Level 1

5 points

MacBook hard drive failure epidemic

I'm an IT guy at a medium size ad agency and I've had 3 MacBook hard drives die in the a similar way in the past 3 months. I'm told that the computer was on low battery when they put the machine to sleep and the next day (or later) that machine failed to restart. Even with the power adapter a restart produced only a flashing question mark. All the user's information is completely gone and not retrievable.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've completed with no positive results:
1) Reset PRAM and PMU
2) Startup from install disks and run Disk Utility. DU doesn't even see the drive! Even Target disk mode doesn't reveal the drive.
3) Archive and install; the installer doesn't see the drive
4) Swapped the drive into another machine; drive not recognized
5) Disk Warrior, Data Rescue, DDRescue, SpinRite can't see the drive.
6) Moved the drive to an enclosure and still doesn't not mount or appear for programs in item 5
7) Put the drive in the freezer for a weekend (thawed for 1 day) and tried again.
-- No I'm getting desperate... and ******
7) I buy a matching replacement drive (Fujitsu 2.5" 60GB SATA) and swap the electronics. No difference.
** all machines were fairly up-to-date (10.4.8-10.4.9) and we do have a backup system and plan in place but it's not always reliable with active email databases (Thanks Microsoft).

All three of the drives prviously mentioned exhibited this same behavior. It is probably a problem in the boot sector of the drive. But what could have happened to this drive that you can't even format the drive? It's not crashed heads or a few bad sectors. There has be a way to access these drives.

I have about 20 MacBooks in circulation and plan on getting more, but I won't be able to keep people's faith if their email and documents keep getting trashed.

MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 15, 2007 9:52 AM

91 replies

dwb

Level 7

33,220 points

May 18, 2007 7:08 PM in response to Kevin Duane

How long it takes to go into safe sleep depends on a number of factors - how many programs are running and how many files are open. But I've noticed too that if I put it to sleep shortly after restarting it seems take less time than if it has been up for several days or weeks. Then again, it might be my imagination.

Note too that safe sleep can be disabled. For more information, look <a href "http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070302210328928">here.

MacBook (black) / G5 Dual Desktop / Mac mini Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8) WinXP, RedHat Linux, Nano, 4G iPod, Treo 680

May 23, 2007 9:33 AM in response to Kevin Duane

Just happened to me..

There is no hope... The drive will be replaced with a new one

May 24, 2007 10:45 AM in response to Kevin Duane

i just joined the dead HD club. lost a years worth of photos and about 30 demos from GB, and many recently downloaded mp3s.

after 12 years of consistency, apple has finally broken my heart.

mp3fan

Level 1

60 points

May 24, 2007 1:22 PM in response to timtamtastic

So you don't make backups then? Hard drives can fail at any stage (although admittedly this current problem looks like it may related to a faulty batch fitted to Macbooks), so you might want to consider backing up slightly more regularly than once a year! The cost of external hard disks has fallen to an all time low, so there's really no excuse - assuming you value your data.

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

May 24, 2007 7:18 PM in response to Jason Rawlings

Can you give us some details about the events leading up to the failure? Was the machine sleeping or the battery completely drained etc? We're looking for a pattern that may narrow down the cause of some of these failures. Thanks and sorry to hear about your troubles.

May 24, 2007 8:10 PM in response to Kevin Duane

Your initial post talks about a Fujitsu 2.5" 60GB drive but none of the other posts mention the brand and model.

Are all these failures in machines with Fujitsu drives?

Power Mac G5 2GHz dual-core & 13" MacBook 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Black Mac OS X (10.4.9)

skewed

Level 1

25 points

May 24, 2007 10:17 PM in response to Kevin Duane

My drive failed about a month ago without any warning. My battery was fully charged and the unit was plugged in. I was actually just in the process of firing off an e-mail when I heard the drive making odd clicking noises and then I got the spinning beach ball.

The only other person I know with a MacBook also had a hard drive failure.

I lost quite a bit of data, but they were very empathetic at the Apple store and had me up and running again within 24 hours.

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

May 25, 2007 4:38 AM in response to skewed

This just happened to me yesterday morning. I was in the process of iChatting and using Exposé. Color wheel. I did a force restart and heard somewhat quiet hard drive knocking sounds. I have an appointment at the Genius Bar today. An Apple rep at my university said that it was either the hard drive or the logic board. I'm hoping its the latter.

I also lost years worth of data...but had my iPhotos and iTunes and some documents backed up. I'm a student and with all my course info/notes/work, etc. If it is the hard drive, I'll have no choice but to use some $$$ data recovery service to get my files back.

I hope they can process this ASAP!

May 25, 2007 5:50 AM in response to mp3fan

i wrote my post in panic. i actually do back up and recovered a lot of the stuff, particularly the photos and mp3s. unfortunately, i did lose about 15 GB demos from the past few weeks.

pringbat

Level 1

0 points

May 25, 2007 6:02 AM in response to Kevin Duane

Oh strewth, me too. My MacBook, not running as wildly hot as it sometimes does, and not sent to sleep/woken up prematurely - just editing a Word document. Clicking noises from inside followed by beachball and total freeze. I restart and get the question mark folder. Restart with system discs and no hard drive is to be found.

I think it is more than high time that someone from Apple responded to this thread - there is clearly a serious problem with MacBook/MacBook Pro hard drives.

I've owned about 6 different Macs over the last few years, including two Powerbooks, and have never had these problems before.

MacBook 2.0ghz/60gig Mac OS X (10.4.9)

May 25, 2007 5:05 PM in response to Kevin Duane

Identical story. This is my third hard drive. However, this last one also had the flashing icon and all following faioekld:

- Boot from Tiger DVD - won't
- Install OSX by Firewire Taret Disk mode (ie the Macbook as the FW disc, installing via a PMac. This WORKED and the OS booted running via the PM...BUT the Macbook would not boot from the OS...FW mode shoed the OS was installed OK but unbootable.
- Eventually an IT colleague managed to clone OSX off a portable drive....THIS BOOTED!!! BUT...it would not thenlet you run the DVD OSX intaller or any other original disks...(sayd "OSX 10.4 cannot be installed on this computer." !!!

- So, it now runs via the cloned OS (so this is a sort of solution...).....but it STILL will not allow any OS reinstall...Is this some more fundaemtnal Firmware or hardware fault..?

Since I had rpeviously put a new HD in and installed ifne off Tiger DVD, the new problem IS a real new fault..

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

May 26, 2007 9:17 AM in response to John Purins

It has also happened on a Seagate 60GB drive as well.

May 27, 2007 12:09 PM in response to John Purins

I've had two hard drive failures on my MacBook in the past year. Both were Hitachi drives (100 GB 2.5" SATA). In both cases the MacBook was plugged in, and I wasn't doing anything special- web browsing etc. Got the spinning beach ball and lots of clicking. I've spoken to several people at Apple, and only one (apparently rogue) technician has acknowledged that there is an issue with some MacBooks. I've been keeping good backups, but this level of unreliability is unacceptable. There's gotta be a way to get them to acknowledge the problem, isn't there??

TroyAllen

Level 2

280 points

May 27, 2007 12:29 PM in response to pringbat

"I think it is more than high time that someone from Apple responded to this thread."

You must be new to Apple. lol

pringbat

Level 1

0 points

May 28, 2007 11:28 AM in response to TroyAllen

"I think it is more than high time that someone from
Apple responded to this thread."

You must be new to Apple. lol

Hahahaha. Far from new to Apple, and am ashamed of that moment of wild optimism!

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MacBook hard drive failure epidemic