Hard drive failure??

...I have all you ladies beat
I AM ON HARD DRIVE # 7
Every single one results in random head failure under a multitude of conditions.
Most have been Seagate drives that were thankfully replaced freely by Seagate, but my most recent one was a Hitachi....Please help Apple.....these computers are helpless

And I am another to add... I bought mine in May of '06 without AppleCare (my bad) and the first issue was that early on I let it run all the way down and when I plugged it in, the battery wasn't recognized. A local authorized shop replaced the battery for me under warranty. About 4-6 months ago I had the random shutdowns, but it did eventually get fixed with one of the firmware releases for me. Most of the time, usage was light, or it was hooked up to a TV working as a media center. A couple weeks ago I put it into heavy daily use since I am in the process of trading in my DP G5 for a new 24'' iMac - it was doing heavy video compression a good 12-20 hours a day. Last Thursday I heard the clicking but actually didn't think anything of it at first, thinking it was just the rain outside as I still heard the fans on full blast. When I went to check on the compression status it was frozen and after a forced reboot I also have the flashing folder and booting from the Leopard disk shows me that there is no HD - ordered a new one, am hoping it isn't the logic board. I had that same issue with my last iBook - it went through a couple hard drives (same clicking) and then eventually completely died and needed a new logic board. I think maybe I'll be trading this in for a new MacBook in the hopes it was part of a bad batch at the beginning of launch...

The drive that failed me was a 160GB Seagate. Did Seagate replace your failed drives for free?

add me too. macbook froze while in firefox. restarted. gray screen with apple logo in the middle.

cannot reboot from leopard installation disk, cannot reboot from original installation disk, cannot reboot from lacie external drive.

am running the diagnostic right now. but not too hopeful.

draft. darn. poo.

and this happens at the worse possible time too.

ps: diagnostic finished. it says there are no problems???

so what is the problem?

ideas, anyone?

it then asks me to restart. and i'm back to the gray screen.

i would also add that by restarting with the shift key pressed, my HD does appear.

Message was edited by: dominique.joseph

Seagate definitely replaced mine, it takes them a while though, but the 5 year warranty is nice...


There HAS to be something wrong with these Macs...its not just the drives!

I am soo fed up with this, I have never actually lived in fear of using any computer of any kind, and now heres the fear...on my Mac??? I have lost 3 consecutive semesters of notes/essays/music/movies...BS Apple...

This just happened to me 2 days ago. I am taking mine to the mac store this weekend...but from the looks of this forum I'm pretty sure I know what they're gonna tell me. I am going to be devastated if nothing can be recovered 😟 I have so much music stuff I've made on there...and I never even thought to back it up. I am really re-thinking my decision to get this mac. I've had nothing but problems since I got it.

Has anyone had any luck recovering anything when their hard drive died?

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/warning/seagate-25+inch-hard-drive-flaw-affecting-mac books-316350.php
Saw this today...

That Gizmodo article is SOO wrong, its the Macbooks that are obviously killing the harddrives. And all that are affected are May 2006 launch Macbooks....Coincidence...? Please help Apple

How do you know they are all May MacBooks? Maybe everyone should give enough serial number info to compare. Mine is W87330P1(XXX).

Okay folks,

any and all help would be appreciated! I just bought the mac book for my son who is 14 years old, less than one month ago, there is nothing loaded on it at all. but last night he got the bling folder with a ? mark.... from the looks of everyone elses postings, it is my guess his hard drive has taken a dump. My question to you all, is what is apple doing about this, $1300 down the drain in less than a month, I havent even made my first real payment on it. Would any of you suggest going to an actual Mac desktop, or is the samething happening? So I guess, i should call the apple store, or apple care, I am a pc girl and have no idea what I am doing, I am super frustrated as you all are.

I think if your son's hard drive failed, you wouldn't get the folder with the "?". That folder means that the computer can't find a operating system to run. There are two things you should do:

Run Disk Warrior 4 (you can buy it online or at the Apple retail stores): You can boot up the computer using the DW4 disc and repair your directory, etc. I've used it to save my hard drives that had the "?" folder.

If this doesn't work, re-install the OS using the option which doesn't erase your personal user files.

If these two fail, bring it in to the Apple store. If his hard drive actually had a mechanical failure, it's covered for replacement.

P.S. Always back up your data!

Uh, everyones hdds are experiencing head failure, which isnt gradual, its sudden. So when the drive dies, it dies. When you reboot, your drive just clicks and the computer cant find the OS, resulting in the folder with the question mark.

Well, let's not jump to conclusions in mom2minor's case. She didn't mention clicking sounds. I've gotten the "?" and it was only from a bad directory that needed to be rebuilt. She also said she just bought the MacBook a month ago, where your problem has been ongoing for quite a while. I'd say the jury is out till she tries to boot off a DW4 disc and check the directory. It might be easier to bandage the leg to heal rather than to amputate.

i only get the light gray screen with the darker grey apple logo in the middle.

not the folder with the "?" on it.

and while it does see my HD, Lacie disk or whatever installation disk I insert to boot from, it cannot actually connect to either and therefore does not reboot.

when starting in safe mode, it appears that the script that runs on start-up stops and fails pretty quick and remains frozen - meaning I never get to the point where I could input something myself.

going to the repair store this morning. i have a back-up, so all I need is to urgently get my MacBook back to working order ASAP.

Wonder how long that's going to take...