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Serious Dilemma with Dead HDD. Insights?

J

jnbyoung

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
8
0
Ok, first off I'm totally at fault for having an inferior backup solution. I had not backed up in a couple of weeks at least, and then only partially.

Either way. Here is my current situation and some options I have. I was hoping for some input from people who have "been there done that" :).

I have a MBP which I have owned for about 3 months. It was purchased from a display in a store which was going out of business, and was really a dream come true for me.

It has a 120GB drive in it which I had been running OSX and WinXP on using boot camp (drive was divided into two 60GB partitions).

The drive died sometime Sunday. I came home to it on my desk with a blanked out screen, it wouldnt wake, etc. I powered off and rebooted and was faced with the nightmare ? mark on the folder - no OS found. So I did what I know to do, used the Install disk and booted to that and tried to run Disk Utilities. It doesn't even see the HDD.

I called Apple and they said to bring it to my local Authorized Apple Repair place, which I did this morning. Only to find out that apparently their "Macbook Pro Certified Tech" quit last week. They could take the drive out for me (at $135/hour for labor) and possibly void my warranty, and then charge me $135/hr for data recovery.

My other option is to send it in to Apple for an authorized repair at no charge, but then my drive is out of my hands and basically done for.

I have some Mission critical data, as well as things I just never dreamed of losing like my daughter's birthday pics, emails, calendar and such and my husband's expense reports, ugh! Truly a nightmare.

My third option (I guess) is to remove the hard drive myself and send it to a data recovery place, get it back, put it back in and pretend like I never took it out, and let Apple replace it with a new one for me.

How hard is it to replace these drives? I am fairly technical (A+ hardware/software cert) and used to do this kind of repair on desktops all the time - just not on laptops and never on a Mac.

Input is appreciated - oh and it is NOT a software issue on the drive. It clacks/clicks when booted and it is definitely hardware causing the problem.

Thanks in advance (sorry for the novel!)
Frustrated :(
 
can't you just get an external enclosure and use a data recovery program like spinrite to recover your files? it would be a lot cheaper. external enclosures are like 30 bucks.
 
zioxide said:
can't you just get an external enclosure and use a data recovery program like spinrite to recover your files? it would be a lot cheaper. external enclosures are like 30 bucks.
Click to expand...

I have an enclosure. The problem is getting the drive OUT to even attempt that.

And from what I've read, messing with a clacky drive is almost guaranteed to destroy even more data. Clacky=hardware failure, so I didnt think putting it an enclosure would gain me anything at all.
 
I really don't know what to suggest. If there's mission critical data on there then you need to get the drive, preferably even the whole machine, into the hands of professionals that you trust. If the issue is mechanical to the extent that the drive cannot be read then you at least need a data recovery business with a clean room that can get the data off for you even if it's you that has to slave over it.

So long as the MBP isn't damaged in any way I can't see why you can't drop the dead drive back in afterwards and hand the MBP over to Apple for a replacement drive.
 
I got incredibly brave (or stupid) last night and carefully disassembled my MBP using the guide on ifixit.com (which was very helpful). I got all the way down to the drive itself only to be foiled by a lack of a screwdriver or bit I could use to remove the T6 Torx. I will be dropping by a hardware store to grab one!

I do have an external enclosure but realized last night that it is an IDE drive, and my HDD is SATA so I need to find a different one.

I also found a drive recovery place that has a branch 45 minutes away from me. I think I will bring it there for the "Free evaluation" that they offer.

I'm guessing this is going to cost me anywhere from $500-1000 based on the quotes I have got from 5 different places.

Needless to say, I'm working on a backup solution in earnest now - any thoughts on SuperDuper and a firewire external drive?
 
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