13" Core Duo Logic Board issues

[phantasmariposa]

Okay, so I bought this Macbook on eBay because of the software on it. Two months later my boyfriend spills Mt. Dew on it. The next day we take it to PeachMac (that's redneck for Apple Store) and the guy there said the logic board was screwed and would need to be replaced. We opted out of the repair since it was $500.

Now, here's where it gets tricky..
I just started school so I'll be needing CS5 (which was on my Macbook) and the Apple cadet assured me my hard drive was fine and once the repair was made I could continue to use it like nothing happened.
Well, when I took my broken baby home in defeat I decided to try turning it on. The screen comes up and flashes a hard drive with the circle and slash.
Now that we've come into some money we're going to get it fixed, but I've been reading that if the screen comes up then the logic board is fine and the hard drive is the problem.

I know you can't really know without seeing it, but what do you guys think the real issue is? The logic board or the hard drive? And if it's the hard drive what's to become of my Windows 7, CS5 and Office Suite (that I have no codes for) ?!

 

[brapmac740]

Try to boot in target mode if you got another mac. If it works you can rip CS5 off the bad one's HD.
Circle and slash over the HD is bad juju though...
Apple key + T, or function +T. Google how to boot in target mode if you don't know how. Relatively simple and you can get a lot of programs off of university computers. (not to advocate piracy I only used the software relative to a class I paid for. )

 

[session101]

if you buy a laptop HD external case, you can pull your HD from your mac and save the files or whatever on it....though another computer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347004

 

[alexpja]

I myself, would try to repair it. If you have Lion on that Mac, most likely you have a 'Recovery HD' partition when selecting other hard drives to boot from by pressing option before the Mac startup sound/gray screen shows. If you don't see any, use any methods above this post ^^

 

[phantasmariposa]

Thank you all for your replies. I actually figured it out by the end of the day. Here's what happened:

First of all, the guy at PeachMac sucks.
I went and bought a charger and the OS DVD. Popped the DVD in, held down C, prayed and it actually read it. Erased the HD. installed OS X Snow Leopard and she was good as new. I lost everything, including my partition with Windows 7. Updated the software, opened Bootcamp and deleted the messed up partition.

So, the guys that I took it to originally were supposed to clean and test my computer. Turns out they did neither. I've already sent them hate mail. I'm really glad I wasn't duped into spending $500 to fix the computer when the REAL fix was only $30. Suck it, PeachMac.