Mac book air won't load OS. Rescue disk

[GMF]

My Mac book air is not working well. I just get the white screen with spinning wheel. Tech support says it is a hardware problem and want me to send it in. Is there any data rescue cd's(linus rescue disk?) that are available that I can boot from to get the data off of my mac book before I send it away? My install disks are not with me as I am on the road.
I would like to have my data in the event I don't get it if they replace the hard drive.

thanks,
Greg

 

[hachre]

My Mac book air is not working well. I just get the white screen with spinning wheel. Tech support says it is a hardware problem and want me to send it in. Is there any data rescue cd's(linus rescue disk?) that are available that I can boot from to get the data off of my mac book before I send it away? My install disks are not with me as I am on the road.
I would like to have my data in the event I don't get it if they replace the hard drive.

thanks,
Greg

Try holding Command + S right after turning it on until the black terminal appears. When it has stopped flooding text enter

fsck -fy

press enter, wait until its done, it can take a few mins. You know it is done when you press enter and it writes a word at the start of the line and repeats that every time you press enter again. Type

reboot

press enter. It might boot up now.

 

[GMF]

No luck

tried the commands. Still which screen with apple logo and spinning wheel.

thanks none the less,
Greg

 

[hachre]

tried the commands. Still which screen with apple logo and spinning wheel.

thanks none the less,
Greg

Hold and press Command V like you did Command S previously. It will start up normally but show what it does instead of hiding it with the spinner screen. Try to see what the last lines are before it starts hanging... Is there anything about disk IO errors or something?

I don't know any bootable stuff sadly, btw. The only solution I have to try to rescue the data is hook up an external drive to USB (with Mac OS installed there), boot from that, then copy the stuff over from there... But that doesn't help you now, while on the road.

 

[GMF]

ok

so the only real info that stands out is BSD root:disk0s2, major 14, minor 2

 

[hachre]

Can you make a photo of the screen when it has stopped doing anything maybe?