Hard Drive Crashed; Erase Drive Failed

[MacConvert2007]

I have a mid-2009 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.11.6 with a 1.5 TB hard drive. It stopped booting up correctly, crashing about halfway through startup each time. At least I have time machine backups on an external drive.

Tried to boot up in safe mode but it powers down about halfway through startup. I am able to boot off the OS X DVD (10.7 Leopard edition). I can also boot up using command R.

When using the DVD disk utility I attempted repair disk. It was finding errors and attempting to repair but as it neared the end (meter almost full) it reported rechecking disk and seemed to start over (meter back near beginning). It ran like this for 2.5 hours, possibly stuck in a loop, before I manually stopped the repair. Was this a mistake? I’ve read online of people letting the repair run as much as 15 hours before it stopped. Should I try running the repair over night?

I also tried erasing the hard drive so I could restore from backups. At first I got errors saying it could not unmount the drive. Using terminal (and google searches) I was able to get it to unmount. But then erase still failed giving me an Input/output error.

What should I try next? Should I just order a new hard drive and restore? Or is there a way to save this failing hard disk?

Any help is appeciated. Thanks

 

[Sko]

I had a similar behavior when I was accidentally mounting my Mac drive while booting into Windows 10. Windows somehow managed to completely destroy the directory to the point where the drive was only erasable in Windows (which I didn't do), Mac OS couldn't do anything. I eventually tried DiskWarrior on the disk and it saved my ass (again).

 

[BrianBaughn]

If it's not just directory corruption as Sko described it could be a failing disk or a faulty hard drive cable.

 

[Ebenezum]

OP: Easiest way to narrow down the problem is to use drive diagnostic software such as DriveDx. Disk Utility has very basic capacity for detecting drive malfunction. If DriveDx warns that the drive is failing you need to replace it. Do not try to repair damaged drive with Disk Utility or other software, it is unlikely to work and could cause more problems!

If drive is fine then you can eliminate the hard drive cable by removing the hard drive from the Mac and installing it on a USB dock. Then boot the Mac from the drive and test if it works normally, if it does its very likely the problem is in the cable and you should replace it.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I also tried erasing the hard drive so I could restore from backups. At first I got errors saying it could not unmount the drive. Using terminal (and google searches) I was able to get it to unmount. But then erase still failed giving me an Input/output error."

It could be that the drive itself has failed.
OR
It could be that the SATA ribbon cable has gone bad on you. That would produce random errors that would "look like" a failed drive.

If you're going to erase the drive, that means you have backups, right?

If so, at this point, I'd just replace the drive and start over.

An SSD would be the best choice, but if you're really using most of that 1.5tb of space, a new platter-based drive will be far more economical.

 

[MacConvert2007]

Anyone know the largest capacity replacement drive I can use for mid 2009 MacBook Pro? 2 TB? 3 TB? Will hybrid SSHD work? (cause I need to keep cost down)

Any websites that would guide me through this?

Thanks