My MacBook appears to have died - and yet is showing signs of life.

Question

Hi there.
My MacBook Pro can only start up with the grey Apple and the spinning clock symbol. But there are hints that the hard drive is still alive. I will probably buy a new hard drive and back up from TimeCapsule, but I would love to get the data off it. Any help appreciated. The story so far...
It has had problems connected with Ethernet and backing up to TimeCapsule, which was only solvable by trashing Prefs and Cache on the hard drive. I lived with this for a long time.
But yesterday, iTunes library became corrupted, so I decided to restart.
When I put in my password, it accepted it then asked for it again, and again, and again.
So I connected an external drive with Leopard on it and used Disk Utility.
It corrected all permissions and said the drive was fine (error message it corrected was (Group differs on "private/etc/cups" should be 0, group is 26).
The problem with the password didn't go away.
Changed password under Disk Utility, but still it asked for it again when I started up the laptop.
Decideed to reinstall Leopard (offered me Archive and install as the version on the MacBook is 10.5.4, compared to the older one on the external drive).
Instal failed and it then flashed between an Apple and a No Entry sign (circle with a line through it).
Things now not looking good!
Tried to re-install Leopard, this time it let me.
But now when I start up I get the grey Apple and the spinning clock (I left it all night, and it didn't change in this time).
Bizarely, using Disk Utilities still tells me that the Drive and Permissions are fine.
There are now only 3.2 GB on the MacBook, as installing Leopard took up most of the spare space.
Took it to a Mac repair place and it can be seen as an external drive, but nothing in the foders (even though the folder structre all seems to be there).
They tried DiskWarrior, which seemed to say that the drive was fine.
They told me to replace the Drive, but I'm hopeful that someone here could help.
Otherwise, I fly back to the UK from Ireland to buy a new drive, restore from TimeCapsule and fly back here.
Flights are cheap, but there must another way.
Thanks for your time - Nigel
Message was edited by: Nigelll

Answer 1

I'm writing because I had a very similar case.
Late one night Safari started acting extremely slow and would give me the spinning color wheel [henceforth known and the spinny wheel of death]. I attempted to force quit Safari but with know luck. My computer was completely frozen. I forced a shut down by holding the power key and upon restart I got the Grey Screen of Death [kernel panic].
After a few kernel panics my computer showed signs of loading. It stayed at the grey load screen for nearly a half hour before I shut it off. Upon restart, my MBP would hit the grey load screen and then shut off immediately.
When I loaded my 10.5.1 discs and ran disk utilities, it said my drive was damaged. When I tried to repair it, it would freeze up on me. This happened a few times but it finally was "repaired." To be on the safe side I reformatted my HD but apparently there was a drive failure and 10.5 couldn't load.
I downgraded to my MBP system discs, reformatted, repaired, and installed with nearly as much hassle. Of course, at 10.4.3-x.11, I'd still get the spinny wheel of death, and all my music I'd try to play would pause, like if your old CD player ran out of skip protection.
I looked around the net and got answers for what could have caused the kernel panics. Apparently there are a few things, in my case, bad RAM chips or a failing HD.
I had my original RAM module and installed it but still got crap performance. When I called Apple Tech support, informed that I'm not ******** and they don't need to spell out every step for me and ran the laundry list of things I have done in hopes of repairing, the techie agreed that it's most likely my HD failing.
I just installed a new Seagate HD, twice the size and faster. Installing 10.5.1 and upgrading was problem free. My music (which I must re-rip onto my computer) is playing fantastically. I haven't received a kernel panic or one spinny wheel of death since.
In the end, there's a possibility that your hard drive has gone bad. Maybe a head, maybe a platter. I'm cursing losing all of my music and photos but considered it a sign of me finally upgrading my drive like I wanted to.