggestions please? too bad i never backed them up.

My macbook pro hard drive went bad and i bought a new one and installed it. Now i have the old corrupted hard drive in my hand and i am looking to recover my files from it, any suggestions please? too bad i never backed them up.

After you have installed the OSX on the new HDD in your MBP, install the old HDD in an enclosure and connect it to your MBP via USB. Then try to drag and drop your data to the new HDD.
If this proves unsuccessful, you may look for data recovery software on the Internet. There will be free trails to see if it will work or not. If the trial suggests that it will work, then you will have to purchase the software.
The last resort is a professional data recovery service that will offer NO guarantees and charge a lot of money.
As you now can appreciate, backups eliminate such predicaments.
Ciao.

My MacBook Pro Hard Drive recently gave me the gray folder with the question mark of death. Even as

My MacBook Pro Hard Drive recently gave me the gray folder with the question mark of death. Even as a Mac Newbie/Novice, I successfully installed a new hard drive and the OS (10.6.8) software from my installation discs. I have, however, lost the ability to play video using the spacebar and I have no idea on the steps necessary to correct this seemingly simple technical blip. .Here's my system overview:Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2 Processor Name: Intel Core i5 Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 4 GB Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s.
I am using the Premiere Pro CS5 NLE (with the 5.0.4 updates), and I have tried to reinstall the software (which is actually the Production Premium package) several times, but I still cannot use the spacebar (or any method) to play any of my imported videos.
PLEASE HELP in any way you can!
Prior to having to replace my hard drive, my software was working just fine. No problems at all. But now, it seems that I can't get it to play whatever type of file I import.
Again, I am a newbie to the Mac, so any and all correctional/repair assistance needs to be expalined as if I were a child : )
I would hate to try to revert to considering the sophmoric Final Cut Pro X editing software package, but I've got to do something to be able to get back to my editing activities.
zionhall
[email protected]

Jorge242 wrote:
@FatMac the internet recovery doesnt work. It goes into recovery mode and then when i try to reinstall it cant find a disk to install it to. So what would be a good choice to take now?
Recovery Mode presents you with, among other things, Disk Utility. When you open that, if the internal shows up at all, first try to "Repair DIsk." If that doesn't work but if the "Media" line is present, try to format and partition it with a GUID partition table (understand that you will be erasing the contents of your internal). Then try to reinstall the OS. If that doesn't work, and since your Retina MBP didn't come with a DVD drive or DVDs, you'll need to try a hardware test using these instructions from Apple (short version: shut down, press the power button and hold down the "D" key). If none of those things work, let's hope you either have AppleCare or your warranty has some life left because the SSD in your rMBP is proprietary and expensive. You'll need to bring it to an Apple Genius for evaluation.

New aperture library to ensure no space used on MacBook Pro hard drive

Hi
My laptop MacBook Pro hard drive is getting full (again). I mainly have photos on my laptop and iTunes. Using referenced files and having the raw photos stored on an external drive still eats up lots of GBs. If I create a new Aperture library on a portable external drive (that I can back up on Time Machine) is this the best way to ensure my photos are available to edit, but that no GBs of my hard drive are used up as I import to the NEW library on the 1TB portable external drive.
Are there any disadvantages or other ways to prevent any more hard drive GBs being used?
And should the new library NOT be referenced since the photos will be on the external portable until it fills up.
Many thanks
BW

Hi Kirkby
Appreciate your help and useful link. I think I have been doing exactly as you recommend to date, using my laptop internal drive to store the library etc. and a portable external drive FW800 for my referenced originals, together with iMovie clips for the same events/years. But my external is now full. And my internal drive is OK but I don't want to add more GBs to it.
It is the next step I am pondering. The main problem being to avoid any extra laptop internal GBs being used up.
I usually need access to originals and iMovie clips for the same event on one drive. My iMovie projects include both.
I could buy a 2TB portable drive and move all my originals to it, and even also the library but really I would prefer to have two externals and choose which one to connect, as required for Aperture and iMovie. And I would like maximum growing room on any new drive I buy.
(I back up my lap top and each external drive to time machine, and put my photos from memory card onto a DVD as unedited originals. I have usb2 and FW800 and FW400 only)
It's the best storage of new original photos and clips, and not eating up my last 50gb of my laptop drive, while enabling easy access to my most recent pics to enable more convenient editing, that are my issues. I don't want to have to sit at my desktop with a large external drive while editing.
Is anything daft or disadvantageous about creating a new aperture library on a new external portable drive to store and enable access to all my new photos from 2014 onwards? I realise I would have to switch to the old library and connect another external drive for pre 2014 access. And would this mean NOT eating up any more laptop internal drive GBs?
Thank you again
BW

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

Did you try an SMC reset too? It's easily done and none of those resets to the best of my knowledge hurt anything. When I was fooling with my system, which at one point was a home made Fusion setup, I needed to reset the SMC sometimes to get the drives recognized. Reading the documentation the sudden motion sensor is drive related but that seems to be about it.
Some more specifics may be needed about the drive itself, the model number of your unit, and the OS version you're running.
At present, the problem seems sort of odd to me. FWIW cable problems can be quite intermittent. I used Scannerz to find some of the problems on my original system that I later converted to a new HD and SSD combo. It can find lots of problems if you learn how to use it right (HD problems, logic board system faults, and cable problems) but you need to get a system at least partially up and running to use it, and it doesn't sound to me like your there right now (in other words, don't go out and buy it because at this point I don't know how it could help you)
Another word of advice would be to not go out and start throwing parts at a problem unless you have a good idea what the source of the problem is. If you have a logic board problem, new drives and new cables won't make it go away, you'll just be wasting your money. Logic board problems, cable problems, and drive problems can all have very similar end user symptoms. The article that I linked above named "Hard Drive Problems" has a section on general symptoms of problems and if you read the article it becomes clear there's a lot of overlap associated with different types of problems.
I assume that your unit isn't under warranty. If, by chance it is I wouldn't even fool with it and I'd take it to Apple and let them deal with the problem. You also might want to check with whatever Apple sources you have available to test your system, like an Apple store, and see how much they'll charge (if anything) to evaluate the system.
I certainly hope this helps.

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extrem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptops hard drive??

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extreme (2 TB drive plugged into the USB port). I see the drive on my laptop and I can add and delete files no problem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptop's hard drive? I don't have enough space to do that.

How did you move the music to the external drive? What exactly is on the drive? The entire iTunes folder or only music? If it is the entire iTunes folder you can do the option+start suggestion earlier. If you copied only music and did so by dragging it there then you need to delete it again and consolidate/organize it there instead so iTunes tracks the move. iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507

My MacBook Pro hard drive crashed a little while ago and has been replaced. Is it possible to take tunes from iPod Classic and transfer all of them back to iTunes on computer?

My MacBook Pro hard drive crashed a little while ago and has been replaced. Is it possible to take tunes from iPod Classic and transfer all of them back to iTunes on computer? Is this just for purchased tunes or can I do it for ones that have been burned from CD's as well? Thanks for any help!

[Zevoneer's detailed instructions on getting music off an iPod|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9053179]
[Wired's How To: Get Your Music Off of Your iPod|http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Get_Your_Music_Off_of_Your_iPod]
[http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/5-ways-to-copy-music-off-your-ipod-window s-mac-os-x/]
[Topic: Get music off iPhone|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11512841]
[Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305465]

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance. A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters". Your images must be managed. You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them. But someone has to manage them. If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge. If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters. If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.) There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world: (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Hard drives are cheap. Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

Early 2008 MacBook Pro hard drive was killed; how to sync stuff

My early 2008 MacBook Pro hard drive was reimaged (not by me) and they lost everything on there, and have now put in a new hard drive, saying nothing was salvageable on the original HD. I have an iPhone, iPod, iPad. When i get the MBP back, how will I be able to get those devices synced so that everything I've bought/have goes back onto the HD?
The original HD was being reimaged because my work requires use of Windows, and I was using Windows via Boot Camp. Windows got a terrible rogue virus (from my clicking on a link), which shut everything down on that side. Work tech folks said they needed to reimage the Windows part of the drive, but said in the process, the reimaging took everything, Mac stuff included. That's why I'm in this situation. They are going to put in a new hard drive, but it is a blank slate.
Long story short: last time I backed up was 2 years ago, and it wasn't using Time Machine, but an external hard drive. That was also before I got my current iPhone, the iPad and made some additions to iTunes. (For those who say shame on me, for not doing a backup sooner, you're right: But we have gone through 3 moves in 18 months, so it has been kinda nuts.)
I expect the MBP to get sent back to me in the next day. I have no idea how to put these pieces back together. I'm not even sure about data recovery, but am most concerned about iTunes/iPhone/iPod/iPad.
Thanks for your help!

suzannemacuser wrote:
Long story short: last time I backed up was 2 years ago, and it wasn't using Time Machine, but an external hard drive. That was also before I got my current iPhone, the iPad and made some additions to iTunes.
Two years ago??? Shame on you!!!
I found this the other day. It's old but still applies. This should be more than enough to help you get back on track. See the comments by Zevoneer
https://discussions.apple.com/message/7217190#7217190
You will have to check on each of these. Some of the links are outdated but there is more than enough to get you started. See this article about transferring purchases. The link is in the other thread as well.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848?viewlocale=en_US
Backup! Backup! Backup!
Message was edited by: Demo

Macbook Pro Hard Drive Problem - Please Help

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