Hey everyone, first thread here and I'm hoping you can help me out with a huge problem I'm having.
Almost a week ago, my MacBook of nine months made a brief clicking/grinding noise when I was using my computer for usual things (remote desktopping, internet, word, etc.). I've never dropped the computer, poured water onto it or anything. After using it for another hour or so with no problems, I decided to restart it and see if the sound came back.
Bad idea.
After a restart, the OS wouldn't load and proceeded to give me a "NO" sign. It did this once, and then every time afterwards it would sit at the spinning circle and apple loading screen indefinitely. Fearing that all my Data had been lost, I popped in a copy of Ubuntu to use linux to see if I could still see files on the harddrive or anything (I did not install it). I found my harddrive and could see most of the files except my applications, the system files, and more importantly, my personal User file. My girlfriend's file showed up, and I could successfully take files on and off of it, but my folder was blank. I'm admin for my computer, so I think it's some sort of Mac user protection kicking in, but I don't know how to get around it!
I loaded the HDD onto my PC to check it as well, and the same problem occurred. I don't know how to get into my personal User file, and I can't find a way for it to prompt me for a password to get in. My friend said something about using a sudo command to get into it via Linux, but I'm lost!
Has anyone had this problem before? I really need to retrieve my documents before taking it into Apple, as I can't pay the extra amounts for them to do data recovery. Help!
Any thoughts appreciated.
Almost a week ago, my MacBook of nine months made a brief clicking/grinding noise when I was using my computer for usual things (remote desktopping, internet, word, etc.). I've never dropped the computer, poured water onto it or anything. After using it for another hour or so with no problems, I decided to restart it and see if the sound came back.
Bad idea.
After a restart, the OS wouldn't load and proceeded to give me a "NO" sign. It did this once, and then every time afterwards it would sit at the spinning circle and apple loading screen indefinitely. Fearing that all my Data had been lost, I popped in a copy of Ubuntu to use linux to see if I could still see files on the harddrive or anything (I did not install it). I found my harddrive and could see most of the files except my applications, the system files, and more importantly, my personal User file. My girlfriend's file showed up, and I could successfully take files on and off of it, but my folder was blank. I'm admin for my computer, so I think it's some sort of Mac user protection kicking in, but I don't know how to get around it!
I loaded the HDD onto my PC to check it as well, and the same problem occurred. I don't know how to get into my personal User file, and I can't find a way for it to prompt me for a password to get in. My friend said something about using a sudo command to get into it via Linux, but I'm lost!
Has anyone had this problem before? I really need to retrieve my documents before taking it into Apple, as I can't pay the extra amounts for them to do data recovery. Help!
Any thoughts appreciated.