Dead MBP - HDD or?

[RibaldJester]

Hi -

My MBP (coreduo) isn't booting, and while I suspect it's the HDD I want to check here for ideas.

I was walking out of my bedroom a couple nights ago, my MBP in my hand, and I accidentally bumped the door frame (MBP was *off*).

Tried powering it on and...nothing.
System powers up - fans turn on, screen lights up and the grey apple background appears but it never starts booting - just sits there with the the spinning wheel. It'll just spin and spin - and then the GPU will start heating up and the GPU fan kicks in overdrive. At this point I shut it down.

I cannot boot from CD - Disk Warrior isn't working.

Booting in FW target mode, and was able to access the HDD. Snagged my files, and used Disk Warrior to inspect the directory. It wasn't able to fix anything and said the drive/directory (?) was damaged.

What else can I do to make sure it is the HDD? I don't want to buy a new HDD only to find out its the logic board or CPU or something.

Thank you.

 

[RibaldJester]

Any one have any other ideas? I can't imagine the problem would be mechanical - like a failing fan or loose cable? But without a BIOS Post error or anything I can't know.

Would booting into single user mode show me anything? Is there a way to access the BIOS?

I don't want to spend $140 on a new HDD only to find it was something different.

 

[alphaod]

It said the drive directory was damaged? Try running a sector recovery. It sounds like when you bumped the computer, you scratched the HDD platter surface. If sector recoveries don't work, you'll have to see if you will have to reformat the HDD, but if it's physical damage your best route would be to get a new HDD.