Has my hard drive died?

[john2006wright]

Hi guys, I would really appreciate some advice. I think the hard drive in my Macbook (2007 Model) has died. My macbook froze and when I restarted I can hear an usual clicking noise and I only get a white screen with a grey folder icon and white question mark inside.

Fortunately, I use super dooper to create a bootable clone of my hard drive as a back up. When I attach this and hold down the apple key I boot straight into the clone and the computer runs fine from the external hard drive. If I go to disk utility my computer can not locate the internal hard drive, nor if I go t sysyem prefs-startup disk.

Should I assume its dead or could it be a connection problem. I don't have applecare so I'm willing to buy a new hard drive and swap it myself. However, this is making the assumption the hard drive is the culprit.

Can anyone else diagnose this problem from the desrcitpion before I shell out on a new hard drive?

Many thanks,
John

 

[eawmp1]

Sounds like a drive failure to me. Connection priblems are less likely than the drive failing. Use this as an opportunity to upgrade your HD. Good on ya having a backup.

 

[john2006wright]

Sounds like a drive failure to me. Connection priblems are less likely than the drive failing. Use this as an opportunity to upgrade your HD. Good on ya having a backup.

well it was you guys on these forums that persuaded me to use back ups! I'm so glad I use bootable clone back ups, as it meant I only stopped working for the length of time it took to connect my external using the FW400 and reboot.

 

[john2006wright]

Any advice before I order a replacement hard drive and do the task myself?
I've never replaced anything in my macbook before so I'll just follow the instructions on the apple website.

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

Any advice before I order a replacement hard drive and do the task myself?
I've never replaced anything in my macbook before so I'll just follow the instructions on the apple website.

Terribly simple to replace the drive. The hardware instructions are straight forward.

Software wise, you'll install the new drive, boot up the computer with the Leopard DVD in the optical drive, and hold the c key during the boot. From there, you'll run Disk Utility to format the drive as GUID partition table with HFS+Journaled formatting, and then install your OS from the DVD as well.

After the OS installation, it'll give your a migration assistant prompt where if you've used Time Machine to back up your system you can restore your data to the new drive.

 

[john2006wright]

Terribly simple to replace the drive. The hardware instructions are straight forward.

Software wise, you'll install the new drive, boot up the computer with the Leopard DVD in the optical drive, and hold the c key during the boot. From there, you'll run Disk Utility to format the drive as GUID partition table with HFS+Journaled formatting, and then install your OS from the DVD as well.

After the OS installation, it'll give your a migration assistant prompt where if you've used Time Machine to back up your system you can restore your data to the new drive.

I have a clone of my hard drive so could I just boot the clone then click restore from disk utility?

 

[john2006wright]

Just for infornmation. What would it cost if I handed it over to apple to repair? Any ideas in UK£ if possible.

thanks

 

[MacManiac76]

I have a clone of my hard drive so could I just boot the clone then click restore from disk utility?

You could certainly do this. You may need to format the new drive first. Not certain as I've never actually done this myself before.

 

[misterredman]

You can boot from the clone and restore from there using superduper. You will first need to format the new drive as HFS+ and change the partition table to GUID ("GUID Partition Scheme") with Disk Utilities. No need to use the OS disks.
Here you can find more informations on how to change the partition scheme:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/9014.html