ok so I'm in trouble here. My black macbook (early 2008) has been acting strange lately. It started out with iTunes opening slowely. It took like 5 minutes to load and come up. It ran fine when it finally did come up but once closed down and opened again it still took forever to open! Then Quicktime started doing the same thing. Then today after I downloaded the new iTunes, neither iTunes nor Quicktime would open! They kept crashing. I decided to use VLC player instead and it started crashing too! Then Firefox did it too! I repaired premissions and decided to restart my computer. However it came to the blue loading screen and didn't load any further. So now my operating system is not working either. Can someone help me? My windows partition seems to be working fine (I'm typing on it now). Any suggestions are really helpful! I need help guys, this thing is my life!!!!!!! Thank you so much!
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Software crashing issues. Need major help
- Thread starter faragher6
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This Mac had the same symptoms a while ago. Eventually, I couldn't turn it on at all. Later, I found that the hard disk was failing and the motherboard wasn't functioning correctly.
So what I really suggest is to back up all the data that you want to keep and then send it in. I've had to do this twice, and I've found that DVDs are the best for doing this, although I have a lot backed up on A-Drive from my other crashed computer right now.
Anyway, what you can do is, download keka, install it and then drag it to the doc. Next, put all your files that you want backed up into a folder. Check the size of the folder to see about how many dvds you'll need. Get a bunch, and then open keka. Change the settings to low compression or store, and tell it to split the compressed file into volumes (Enter a size that's a bit lower than the DVDs maximum; ie: 4 GB)
Stick a dvd in, and double click. Drag one of the volumes (that keka made) there and then click burn. Repeat until they all are on DVDs.
Then take your Mac in, and you won't lose your data. I hope you still have your installation disk for Mac OS X and other applications. If you don't, the apps can be backed up in the same way usually.
Alternatively, if you have a large usb drive and/or another computer, you could move the data onto there for storage. You'll need a USB drive (preferably large) to move it onto another computer.
I don't know if your MacBook has a DVD burner. You could use CDs.
If I'm not being clear, or you need more help, please ask.
**If your thinking to try A-Drive, you'll see why I don't suggest it. Limit 2GB capacity for an upload, and it takes about 10-20 hours to do that. 2GB is about half of a DVD
**The guy may be capable of recovering the hard disk for you. When you take it in, you'll probably have to pay to get the Hard-Disk replaced. Backing up the data is just something easy that you can do for free before it completely crashes
So what I really suggest is to back up all the data that you want to keep and then send it in. I've had to do this twice, and I've found that DVDs are the best for doing this, although I have a lot backed up on A-Drive from my other crashed computer right now.
Anyway, what you can do is, download keka, install it and then drag it to the doc. Next, put all your files that you want backed up into a folder. Check the size of the folder to see about how many dvds you'll need. Get a bunch, and then open keka. Change the settings to low compression or store, and tell it to split the compressed file into volumes (Enter a size that's a bit lower than the DVDs maximum; ie: 4 GB)
Stick a dvd in, and double click. Drag one of the volumes (that keka made) there and then click burn. Repeat until they all are on DVDs.
Then take your Mac in, and you won't lose your data. I hope you still have your installation disk for Mac OS X and other applications. If you don't, the apps can be backed up in the same way usually.
Alternatively, if you have a large usb drive and/or another computer, you could move the data onto there for storage. You'll need a USB drive (preferably large) to move it onto another computer.
I don't know if your MacBook has a DVD burner. You could use CDs.
If I'm not being clear, or you need more help, please ask.
**If your thinking to try A-Drive, you'll see why I don't suggest it. Limit 2GB capacity for an upload, and it takes about 10-20 hours to do that. 2GB is about half of a DVD
**The guy may be capable of recovering the hard disk for you. When you take it in, you'll probably have to pay to get the Hard-Disk replaced. Backing up the data is just something easy that you can do for free before it completely crashes
first off thank you so much for your input! I really hope nothing is wrong with my hard drive. I was thinking of bringing it up in target mode and backing the whole thing up to my 1 TB hard drive through my moms mac.
My real question now is, will they replace it for free? how much will this cost me? I had the apple protection plan but i have replaced my RAM before and taken my hard drive out(for curiosity). I would really appreciate any more input from anyone.
My real question now is, will they replace it for free? how much will this cost me? I had the apple protection plan but i have replaced my RAM before and taken my hard drive out(for curiosity). I would really appreciate any more input from anyone.
It really depends on what's actually wrong with it. If it's just the harddrive, it'll cost you whatever it is for a new harddrive + labour, so probably $150-$200 as a guestimate. If it's something worse, like your logicboard, it's going to cost a whole lot more and might not even be worth replacing, depends on how old the Mac is, how much you paid for it and how much the new logicboard is etc.
Are there obvious signs of you going in and looking at the harddrive, and can you put the stock RAM back in? If it's obvious you've opened it up your Apple Care will be void, I'm afraid.
Are there obvious signs of you going in and looking at the harddrive, and can you put the stock RAM back in? If it's obvious you've opened it up your Apple Care will be void, I'm afraid.
ugh this is soooo frusterating....i think i stripped the screws a little when putting the bracket back on and i might now have the original memory. if its just a hard drive problem then i can replace that myself i guess....maybe its time to start looking at a new notebook. I think the software is just bad though because my windows partition is working fine (Im typing on it now.) so maybe i just need to re-install the software. any agreements?