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Kevin Duane Author

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

Jul 2, 2007 9:45 PM in response to iota626

i find it interesting that itunes continued to play.. BOTH times my HD crashed, music was playing and continued to play.. even during the spinning beachball and system lock up, the music was still playing normally.

anyone with a newer macbook having this HD failure issue? my bf has been wanting to get a macbook since i got mine last june, and now he doesn't want to get one 😟
in a way, i can't say i blame him.

meado

Level 1

15 points

Jul 3, 2007 11:29 AM in response to slee11211

Yet another 'me too', not sure if I am going to even try and recover it, judging by other people's experiences, looks like its toast.

For info I was running a whole of stuff when it happened, including VMware, cursor froze and that was it. I had to force a power down and then got the folder/question mark on startup. Things backed up OK, but is my needed for my business and a day to day basis, curses....

Jul 9, 2007 9:47 AM in response to Kevin Duane

The same hard drive failure seems to have happened last week to my wife's MacBook. It was a Mother's Day 2006 purchase, so I presume it's past the warrantee period. Should I have her take it to the nearest Apple Store, and let them put in a new drive, hopefully loaded with the Operating System and ready to boot? What's that cost? Or should I buy a replacement drive - probably larger and cheaper - and install myself?

I see a 160 GB Western Digital for <$100. How friendly is the Apple Store/support going to be?

DLW9

Level 1

19 points

Jul 9, 2007 1:47 PM in response to Kevin Duane

I don't think this epidemic is limited to MacBooks. My PowerBook G4 HD (Hitachi 80GB) died in exactly the same way on June 24, shortly after updating to 10.4.10. Loud clicking noises then a frozen computer (totally non-responsive). I forced shut down then restarted but it stopped at gray screen with "?". I could boot from the OS/X DVD and DiskWarrior but neither saw a HD on my computer.

Apple service replaced the HD but (of course) said nothing about how or why it died. My plea to return the dead drive was met with total silence.

Now for the weird part: the same thing has happened to 3 friends' computers (iBook, G4 tower, and G5/raid) over the last few months too. This is -not- normal.

It's really hard to imagine a SW scenario that would cause a mechanical failure but OTOH the drive can be worked pretty hard if you're doing a lot of file R/W, paging, etc.

This is the first failure of any Mac I've owned since I got my first Mac-II. I am puzzled and concerned about the apparent rash of similar failures recently. Is there -any- way to get Apple's attention about this?

Jul 9, 2007 5:53 PM in response to Kevin Duane

Same thing for me. #@($( dead hard drive in the middle of random web browsing. Transferring it to an identical MacBook produces the same clicking.

bugg

Level 1

0 points

Jul 9, 2007 11:23 PM in response to Garrett Birkel

Add me too the club... 5 days past warranty. BlackBook 2.0ghz 80gb failure...

Jul 11, 2007 8:10 AM in response to DLW9

i too wish and hope that Apple is identifying the issue for a resolution. Sure, we get our hard drives replaced, but only to know that the same loss is due to happen again in several months.....Very distrupting if you use your notebook for school and work... 😟
What scares me is I could be in the middle of a presentation or online exam for school, then crash.. there goes my MacBook.

cmc22

Level 1

0 points

Jul 15, 2007 7:49 AM in response to Garrett Birkel

Another member...
I have a Macbook that--thank god--has 40 days left under the warranty. I used the computer pretty heavily yesterday and shut down last night with a low battery. Plugged it in this morning and powered up and surfed the web for about 10 minutes before getting the spinning rainbow. Tried to force quit but no success. Shutdown with power button and then the death sounds and the question mark folder. This is my first Mac and I am in love with it but not if this is going to be an ongoing problem. Oh yeah, and no back-up. Lesson learned.

Macbook 80 GB Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Jul 15, 2007 12:21 PM in response to Kevin Duane

Let me join you all, but let me not bore you with the full story of how I got to the question mark while on Firefox.
Suffice to say that my book is white, 60gb, stock out of the box, and I've loved it. Only wrinkle is that we had no ipod til about 1 week before crash. Got a Shuffle for a B-day.
Bought mine online at BestBuy 14 months ago; with their 3 year warranty. Would've gone to Apple and Applecare, but no free financing (are you listening, Apple?). So my 1 year with Apple finished 2 months ago. I'll let you know how BB resolves the issue. It's been sent to Ky for repair. After reading all of your stories, I'm hoping it goes down 3 more times in the next 2 years so that I can get a newer, upgraded, and hopefully issue resolved model under BB's Lemon policy.
Thanks

LuOOOB

Level 1

0 points

Jul 19, 2007 9:14 AM in response to Kevin Duane

Well I've just got my macbook dead, and with a lot of non-backed up data in it. Although I didn't see any spinning ball, my screen froze all of a sudden and after reboot, well the question mark on the folder made its apearance. I'm about to go to the mac store but after reading all the cases I no longer know if to replace the disk or just try to go for a refund, since I can't pay now for the extended guarantee...The stress of waiting for a crash at any moment might be good for backup habits, but what about mental health?...

Mac Book Mac OS X (10.4.10) 80 GB

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 19, 2007 9:58 AM in response to LuOOOB

Can you give us any details... Did the computer go to sleep and not wake up? was the battery drained? Have you tried to repair the disk with Disk Utility or a third party tool?

I started this thread to try and find a solution to the seemingly unrepairable dead drive... it's turned into more of a whine and cheese convention! 🙂

--Kevin Duane

Jul 19, 2007 9:59 AM in response to Kevin Duane

This appears to be a common fault, this happened to me while working in Holland, the macbook was sleeping and would not work when the keyboard was touched, just a black screen, a restart brought the question mark on a folder.
Luckily a local dutch Apple shop exchanged the drive the next day although the old drive had to be retained for examination by apple, As I was working at the time I lost 2GB of pictures not pleased, this week I bought the mabook pro thinking that the macbook was not up to regular use and I now have a network issue with system 10.4.10 slighly annoyed.

As apple become more popular are we suffering from quality control issues

Kevin Duane Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 19, 2007 10:15 AM in response to Simon Bellis

Sorry to hear about your lost data... I've had users lose a lot too. I now have a decent backup plan for the office so hopefully I'll avoid someone's total loss.

There could be several reasons for hard drive early demise issues:
A bad batch of drives
- It happens. Hopefully they've weeded out the culprits.
- Safe Sleep Mode. My advice is to dismantle Safe Sleep (see previous posts)
- Battery/power related issues

I feel the need to reiterate that the issue I've been talking about in this thread is non-mechanical hard drive failure. Not clicking hard drives, or exploding hard drives... read the first post. I think Simon's story falls right in line with what we're talking about. I've only seen this on early generation MacBooks and never on any Mac Book Pros (knock on wood). So hopefully we're out of the woods.

Jul 19, 2007 11:37 AM in response to Kevin Duane

Another dead HD!

Has there been any success getting data back? Can an app like DiskWarrior rebuild these failed drives? I had a similar problem with an ext FWire drive a few year's ago and before that, a lost Master Boot Record on a WDos HD - which were repairable.

Also, are there any UK recommended disk reparing firms? A good service and reasonable price would be very helpful for me right now.

Needless to say, I'm just out of warranty and have no AppleCare.

Problem (again)
- Beach ball in browser
- Finder unresponsive, so no Force Quit
- Forced restart
- Question Mark folder
- HD missing from all recommended utils
- HD won't appear as firewire drive in Target mode
- Apple Support offer me 'Good luck' as I'm out of warranty period
- Sadness follows at the idea of a large paper weight that used to be my livelihood.

I do feel that Apple's 12 month and your on your own is pretty weak.

I'm thinking I'll buy a 5,400 SATA 2.5" replacement disk and some sort of casing and USB connection for the old drive to see if I can get it going to resurrect some data. Tips, helps and guidance please!

MBook 2Ghz, Ver A, 2Gb RAM, 80 HD (dead) Mac OS X (10.4.10)

DLW9

Level 1

19 points

Jul 19, 2007 2:36 PM in response to Kevin Duane

I started this thread to try and find a solution to
the seemingly unrepairable dead drive... it's turned
into more of a whine and cheese convention! 🙂

--Kevin Duane

I suspect few of us have your knowledge and skills, yet apparently many of us are experiencing similar HD failures. Therefore, I think it would be useful to look for the commonality, if any, in order to understand how to remedy the fundamental problem.

I have noted that some of these posts reference an 80GB drive. Mine was a Hitachi. I spoke to a friend today whose Dell laptop had just experienced the same failure (clicking noise then no HD) and it too had an 80GB Hitachi HD. Other brands and sizes were mentioned here too but perhaps there are common internal components.

I assume (being an engineer) that something inside the drive comes loose and eventually prevents the arm from moving and/or destroys parts of the disk surface. Perhaps it was a specific batch of drives with defective construction? Or the design of the 80GB drive? Or ...?

If Apple really does analyze broken drives, they should be in a position to respond to this supposition. Apple, Are you there???

MacBook hard drive failure epidemic