Macbook Pro Hard drive missing?

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Macbook Pro Hard drive missing?

So it's a long story. I messed with a bootcamp plist file and my Macbook Pro wouldn't boot. I tried restoring the plist file in single user mode but couldn't so I made a backup using Target disk mode, erase my drived and clean installed Yosemite again. Everything was working fine, until one day I did a Software Update to Yosemite 10.10.3 And after the update my Macbook was really slow and freezed while opening Chrome. I tried to send an importan e-mail and the computer froze and the screen turned grey and then black. I forced shut down and reboot and I was able to send my e-mail but few moments after that, the screen turned grey again and the dreaded folder with a question mark appeared. I rebooted from Yosemite Installer in a bootable USB I previously made and ran Disk Utility to repair permissions. Everything worked fine, there were some printer library issues that were fixed. Then I did a disk repair and after a few moments a green line came saying the disk was OK, but then a few lines appear again followed by a red one that said something like "The disk cannot be repaird, backup as much as you can, erase your disk and install OS X". I booted again from the installer and there was no hard drive on Disk Utility. I opened my mac, removed the disk and put it back in to make sure there was no problem with the connection. I did a SMC reset and booted again, this time it worked but again after a few moments of working around the folder with the question mark appeared again. I booted in single mode and ran fsck -fy command getting tons of errors. Now everytime I trie to boot it goes halfway through login into my account, and in the login screen some lines (single user mode-like) appear and then it reboots without any luck with the folder question mark appearing again. I sometimes can look at my files for example the Desktop from single user mode, but other times I can't. Everytime I boot into the startup manager I actually see my hard drive, but it won't boot. I always see it in Disk Utility, but cannot be repaired, it just takes a long time before it freezes. When I choose my hard drive as a startup disk the computer freezes. I tried target disk mode and I can actually see the drive on another mac, but when I open it, it freezes or sometimes no folders are seen. I've tried everything. I'm not sure if it is a software issue or my hard drive is failing or the flex cable is failing. Is the only solution to buy another hard drive or another cable? How can I save my files?

It's a late 2011 Unibody Macbook Pro 15"

2Ghz

intel core i7

4GB RAM

MacBookPro8,2

Boot Rom Version MBP81.0047.B27

the Macintosh HD was 500 GB

Yosemite 10.10.3

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 29, 2015 7:40 PM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

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140,948 points

Apr 29, 2015 11:26 PM in response to josefefs

"The disk cannot be repaird, backup as much as you can, erase your disk and install OS X"

In my experience that message is unjustifiably optimistic. Attempting to retrieve data from a hard disk that has failed and cannot be repaired by DU is usually an exercise in frustration.

I think your best course of action would be to remove that drive and install it in a separate enclosure ($10 or so) so you can continue to troubleshoot it in an effort to retrieve its contents.

Purchase and install a new hard disk drive, and cable if you decide to replace it. The cable itself is inexpensive enough, so you might as well replace it. Or, take this as an opportunity to upgrade to a SSD from OWC / MacSales. They're not exactly cheap but they're much more affordable than when your Mac was new.

Install OS X by usingOS X Internet Recovery — hold ⌘ option r (three fingers) while you start your Mac. That will download OS X from Apple's servers so you don't need to rely upon the Recovery Partition from the failed HD. Then, you will be in a better position to attempt to resurrect the failed HD's contents.

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Answer 2

josefefs Author

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Apr 29, 2015 11:29 PM in response to John Galt

I will definitely buy a separate enclosure and try to recover my files. If the enclosure works well I would suspect the problem is with the cable. Just a question, using OS X internet recovery is any different from booting from a Yosemite installer bootable USB???

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

140,948 points

Apr 30, 2015 7:02 AM in response to josefefs

Yes, in that OS X Internet Recovery will always download the latest publicly available version. I have seen several different procedures for creating standalone USB installers and some of them just don't work. There can be any number of variations in their implementation, so it's not possible to predict the results of using it. If you don't want to download OS X multiple times, I find it a lot easier to simply copy the installer program (icon) so that it can be used as often as you wish. It doesn't matter how it's stored.

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Answer 4

josefefs Author

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May 5, 2015 11:21 PM in response to John Galt

So I just bought a separate enclosure to test my drive, I got the same problem. I was able to test my enclosure with another macbook pro hard drive that seemed to fail, it had same issue my macbook appears to have and I could boot on that HD as an external, all data was intact and disk utility verified the disk and it appeared to be OK. When I connect my hard drive, I got the usual login screen, then loading into my account and while it's loading the problem seems to trigger. I'm suspecting it's a software issue because my hard drive appears on startup manager and appears on disk utility. If I choose the the Guest account in the login screen, I'm able to access in a safari mode and I can browse the web as I always do. That's why I think the drive is OK.

This is the what I can see before computer crashes and the blinking folder with the question mark appears. Which does not appear when I choose the Guest account. Also this kind of error never appeared before, it was after I booted into single user mode and ran the fsck -fy command. Do you think that if I erase the drive and do a clean install, it would work again? Or do you think the hard drive is definitely ruined? I haven't tried erasing it because I wanted to recover some files first, but a this point I wouldn't mind. I'm writing this from a PC with windows 7 and I'm kind of losing my mind here.

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