HELP! Dropped my MacBook, OS X won't start.

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

Hello.

I didn't exectly drop it, I fell walking down the stairs with my Macbook.
This is twice as bad, since both my MacBook and my arm got hurt.
Anyway, I will let the doctor handle my arm and you guys can take a look at my MacBook.

The first issue: OS X won't start.
The MacBook was on when I fell, but now OS X won't start anymore. I can only get to the grey screen with the apple logo.
Starting my boot camp installation of Windows XP was no problem, however.
First question: What do i do about it?

Second issue: The physical damage to my MacBook.

http://home.halden.net/fredk/MB3.jpg
http://home.halden.net/fredk/MB4.jpg
http://home.halden.net/fredk/MB5.jpg

Do i Need to do anything about it, and is it anything to do about it at all?
And how much would it cost me?

There is an Apple Authorized Service provider (which is also the place where I bought my MacBook) located some 25 miles from where I live, so I plan on taking it there.

Nicolasdec · Feb 15, 2007

yup your hard drive probley went when a friend droped a magnet on top of my macbook pro the same thing happend os x dosent boot up i whould try and re-install os x but i think you are going to have to take it to apple.

Abstract · Feb 15, 2007

Your harddrive is likely damaged, despite being able to boot via Bootcamp.

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

Nicolasdec said:
yup your hard drive probley went when a friend droped a magnet on top of my macbook pro the same thing happend os x dosent boot up i whould try and re-install os x but i think you are going to have to take it to apple.

It could be the hard drive. But I can start up Windows just fine and everything seems to work as they should there.
If something happened to the hard drive, could it just affect the OS X installation?

Edit: So if my hard drive is damaged and I will have to replace it. How much will it cost?

Nicolasdec · Feb 15, 2007

oh i dident know windows booted up.

DaLurker · Feb 15, 2007

Thought we all had SMS to save us in situations like these?

But if Windows boots, then it's more likely you damage your OSX partition when you fell. I'd recommend booting to the OS X install cd and running a verify disk and verify permissions. See if either require fixing.

If that doesn't work, then I'm not sure, hopefully somebody more knowledgeable can help you out then

drake · Feb 15, 2007

fredk said:
It could be the hard drive. But I can start up Windows just fine and everything seems to work as they should there.
If something happened to the hard drive, could it just affect the OS X installation?

Edit: So if my hard drive is damaged and I will have to replace it. How much will it cost?

Not too much if you do it yourself. Seems to me, you might want to try to reinstall OS X first.

jimytheassassin · Feb 15, 2007

OUch, nasty dent. Does your lid still close or is it impeded by the warp? Lower case and top cover will be pricey.. I think you can expect no less than 200 in parts, plus labor. Since they will have to disassemble and reassemble the whole thing..minus the screen.. could be a couple few hours labor. Alternatively you could live with it.. maybe file down the bent corner of your top panel and tuck it back into the dented outer lower casing so your lid will close normally.

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

Yeah, I figure I could replace the hard drive myself.
But how would that affect the warrenty?
I have no problem closing the lid, so I guess that I just have to tuck it back in somehow, and just live with it.
And I will reinstall OS X tomorrow before I do anything else.

A bit additional info: I booted from the OS X install dvd and runned verify disk
and verify permissions, and it didn't find anything wrong.
Also, I installed MacDrive in Windows, and I was able to browse, read and copy files from the mac partition. Does this leave any hope that there might not be any physical damage to the hard drive?

plinden · Feb 15, 2007

fredk said:
Yeah, I figure I could replace the hard drive myself.
But how would that affect the warrenty?

The HD is a user serviceable part so replacing it wouldn't in itself affect the warranty. However, you dropped it and if you have any other issue in the future, it's likely Apple would refuse to honor the warranty saying any problem was caused by that.

crazzyeddie · Feb 15, 2007

Yeah... any warranty you had is now gone. If you have the AppleCare Extended Warranty sell it back to Apple, its useless to you.

I would say there is probably damage to your hard drive, even if you can boot Windows and see files on the Mac partition. If you really wanna know, find a disk utility that will scan every block of your drive for bad parts. I think TechTool Pro does this, but someone might be able to recommend a better utility.

If your hard drive is bad, just put in a new one yourself (or have a friend do it if you aren't technical enough). You can buy any drive from a company like Mac Sales or NewEgg.

CaptainCaveMann · Feb 15, 2007

Whatever happend to the rubber mounted HD? And the stop disk device that when the computer senses its being "dropped" it locks up the HD. Guess it doesnt work haha. Good luck dude but sounds like you are SOL.

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

plinden said:
The HD is a user serviceable part so replacing it wouldn't in itself affect the warranty. However, you dropped it and if you have any other issue in the future, it's likely Apple would refuse to honor the warranty saying any problem was caused by that.

But will they do that depending on if I change the hard drive myself or not?
Or does it mean that if I take it to Apple and let them do the job, they will sort of "approve" it for any issues that might occure later?
I find it a bit strange that whatever issues I might have in the future they will just blame me for dropping it and refuse to do anything about it.
That bassicly means that I could just kiss my whole warrenty goodbye just because I dropped it.

plinden · Feb 15, 2007

It's hard to know exactly what would happen. You obviously dropped it since the damage is visible, so you have nothing to lose in bringing it to an Apple store now to get them to look at it. The genius'll either fix it out the goodness of his heart or tell you it'll cost $X.

I'll tell you one thing that I saw at a genius bar a few months ago - I was waiting for the genius to look at my wife's MB (dead hard drive) and the guy in front of me was having his iPod Nano looked at. The genius fiddled about with it for a while, said it was dead and offered him a new one. Then he looked him straight in the eye and told him to be careful to take it out of pocket when washing his clothes since water damage is obvious and the Apple store mightn't replace it again.

An MacBook is much more expensive than an iPod, though.

butaro · Feb 15, 2007

I wonder what would happen if your hard drive was physically busted up and you sent it in for repair for something that would be totally unrelated? lol

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

I guess that one could always be lucky.
Thing is, though, I live in Norway and an Apple Store is quite a few miles away.
I will take it back to the store where i bought it (which is an authorized reseller and service provider) and have them to look at it and tell me what they think and how much it will cost.
And I definitly dont wont to go down the route of ordering a new hard drive and change it myself without knowing for sure that that's the problem.

And yeah, whatever happened to the sudden motion sensor?

2tallyAwesome · Feb 15, 2007

fredk said:
But will they do that depending on if I change the hard drive myself or not?
Or does it mean that if I take it to Apple and let them do the job, they will sort of "approve" it for any issues that might occure later?
I find it a bit strange that whatever issues I might have in the future they will just blame me for dropping it and refuse to do anything about it.
That bassicly means that I could just kiss my whole warrenty goodbye just because I dropped it.

Ummmm that's exactly right.

The warranty is voided if you spill water in the machine, or if you dropped it.

Period.

Unless the specific person you are speaking to is a bonafide angel, you are not going to get anything out of your warranty.

fredk · Feb 15, 2007

2tallyAwesome said:
Ummmm that's exactly right.

The warranty is voided if you spill water in the machine, or if you dropped it.

Period.

Unless the specific person you are speaking to is a bonafide angel, you are not going to get anything out of your warranty.

This is starting to suck more and more.
I sure won't get anything out of the warrenty now. But let's say that I have some sort of unrelated problem in half a year or so. Will Apple just say no and thats it? Anyone know any specific cases of this?

crazzyeddie · Feb 15, 2007

fredk said:
This is starting to suck more and more.
I sure won't get anything out of the warrenty now. But let's say that I have some sort of unrelated problem in half a year or so. Will Apple just say no and thats it? Anyone know any specific cases of this?

They will totally deny you for any warranty claim, period. End of story. It doesn't matter what you do, that computer will never be covered by any Apple warranty again.

fredk · Feb 16, 2007

So i try to reinstall OS X and this is what happens:
I start the normal procedure and half way through it says that it will reboot.
Then it reboots and it gets to the grey screen with the Apple logo and the little thing that goes around. After a while it comes into some sort of black screen with a command line. Apparently it is trying to load the airport drivers.
Going something like this:

Launchd com.apple.nibindd
no airport driver
bad system call
too many failures will couse job removal

It tries to load the airport drivers ten times and then I end up with a with a command line saying:

localhost:/ I have no name!#

What is happening?!

richard4339 · Feb 16, 2007

I say Apple Repair is your best bet, but this will not be covered under your warranty, as it was damage caused by you.

Sounds like you may have disconnected some components in the fall? That or the hard drive is physically damaged. Does it make a loud clicking sound, a whirring noise, or get excessively hot now? If it makes a clicking noise, the HDD needs to be replaced, period.

fredk · Feb 16, 2007

richard4339 said:
I say Apple Repair is your best bet, but this will not be covered under your warranty, as it was damage caused by you.

Sounds like you may have disconnected some components in the fall?

It could be, I don't know. But as said before, I can boot up Win XP just fine and the hardware seems to work without any problems.

plinden · Feb 16, 2007

The hard disk may be damaged only in the OS X partition. I've read over the thread again and you haven't said whether you've run Disk Utility on it.

Put your install disk back in, reboot and when it comes to the installation options, select Disk Utility from the Tools menu and verify your Mac boot partition.

You can also boot into Apple's hardware test utility by pressing 'D' while rebooting with the install disk. Run the advanced test.

KD7IWP · Feb 16, 2007

I thought he ran Disk Utility and both Verify and Repair Disk were successful.

plinden · Feb 16, 2007

Oh yeah, I read over the thread then searched for Disk Utility to double check.

Anyway, run the Apple hardware test.

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