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HELP! Mac just died on me

J

jdaniel

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 21, 2009
1,150
15
Lviv, Ukraine
Model: Mid 2012 MBP got it in June 2013
HDD: Seagate Hybrid 1TB

Been using it without issue till recently when I have installed some plex related stuff.

Symptoms:

Desktop flashed grey when it was connected to TB display > disconnected it > won't restart > won't do a pram/nvram reset > stalls on a white screen and flashing grey folder icon with a ? mark.

Hold on option key on restart I can connect to recovery but it will not detect a drive, disk utility only shows Mac OS X base system size of about 1GB, I cannot select anything else to repair, when I try and reinstall the os it doesn't show me any disks, when I try j select a start up disk it doesn't show any disks either.

So my question now is, is there anyway to jog the hdd to life? I have access to terminal via recovery if that helps.

I was thinking if there's a way to detect the drive I may be able to solve the issue.

If not I would have to go get a new drive. Pls help thanks
 
I replaced the Hdd myself so there's no taking it to apple, I just wanted to see if there's a way get the Hdd going, it seems clear that maybe the Hdd has totally failed but can't really find out till I get a external enclosure and put it in there
 
[[ I replaced the Hdd myself so there's no taking it to apple, I just wanted to see if there's a way get the Hdd going, it seems clear that maybe the Hdd has totally failed but can't really find out till I get a external enclosure and put it in there ]]

What you need is a USB3/SATA docking station.

To see what these are, go to amazon.com and enter "usb sata dock" into the search box -- you will get many choices.

Once you have the dock, put the drive in, connect the dock to the Mac, turn it on.

Unless the drive has actual "hardware problems" (i.e., broken motor, broken heads, controller board failure), it should "spin up".

Whether it mounts or not will depend on "software problems" (i.e., bad directory, etc.).

Even though the drive may not be "bootable", it may still be "mountable".

Even if the directory is so damamged that it is no longer mountable, it may still be possible to get your old data files off of it.
 
Yes that is what I figured, I just get some kind of cheap enclosure , I got a WD black 750GB to replace it. If I manage to get data off, how do I check if the drive is still good or needs to be replaced? Just take what I need and run some disk utility?
 
Yes, it sounds like a hard drive problem.

Hardware issues and partition mapping errors could cause the drive to not mount. If the problem is indeed partition mapping, Disk Warrior may be able to fix it. If it's a hardware issue, your choices are limited to data recovery service, return to manufacturer for RMA, or voodoo-like hacks such as freezing the drive (which actually worked for me once).
 
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