HELP NEEDED MacBook pro crashed....

[last2findout]

Hi my mbp crashed tried to restart and it's just staying on grey screen with apple logo with the spinning wheel, done disk utility all fine restated same again when to start up disk tried repair says hd is corrupt but I haven't backed anything up help any way of getting it started so I can back up!

Running lion help.........

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Do you have an external HDD with at least 20GB of capacity left and formatted for a Mac?

 

[last2findout]

I would go and buy one if I can save all my info and settings all my iTunes pics ect

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I would go and buy one if I can save all my info and settings all my iTunes pics ect

Regardless of the possibility of saving your files, you should always have a backup, thus an external HDD is necessary, as HDDs fail, and this is not a matter of IF, but a matter of when.

Anyway, the external HDD can be used to install Mac OS X onto and boot from that and see, how you can retrieve data from the internal HDD.

Have you tried any of these steps?

Mac doesn't boot

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck
​

 

[last2findout]

It says you can reinstall the osx with out erasing any info but I can't see that option anywhere looks like it's a trip to apple

 

[simsaladimbamba]

It says you can reinstall the osx with out erasing any info but I can't see that option anywhere looks like it's a trip to apple

If you have Snow Leopard, then the NORMAL/STANDARD installation procedure (without setting anything) is the install where nothing gets deleted.
I just wanted to use an external HDD to avoid writing to the internal HDD and maybe overwriting something or lessening its lifespan, if the HDD is about to fail.

It is always good to have an external HDD with a working Mac OS X on it and use it for trouble shooting.

 

[last2findout]

It was originally snow but I updated to lion so if what ur saying just reinstall snow and ever think should stay the sames but it will be snow not lion is that right

 

[simsaladimbamba]

It was originally snow but I updated to lion so if what ur saying just reinstall snow and ever think should stay the sames but it will be snow not lion is that right

It will not work with Lion, that requires a clean install, which will delete all data on the HDD.

JUST FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES:

To create a Clean Install (formerly known as Erase & Install) of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (the 29 USD Upgrade DVD is a fully working retail version of Mac OS X and does not need a prior installation of Mac OS X on the Mac), follow one of the following guides:
Short version: Clean Install of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Long version: Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard: How to Erase and Install​

 

[last2findout]

Is there any way of backing ever think up before a
Do a clean install