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Topic:   Laptop died   (Read 12320 times)

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WarHampster

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Laptop died
« on: June 17, 2010, 10:36:26 PM »
Well I thought that upgrading to 10.6 and cleaning things up would give my MacBook a few more years, but today the HD crashed. I think that most of my programming endeavors are backed up and I've already moved to my Dad's abandoned MacBook Air, but there was a ton of other stuff that may be lost. Tried to save the drive with some software but failed miserably, am going to end up paying way too much to get the damn thing rescued.
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Silverwind

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2010, 12:33:53 AM »
Woh, so sorry to hear that. :-/ How did it go?
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GMG Mike

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2010, 02:01:11 AM »
Does the drive spin up at all, or does it make a clicking sound? It's usually still possible to recover the data if the drive can spin up.

It's also really easy to replace the hard drive in a MacBook (assuming you have the pre-Unibody plastic model). All you do is take out the battery, then a couple of screws and it slides out. No need to take it to a shop and get ripped off.
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EqwanoX

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2010, 10:58:52 AM »
thats crazy, this happens once in a while. is there anyone here that HASNT had a mac die on them? i used the same g3 for 6 years untill the power supply died, i just switched out the hard drive to another to recover the files no problem
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Charlo

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2010, 11:50:19 AM »
Quote
Well I thought that upgrading to 10.6 and cleaning things up would give my MacBook a few more years, but today the HD crashed. I think that most of my programming endeavors are backed up and I've already moved to my Dad's abandoned MacBook Air, but there was a ton of other stuff that may be lost. Tried to save the drive with some software but failed miserably, am going to end up paying way too much to get the damn thing rescued.
How sure are you that it's the hard drive?  I've found that whenever I think my drive has failed, it turns out to be something else.  But maybe I'm just bad at diagnosis.   8)
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Mystor

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2010, 11:50:33 AM »
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thats crazy, this happens once in a while. is there anyone here that HASNT had a mac die on them? i used the same g3 for 6 years untill the power supply died, i just switched out the hard drive to another to recover the files no problem
Most I've ever had was a few dead pixels, but everyone else in my family has had at least 1 mac die...

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WarHampster

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2010, 02:44:46 PM »
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Does the drive spin up at all, or does it make a clicking sound? It's usually still possible to recover the data if the drive can spin up.

It's also really easy to replace the hard drive in a MacBook (assuming you have the pre-Unibody plastic model). All you do is take out the battery, then a couple of screws and it slides out. No need to take it to a shop and get ripped off.

Yeah, the drive spins for a bit and clicks, and then I get the flashing question mark of death. Neither my Snow Leopard boot disc nor Data Rescue 3 recognized the drive so I don't really have any choice but to bring it in.
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GMG Hendo

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2010, 03:22:42 PM »
never had a mac completely pooch out on me
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Gan

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2010, 04:23:05 PM »
Only had my old PowerMac OS 9 machine die on me by bad power supply.


-Gan
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GMG Mike

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2010, 12:47:40 PM »
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Yeah, the drive spins for a bit and clicks, and then I get the flashing question mark of death. Neither my Snow Leopard boot disc nor Data Rescue 3 recognized the drive so I don't really have any choice but to bring it in.


Taking it into an ordinary shop will only cost you extra money. At this point, you have to send the drive away to a place like DriveSavers. They will charge you about $500 to recover the data. If you take the laptop to a local shop, they will charge you $100/hr to remove and reinstall the drive, then they will send it to DriveSavers and mark it up to $750.

I have never lost a main hard drive, because I always replace my hard drives around 3 years into the life of the Mac. Just the other week, AppleCare expired on my MacBook Pro, so I replaced the slow and small 120 GB 5400 rpm drive, with a big and fast 500 GB 7200 rpm drive. My G5 originally had a single 80 GB drive, and now has two 250 GB drives, one of them is a backup drive for Time Machine. My mom's iMac G5 went from an 80 GB to a 640 GB (she doesn't need all that space, but the drive was on sale, and I can always move it to another Mac). Her MacBook will be next after AppleCare expires - it only has 80 GB. I'll buy the same 500 GB drive from NewEgg if it proves to be reliable in my MBP. I also have an iBook G4 with a 160 GB drive installed, my old iMac G4 700 MHz has 160 GB drive (up from 40 GB), and the old Power Macintosh 6500 is still around with a 40 GB drive, up from 4 GB.

The point is, upgrade your hard drives every once and a while. After 3 years, they're not only bigger but faster, so you'll give your Mac a speed upgrade as well. You should also have no less than 2 GB of RAM, right now, PPC or Intel.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2010, 12:53:28 PM by Mike_Richardson »
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WarHampster

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2010, 06:08:45 PM »
Yeah, I've definitely learned my lesson and will be more careful going forward.

Quote
Taking it into an ordinary shop will only cost you extra money. At this point, you have to send the drive away to a place like DriveSavers. They will charge you about $500 to recover the data. If you take the laptop to a local shop, they will charge you $100/hr to remove and reinstall the drive, then they will send it to DriveSavers and mark it up to $750.

My local computer shop is an "authorized mac repair center" and I know the guys there pretty well, so I'll at least talk to them before shipping the drive off.
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EqwanoX

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2010, 04:16:27 PM »
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You should also have no less than 2 GB of RAM, right now, PPC or Intel.
what?! what does it need all that ram for? my imacs only have 1 gig, i thought that was plenty
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GMG Mike

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #12 on: June 20, 2010, 04:27:32 PM »
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what?! what does it need all that ram for? my imacs only have 1 gig, i thought that was plenty

2 GB is a general rule of thumb.

How to check with 100% accuracy if you need more memory:
1. Follow these instructions after using your Mac all day without any restarts.
2. Load the Activity Monitor program.
3. Click the "System Memory" tab.
4. Look at the number for "Page outs". 0 bytes means you are doing just fine. MORE than 0 bytes means YOU RAN OUT OF MEMORY.

Each and every time you run out of memory, your computer has to use some of the hard drive as virtual memory. Hard drive (virtual memory) is literally 1000x worse than actual real memory! For example, the computer will get incredibly slow after launching another program. That program exhausted the remaining real memory.

I kind of liked the old OS 9 days, where you could disable virtual memory, but this isn't possible at all with OS X.
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EqwanoX

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #13 on: June 20, 2010, 09:05:08 PM »
my god, in my day if you had 32 megs it was all good, talking about gigs in terms of memory blows my mind, i havent adapted to technology very well :P
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WarHampster

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Re: Laptop died
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2010, 08:23:32 AM »
It's actually a very noticeable problem... I have 2 gigs in my currently dead macbook but am always running lots of memory-intensive programs, and after leaving the computer on for a while I could actually see the space on my HD falling. Some of my friends have gone all out and put up to 8 gigs in their desktops!
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