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)
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)