Macbook pro won't boot, Disk utility input/output error

Thanks for the quick response BDAqua.

Yeah tried the repair disk on the internal drive. I'll try installing osx to the external and trying migration assistant now.

Mite be worth mentioning that my girlfriend has a working macbook pro, would it be a better option for me to connect to her laptop via firewire and use migration assistant that way? Is it possible this could cause any damage to her computer? Or furthur damage to my data?

Also If this does retrive my data and i can put it on an external HD is reinstalling osx on my macbook likely to get it back up and running?

Cheers

I've spoken with a guy at apple and he said it was best to 'reinstall OS X, this will not erase any data as long as you do not format the drive'.

How do i best go about this? Really worried i will wipe my data.

Thanks for your help everyone! Bought a firewire cable from ebay and it finally arrived today. I've connected my laptop to my Gf's and i'm able to access the harddrive using target disk mode.

Unfortunately i cannot copy my files to my external drive thats plugged in. The files begin copying then after a few minutes i get a pop-up saying 'the finder can't complete the operation because some data in (names a file) cannot be read or written. Error code -36.

Once i delete the file named and try again it pops up saying the same thing about a different file. Have tried to copy some importand files, mainly Wavs and i get the error code again 😟

Is there a way i can fix this without having to go through and delete every file that cant be read or written?

Thanks again BDaqua. Yeah have tried the disk repair, said all is ok.

My gf's OS is 0.3, or .4 lower than mine. Could this be causing any problem?

Some files are copying successfully, I've managed to copy some family photos to the external Hd. Although I still get the error message at the end.

Any of my large folders I try copy give me the error message too although no files copy unlike my photo folder.

I could try copy each file manually but with a music sample library that's 70 gig and has about 200,000 samples I would be there forever. Should I try a different external Hd?

Thanks Neville I will look into ddrescue as soon as I get back from work. Hopefully that will work

Managed to pull some files from the harddrive using Tri-backup. But it suddenly stopped working so i disconnected everything and went to work. I"ve just arrived home and now cannot access the hard drive at all using target disk mode. My harddrive does not show up on my gf's mac. Although the mac install dvd shows up, but no drive. I have still loads of stuff left to pull from the drive.

Does this now mean its failed completely?

When i turn it on and hold down T i get the target disk mode logo.

When i turn it on and hold nothing its just a blank white screen, no apple logo.

Holding down ALT, Command R just leaves it on the white screen 😟

Is there anything left i can do? Will re-installing osx mean i can use the HD again?

Will waiting a few days and trying again increse the chance of it being accessable?

This is a nightmare! 😟