My Macbook won't boot T_T

[Ludde]

Hi!

When I returned to my room today after having washed some clothes, I was more than a little surprised to find that my Macbook wouldn't take my admin password to unlock the screensaver. After several tries of careful typing, I figured I'd just have to give it a cold restart. I was even more surprised when I upon said restart found the Apple logo after the "bong" to flicker between the apple, a prohibitory sign and sometimes a question mark. A quick look at Apples KB makes it seem like a software problem which could be solved by booting from the OSX-DVD, but I'd like to ask here as well if there's anyone who's had any similiar experiences.

 

[mad jew]

There was just another thread about this today. There are few reasons this may have happened, but the first step should probably to be to unplug everything from the machine and then boot from the CDs holding C. Use the accompanying Disk Utility to verify and possibly repair the drive. Then check the startup disk and if you're still not getting anywhere, try an Archive & Install.

 

[Ludde]

Thanks a lot friend!

 

[mad jew]

No worries mate. Tell us how it all goes.

 

[Ludde]

I'm afraid it didn't work. It won't start from the Tiger DVD. If I just let it start the same flickering comes up and after a few seconds the fans go wild. Any good ideas?

 

[mad jew]

Assuming all peripherals are unplugged, the maybe try running fsck from Single User Mode. After that, I guess your next step would be to take it back to Apple. Messing around with it may make it worse. At least Apple might be able to get your data off it.

 

[Ludde]

I'll go try that and hope for the best. I had to take my Macbook in for repair anyway, but I was hoping to have a little more control over it and the possibility to backup my stuff.

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, sucky. Do you have another Mac you could boot this Mac from using Target Disk Mode?

 

[Ludde]

I have only my Macbook. I'm writing this on one of the school computers.

 

[Ludde]

Well, I can now tell you what the problem was...

Dead harddrive and motherboard...I lost all my data, but it cost me a bit less than I'd expected to get it back. I've now got myself a small and handy drive for backup, since I've learned my lesson. However, when I was gonna pick it up today, I decided to reinstall OSX at a nearby cafe and I'm glad I did, 'cause they'd switched the motherboard with a lemon, so back to the shop it went. I'm a bit tired of having to give it away for repairs this frequently, and if any trouble arise again I'm going to ask them to get me a new one...or maybe I should wait 'til the Macbooks are updated(if the eventual problem allows me to do that, that is).

 

[VoodooDaddy]

"dead hdd and mobo: = &$^#@!


This just happened to my wifes macbook the other day. She went to boot and nothing, just a question mark on the screen. The CSR on the phone said if she had another mac available she could possibly move the data over, but she doesnt where shes at.

The were sending her a box to send it back for repair/replacement. I told her to send it to me first so I could try to get the data off by hooking to my mini. Shes got 6months of pictures of the kids and stuff that she never took time to backup. And the kicker is I bought her a 120gb external pocket drive several months ago

Anywho, what is the likelyhood that any of the data may be saved by hooking to my mini? And what is the process to do that?

 

[Ludde]

If it's the same problem I had I'm afraid you'll have to get professional data recovery. That said, I still think you should try hooking it up to your mini. I bought an external disk the same day I picked the computer up again and I'll be doing spontaneous backups until Leopard comes around and makes it a bit less bothersome.

I can't help but wonder though if Apple isn't responsible for paying for the data recovery since it was the original harddrive and the computer is well withing warranty. Can anyone enlighten me on this one?