MacBook Pro wiped, contact AppleCare

Question

MacBook Pro wiped, contact AppleCare

Earlier today, while browsing in safari, my older MacBook Pro stopped responding. I couldn't do anything. I then held down the power button to restart it and upon restarting, I saw the empty folder symbol. I reset the PRAM, restarted, but then a stop sign appeared and I couldn't get past that screen. So I held down Command + Option + R to get the OSX Utility Window after again restarting, I looked at reparing the disk, but all I saw was a 1.39GB Apple disk, presumably the OS. I then tried reinstalling the software, I was told that Apple would verify my reinstallation, and then got a "Contact AppleCare" notice. Is the only thing I can do contact AppleCare, or can I do something else and avoid all the hassle? Has my computer been wiped? How? I reset my Apple ID password and am now waiting 3 days for a two-step verification. I made no backups for that computer. What do I do?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Feb 16, 2014 2:59 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 16, 2014 3:23 AM in response to Sn0wglobe_Breeze

The OS wouldn't even fit on a 1.39GB partition. The EFI and Recovery partitions are usually around 700MB or so, if I recall correctly.

You booted into Internet Recovery but if you only saw a 1.39GB partition you main partition isn't showing up. Try to run Disk Utility on the "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you've named your main partition) and see if it can be verified. If you don't see it, you'll probably need to erase the entire drive and install the system anew and restore from backups - oh, yeah, no backups - sorry.

Did you have your Apple ID and password handy when you tried to reinstall the OS? I'm expecting that you should have and, somehow, the system couldn't verify your OS X purchase and that's why you were referred to AppleCare.

It seems that you'll just have to wait that three days before you can really accomplish anything. And if you can't boot the system, you'll not be able to grab any data from your drive (unless you purchase a new drive and try one of the data rescue packages to try to retrieve some of your data).

I don't see any other way out of the situation - unless you have an older MacBook Pro that shipped with discs?

Clinton

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Answer 2

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Feb 16, 2014 4:41 AM in response to Sn0wglobe_Breeze

Your hard drive has failed. Yes even if it is a SSD, Solid State Drive, it has failed. Only thing you can do is take it to an Apple store and hopefully you still have a warranty on the system.

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