macbook pro can't find hard drive!

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Level 1

1 points

macbook pro can't find hard drive!

I'm using a 13" Macbook Pro on Lion OS and yesterday I was working on my thesis and I opened up Pinterest for what must have been thirty seconds before I was met with the pinwheel of death. I waited five minutes, and then I decided todo a manual shutdown. and then when I started it up again all I could see was a flashing folder with a question mark on it.

So i restarted it holding the option key, and my only option is the internet recovery. So I went there, and when I attempted to reinstall the Mac OS, I realized that it couldn't find my hard drive as a destination to download it. So I went to my local apple reseller store here in Norway and ofcourse they had no idea what to do withnit because they've never seen the problem before - they offered to help, but They would need to take it in for 2-4 weeks! and I don't think my exam period can handle that.

So i left it alone for a night. In the morning I tried to restart it, but the same thing Happened. what should I do? Is my poor hard drive dead?

Posted on Apr 9, 2013 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

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clintonfrombirmingham

Level 7

30,100 points

Apr 9, 2013 3:45 AM in response to Jessica Li

Best left to the pros. Your problem is either a dead hard drive or a bad SATA cable - only by running diagnostics can the pros be sure (and they would probably just replace your drive with another to rule out the cable). It could be one or the other but I seriously doubt both.

You could get an enclosure for your hard drive and try to boot from it - that would allow you to know if it's just a bad cable. But if you're near an AASP, I would take it to them for diagnosis - but you can always make it a DIY project rather than paying the high fees that an AASP may charge (they shouldn't charge you anything for the diagnosis or estimate for repair).

Clinton

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Answer 2

Jessica Li Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2013 2:57 AM in response to Jessica Li

also - might I mention that my thesis is due in a month so ANYTHING you can do to help would be extremely appreciated.

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Answer 3

Apr 9, 2013 3:13 AM in response to Jessica Li

It could be that your hard drive IS dead or it could be something as simple as a faulty SATA cable - hard to diagnose from a distance (and I'm quite surprised that an AASP would be baffled by something that MAY be something simple).

Since you didn't find the Lion Recovery partition when you booted up whilst holding the option key, I'm assuming that the drive is dead or that the SATA cable is bad.

Assume the drive is dead - the best thing that you can do is get a replacement hard drive, an external enclosure for your 'dead' drive and then use something like DiskWarrior to try to recover your most important data (which would be your thesis - and I'm assuming that you don't have a backup scheme in place?).

I'm not sure that you should take your machine back to the same reseller - are they an Apple Authorized Service Provider? Go here -> https://locate.apple.com/no/no/ - and see if there's an AASP near you. They should be able to actually diagnose the real problem, before you go through the agony of replacing your hard drive.

Good luck,

Clinton

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Answer 4

Jessica Li Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2013 3:40 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thanks so much for your reply. Is there anyway that I can check to see if the problem is the sata cable or the Harddrive? Can I try to open it and reconnect a sata cable from someone else's laptop maybe? or is that best left up to the professionals?

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