Dropped Macbook - Fixed itself?

[Ytsephill]

Hey guys,

I own a Late 2008 15'' Macbook. Yesterday I dropped for the first time from about my waist.
After picking it up the first thing I noticed was that all the whites were pink and the screen just wasn't ok. So thinking this was my only problem, I closed it and opened it several times out of frustration. To my surprise everything went back to normal. I assume it was just a bad connection. So problem gone.

After a while though, I start hearing these loud clicking noises and an occasional 'bleep bloop" coming from the HDD. Everything slowed down, and for the next day that computer was nearly unusable.

Today I was already researching SSDs and Hybrids,etc and the computer starts functioning as normal. It still makes a few clicking noises on startup but only then. Everything else is back to normal.

Can anyone explain to me what happened?
Is the HDD still in danger of "dying"?

Thank you

 

[opinio]

Excuse for a new rMBR when it comes out!

 

[Ytsephill]

Excuse for a new rMBR when it comes out!

Haha, well to tell you the truth I was already sort of happy with having an excuse to buy a SSD hybrid

 

[maflynn]

Can anyone explain to me what happened?
Is the HDD still in danger of "dying"?

Thank you

You possibly knocked something loose but not enough to fully break it, so its more of a intermittent issue. Another possibility is that when its cool the materials contract thus making the electrical connections needed but the more yuo use it and heats up, the more problems will show themselves. I'm just thinking out loud.

Bummers on it falling

 

[Ytsephill]

Another possibility is that when its cool the materials contract thus making the electrical connections needed but the more yuo use it and heats up, the more problems will show themselves.

That's interesting because I did indeed leave the computer on or simply "asleep" for the last 14 hours.

Thank you for your reply

 

[laurihoefs]

I would still check the HDD, if I were you, and make sure you have backups.

HDDs reallocate broken sectors automatically. So if there was surface damage done to your disk, it would behave just like that: slow down while it reallocates the data on sectors that appear damaged. The clicking from the HDD you heard was most likely the read head quickly swinging between reallocated sectors on the edges of the platters. Or the read head being quicly parked to avoid a part of damaged disk surface to damage the head.

Once the reallocations are done, and the drive has marked the bad sectors it should avoid, speeds return to normal. But in a case like that the disk is still damaged, and is much more likely to fail in the future than an undamaged drive. And it has already spent at least some of the spare sectors it has, so in future it won't recover as well from any further damage.

One great tool to check your HDD is SeaTools: http://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/ld25-series/seatools-dos-master/

Behind the link is a CD-image that you can burn to a disk and boot your computer with, by holding C or Alt. It's a tool made by Seagate, but it will also scan other manufacturers drives. And don't let the name 'SeaTools for DOS' fool you: it's a bootable CD that has a DR-DOS environment that SeaTools runs on

Once you boot from the CD, select the correct hard disk (should be automatically selected if you only have one), and run an Extended Test. If the test passes without errors yo should have nothing to worry about. If errors are returned, I'd suggest making backups and starting to migrate to a new HDD.