To start off, I am a teenager and I'm not really that computer-savvy. I own a macbook that was purchased in December of 2008. It's had no real problems up until now, and has survived a few small drops and water damage.
To start off, it has been slowing down a lot recently. Whether this has to do with my problem now, I'm not sure. I deleted a lot of music and pictures since I only had about 20GB left. I also uninstalled my Firefox add-ons and this made the computer run much better. Well last monday, only 3 days ago, my computer was running really really slow and was bothering me quite a bit. I was on skype to a friend, listening to music with them, when it froze. It had frozen a countless number of times that afternoon, so this one really set me off. I slammed it shut, waited a minute or two for my anger to cool off, when I opened it everything was still locked, so I force quit it by holding the power button.
When I turned it back on a few minutes later, it stayed at the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinning black circle-type thing for 5-10 minutes before I shut it off and tried again. I did this several times before it gave me the good old, "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the Restart button."
At this point, I searched for my startup disc, but couldn't find it. I went out to buy Snow Leopard, which I hadn't installed yet. Late to the party, I know.
Anyways, I bought that today and tried to repair my hard drive, but it was unsavable. In a last ditch effort, I tried to reformat my computer. This is where the trouble really started. I would press "erase" and it would quickly go through the process, but then it would all of the sudden stop. The bar that showed progress would just quit loading halfway through. I decided to walk away for 5 minutes or so. When I returned, it was at the same place I started when I decided to reformat. I pressed erase again, came back an hour later, and still it was at the same screen. I was able to press erase again, but I opted not to.
At this point, I force quit it. Now it wont get passed a light grey screen, its completely frozen there every time I turn it on. I still have the Snow Leopard disc in, Im trying to boot off that. I did several different tricks. I held "D", "C", and "Command-Option-F-O". My friend gave me those tricks that he found online. After a few minutes of holding just "D", it spit it out, as well as when I held "C". The other trick did nothing
Im not sure if I need to go out and buy a new hard drive, or if my motherboard is fried. Nothing like this has happened since I spilled a little water in my keyboard. Even then, it was fine. This just seems really odd and I couldnt find another story like mine online. Before trying to help, please make sure you explain thoroughly, as Im a teenager and I dont have a ton of knowledge about Macs.
But please, HELP!
To start off, it has been slowing down a lot recently. Whether this has to do with my problem now, I'm not sure. I deleted a lot of music and pictures since I only had about 20GB left. I also uninstalled my Firefox add-ons and this made the computer run much better. Well last monday, only 3 days ago, my computer was running really really slow and was bothering me quite a bit. I was on skype to a friend, listening to music with them, when it froze. It had frozen a countless number of times that afternoon, so this one really set me off. I slammed it shut, waited a minute or two for my anger to cool off, when I opened it everything was still locked, so I force quit it by holding the power button.
When I turned it back on a few minutes later, it stayed at the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinning black circle-type thing for 5-10 minutes before I shut it off and tried again. I did this several times before it gave me the good old, "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the Restart button."
At this point, I searched for my startup disc, but couldn't find it. I went out to buy Snow Leopard, which I hadn't installed yet. Late to the party, I know.
Anyways, I bought that today and tried to repair my hard drive, but it was unsavable. In a last ditch effort, I tried to reformat my computer. This is where the trouble really started. I would press "erase" and it would quickly go through the process, but then it would all of the sudden stop. The bar that showed progress would just quit loading halfway through. I decided to walk away for 5 minutes or so. When I returned, it was at the same place I started when I decided to reformat. I pressed erase again, came back an hour later, and still it was at the same screen. I was able to press erase again, but I opted not to.
At this point, I force quit it. Now it wont get passed a light grey screen, its completely frozen there every time I turn it on. I still have the Snow Leopard disc in, Im trying to boot off that. I did several different tricks. I held "D", "C", and "Command-Option-F-O". My friend gave me those tricks that he found online. After a few minutes of holding just "D", it spit it out, as well as when I held "C". The other trick did nothing
Im not sure if I need to go out and buy a new hard drive, or if my motherboard is fried. Nothing like this has happened since I spilled a little water in my keyboard. Even then, it was fine. This just seems really odd and I couldnt find another story like mine online. Before trying to help, please make sure you explain thoroughly, as Im a teenager and I dont have a ton of knowledge about Macs.
But please, HELP!
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