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MacBook Pro Hd/SuperDrive broken

G

gibbo132

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2010
139
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So my MacBook pros SuperDrive died on Friday night which was annoying by I could live with it for a while.
Today I was copying my iPhoto library to an external drive which got to 80Gbs then failed.
I tried to eject the drive, but it wouldn't let me.
I rebooted the computer. I now get the flashing question mark folder!
I assume my hard drive has failed.
I have a lion boot disk, by my SuperDrive is dead. Can I copy the lion boot disk to an SD card and boot from that? How do I do this on widows?
 
Use a program that will image disks on Windows. The software being the only difference, follow the instructions on my blog referring to using flash drives.
 
You would need tho make the SD card copy of Lion on a Mac.

And I find it odd that your hard drive and superdrive failed at about the same time. You could have a motherboard issue.

Your signature doesn't state what year your MBP is and that processor was used in more than one revision. But was it new enough to get an EFI update with Lion Internet Recovery? If so you should be able to do that and at least run Disk Utility to see what shape it thinks your disks are in.
 
Also, the flash drive/SD card will have to be formatted to HFS+ and the partition map needs to be GUID.
 
I was under the impression the EFI was in Flash on the motherboard. My late 2010 got the EFI Lion restore, I'll have to try it sans a HDD (an unformatted HDD or SSD).
 
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My MacBook pro is a late 2009 2.53 ghz so I'm pretty sure I haven't got the EFI update!
Thanks for all the replies!
Will I be able to format the SD card correctly on a pc and then clone the DVD. There are slight conflicting answers!
Chris
 
gibbo132 said:
...
Will I be able to format the SD card correctly on a pc and then clone the DVD. There are slight conflicting answers!
Chris
Click to expand...
Probably not. There are 3 separate issues.

The first is that Windows has to be able to reformat the disk to use the GUID partition table. (I have hop clue on this one.)

The second is that Windows needs software to be able to read/write HFS+ file systems.

And if you get past those 2 items, the third is Windows needs to be able to set the boot information and copy the files from the Lion image without corrupting information OS X needs to be able to boot correctly.

I presume you didn't buy the extended AppleCare for your system? If you did, go to Apple as the MBP is less than 3 years old.
 
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Bear said:
gibbo132 said:
...
Will I be able to format the SD card correctly on a pc and then clone the DVD. There are slight conflicting answers!
Chris
Click to expand...
Probably not. There are 3 separate issues.

The first is that Windows has to be able to reformat the disk to use the GUID partition table. (I have hop clue on this one.)

The second is that Windows needs software to be able to read/write HFS+ file systems.

And if you get past those 2 items, the third is Windows needs to be able to set the boot information and copy the files from the Lion image without corrupting information OS X needs to be able to boot correctly.

I presume you didn't buy the extended AppleCare for your system? If you did, go to Apple as the MBP is less than 3 years old.
Click to expand...


I do have apple care it is booked in for tomorrow. I always buy it, I seem to have bad luck with my macs. On my last MacBook apple spent over £1000 repairing it! It only cost me £600!
I would have just liked to know if it was the hard drive so I can sleep easy tonight!
But I have given up on that idea now!
I was super lucky though, I had just backed the computer up before I shut it down!
 
gibbo132 said:
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I do have apple care it is booked in for tomorrow. I always buy it, I seem to have bad luck with my macs. On my last MacBook apple spent over £1000 repairing it! It only cost me £600!
I would have just liked to know if it was the hard drive so I can sleep easy tonight!
But I have given up on that idea now!
I was super lucky though, I had just backed the computer up before I shut it down!
Click to expand...
I do suggest that after you get your system back, do 2 things. The first is make a Lion Recovery Disk - note that this is the only thing that can be on the USB thumb drive or SD card.

And the second is to take your Lion DVD and follow the directions for making a bootable thumb drive or SD card - I'm not sure if this is really needed, but it's your call.
 
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Bear said:
You would need tho make the SD card copy of Lion on a Mac.

And I find it odd that your hard drive and superdrive failed at about the same time. You could have a motherboard issue.

Your signature doesn't state what year your MBP is and that processor was used in more than one revision. But was it new enough to get an EFI update with Lion Internet Recovery? If so you should be able to do that and at least run Disk Utility to see what shape it thinks your disks are in.
Click to expand...

Hmm you don't think apple might it replace the laptop if it was a logic board as it would be the 4th major part including the hard drive and SuperDrive? Wishfull thinking I know!
 
gibbo132 said:
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Hmm you don't think apple might it replace the laptop if it was a logic board as it would be the 4th major part including the hard drive and SuperDrive? Wishfull thinking I know!
Click to expand...
If it's the motherboard, it may not be the HD or SuperDrive at all. Even if multiple parts are bad on one repair visit, it counts as one repair. Machine replacement is usually done after a certain number of repairs.
 
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Bear said:
gibbo132 said:
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Hmm you don't think apple might it replace the laptop if it was a logic board as it would be the 4th major part including the hard drive and SuperDrive? Wishfull thinking I know!
Click to expand...
If it's the motherboard, it may not be the HD or SuperDrive at all. Even if multiple parts are bad on one repair visit, it counts as one repair. Machine replacement is usually done after a certain number of repairs.
Click to expand...

Yes apple fixed MacBook 7 times! Still didn't replace it!
 
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Well its all fixed! Needed a new SuperDrive but not a new hard drive. Also got the loose display replaced! Was amazed by apples turn around time, went in before lunch and it's already completed!
Apple care has certainly paid for itself!
 
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