MacBook Pro Hrd Drive Failed!

[jakedunn10]

Hello all,

A few days ago I received the grey screen of death. Meaning, when I try to boot up my system, it stays on the grey startup screen with the apple logo...indefinitely.

I booted in recovery mode and tried to repair the hard drive to no avail. So, I'm going to purchase a new hard drive.

My question is...

Is there any way to access the files on the failed/failing hard drive? I am an idiot and haven't backed it up in a long time so it's pretty important.

Grateful for any insight into this.

Thanks,

Jake

 

[MagicBoy]

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the fault in the drive.

 

[kingshoc]

Try this.

http://www.alsoft.com/

 

[babyt]

Hello all,

A few days ago I received the grey screen of death. Meaning, when I try to boot up my system, it stays on the grey startup screen with the apple logo...indefinitely.

I booted in recovery mode and tried to repair the hard drive to no avail. So, I'm going to purchase a new hard drive.

My question is...

Is there any way to access the files on the failed/failing hard drive? I am an idiot and haven't backed it up in a long time so it's pretty important.

Grateful for any insight into this.

Thanks,

Jake

never done this myself.... but read about it
http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

 

[thekev]

never done this myself.... but read about it
http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

It's considered an urban myth. I've never actually seen it work, and it has the potential to damage the drive further. If you are even going to try that silly method, might I suggest you exhaust every other possible solution first and understand that once you do that, the drive is probably toast and unlikely to be extractable. Personally I'd mount the drive outside the computer to see if it can be accessed. As for cheap solutions, you can try something like data rescue.

 

[Schtumple]

Swap out the hard drive with a new and put the old one into an external case, plug it in and see. That really is all you can do.

One piece of software you SHOULD NOT EVER USE is Drive Genius, it destroyed my RAID 0 HDs and took 2 days to fix.

 

[jakedunn10]

Swap out the hard drive with a new and put the old one into an external case, plug it in and see. That really is all you can do.

That's what I figured. Is there maybe a quick tutorial of how to do this? If not, no worries.

Thanks!

 

[Schtumple]

That's what I figured. Is there maybe a quick tutorial of how to do this? If not, no worries.

Thanks!

I don't know exactly what MBP you have, but ifixit have the best guides around, bar none.

iFixit MBP guides

 

[MagicBoy]

It's considered an urban myth. I've never actually seen it work, and it has the potential to damage the drive further. If you are even going to try that silly method, might I suggest you exhaust every other possible solution first and understand that once you do that, the drive is probably toast and unlikely to be extractable. Personally I'd mount the drive outside the computer to see if it can be accessed. As for cheap solutions, you can try something like data rescue.

It can work, but only in certain cases. I used it to get data off a couple of faulty IBM Deskstars back in the late 90s that had the click of death. Ordinarily they wouldn't spin up, but give them a few hours in the freezer and they'd run for 15-20 minutes which was enough time to get what data I needed of them.

Anyway probably not recommended in this case.

 

[thekev]

It can work, but only in certain cases. I used it to get data off a couple of faulty IBM Deskstars back in the late 90s that had the click of death. Ordinarily they wouldn't spin up, but give them a few hours in the freezer and they'd run for 15-20 minutes which was enough time to get what data I needed of them.

Anyway probably not recommended in this case.

Interesting... I've never actually heard of it working (literally). I mean I've heard of people trying it many times, but none of them got it to work. My understanding was that this was supposed to aid with mechanical failure though. If it's a non mechanical issue, then I wouldn't try it. If it's absolutely crucial that the OP retrieves that data, then I wouldn't risk the potential of damaging it. I would definitely try to mount it externally first.

 

[Jake99]

Drive crashes, no backup...you are usually S.O.L. unfortunately. I know a lot of people who have experience with this situation. Me included. Usually after this happens to you once, it motivates you properly to do regular backups in the future ;-)

Agree with the other poster, you might be lucky and its only the bootable part of your old HD that has gone bad, and the drive can still spin/read. I doubt this but you have nothing to lose by trying. if you swap it out and put it into a USB enclosure and plug it in, you might be able to get to some of your data. Maybe.

Good luck!

 

[prisstratton]

Instead of an enclosure, try one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...na&AID=10521304&PID=4169666&SID=1f4giennfgq4u

It has the added advantage of being able to be used with different drive size and type's.

 

[Jake99]

Instead of an enclosure, try one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...na&AID=10521304&PID=4169666&SID=1f4giennfgq4u

It has the added advantage of being able to be used with different drive size and type's.

That is actually pretty cool. I am going to keep that in mind.

I guess I like the enclosure because if upgrading your HD (and the old one is still usable) you can keep the old one in the enclosure and use it as an external drive.

But I just may buy that thing from your link just to put in my PC tool kit.