Early 2011 15-inch Macbook Pro Was HD Really Bad?

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19067 Author

Level 1

11 points

Early 2011 15-inch Macbook Pro Was HD Really Bad?

Would not boot. Went half way on Apple logo and stopped. Genius Bar said "could" be spinning 1 TB drive. Local Apple Premier Partner store saiddrive had "failed," then "failing." I replaced with SSD. Restored TimeMachine migration but same thing. Half boot. White screen, nada. Went back to Premier Partner to put fresh El Capitan on SSD. Boots fine. But...just put old spinning drive in dock, showed all files, then First Aid and no errors. My question: Did the spinning drive fail or was "failing," or had something I did corrupted the MacBook and then the store simply told me the drive was shot but hardware tested OK. Never got a receipt itemizing what they did, and had asked at drop-off. Now will slowly reinstall most software to the MacBook, (taken off old spinner) but sadly some installs missing.

I need a Mac "de-tech-tive" to tell me if the old drive really was bad if I was able to see / repair in the dock. Is there a utility I should use with the drive in the dock to double check or was I "born yesterday?"

Thanks.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Dec 8, 2021 8:44 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,520 points

Dec 8, 2021 2:22 PM in response to 19067

No one here can definitively state that your internal hard drive failed, or was just corrupted. Both can happen right out of the blue.

We are fellow users and not exposed to what the Apple partner found/did not find/their deductive process/training. If it had been me, I would have booted the Mac in Recovery and run Disk Utility on the boot drive to see if there were any issues, and if there were, likely would have run Disk Utility again. At some point, if the errors are not fixed and the Mac would not boot from a normal startup, then I would draw a line in the dirt and pronounce the internal drive toast.

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Early 2011 15-inch Macbook Pro Was HD Really Bad?

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