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MacBook Hard Drive Dead

adn rcd dly

adn rcd dly

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 23, 2004
281
2
Salt Lake City, UT
Hello All,

My mother's MacBook (Intel Core Duo, 2 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD) recently kicked the bucket.

I was converting some stuff in QuickTime when the hard drive started spinning really fast. I didn't think much at the time, but a few more times that week it did it again.

Well over the weekend I went to use it and the strange events started there. I picked it up and when I opened it the "trash empty" sound came on. Curious I thought and went to click on the short name in the toolbar to switch users. Immediately I got the beach ball of death. I let it sit for a minute but nothing happened. I figured I should relaunch finder and sure enough Opt-Cmd-Esc did nothing, Still sat there. Upset, I held the power button down and it turned off. I left it off for about 10 minutes and tried again. When it started up instead of the glorious Apple logo I was greeted by a gloom folder with a giant "?" on it. I had no idea what was going on but my suspicions immediately turned to the hard drive as that's what was making an audible distress signal to all it's users. I put in the OSX (Tiger) install disc and booted from that. In all the utilities no hard drive was to be found. System profiler also showed few things i.e. it found no AirPort card, showed only the SuperDrive, showed RAM... I was thinking this could be due to the fact that Tiger is not installed so it's not showing all the components. This computer is 3 years old and my mom did not purchase Apple Care.

So at this point I turned to MacRumors. All the searching yielded how to replace a hard drive but couldn't find this problem specifically.

After reading about people changing hard drives I decided that's what I will do too. My question to the cosmic powers that are the users of this forum are the following:

1. Do you think that my suspicions are correct?
2. Will the Seagate Momentus 320 GB 7200 RPM work or would it be too much for this little machine?

Of course any and all help is much appreciated in advance. MacRumors has always been great at assisting my frustrations (even though they are few and far between).

Adrian
 
Thats a good hdd size for your macbook. 7200rpm 320gb SATA 2.5in drives are the way to go. You can save a couple bucks if you're ok with less room, but stick with 7200rpm.

That seagate has had a higher failure rate than average. You might like to look at western digital and hitachi intead.
 
Western digitals have a problem interfacing with the sudden motion detectors on Apple machines. They have their own motion tech on the hd's and sometimes lock up.

Get a 3200 travelstar by Hitachi. If you get the 7200rpm drive, it will really speed up your mom's computer.

The seagates are also fine. if a drive is noisy, there is usually a problem with it. I've never had a noisy seagate or travelstar. Prefer travelstars, thou seagate has better warranty. Do not like Western Digitals for SATA drives. so avoid if possible. Samsung and fujistu suck.
 
just wanted to update that the hard drive replacement was very successful. just did a fresh install of Tiger and it's smooth.
the hard drive that failed was a Seagate Momentus 80 GB 5400 RPM

thanks for all the input guys
 
Sad Update

hey guys,

the hard drive replace went fine and everything, but a new problem has surfaced. a few times when using the computer that fan would sound very clunky and go way fast. when it would speed up I checked the processes to see what was using the most CPU. nothing was using a lot of CPU so I would quit all programs and put the computer to sleep for 30 minutes and it'd be good to go.

so after it was spinning up and being clunky I shut down and left it for a few hours. when I came back the noise stopped. I was greatful.

Then it started turning itself off. This was was frustrating me beyond all belief. I opened smcFanControl and noticed the RPM was at 000.

At this point we have kept the computer off (except for the occasional turning on to see if the fan is working again...which...it isn't).

A problem that has also been with this MacBook is that the screen would flicker as well. Nothing too bad nor did it last long. Just kind of an annoyance.

So I'm wondering if it's just a dead fan or if the motherboard is screwy which might explain the flickering screen. Just curious as to what every one thinks this is and what it may cost to fix. It's almost 36 mos old and mom did not get Apple Care.

Any input is always greatly appreciated!

adn
 
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