MacBook (white polycarb) dead HDD? Or faulty logic board?

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ahmad

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#58996 24-Mar-2010 17:23

Hi, I'm helping out a friend here with an OOW MacBook.

It powers on, and then shows a picture of a folder with a question mark on it.

I tried reinstalling the OS X, but the Leopard installer doesn't detect the HDD so it cannot be erased and installed onto.

Disk Utility in the installer does not mentioned the HDD.

When I go to System Profiler, under Serial-ATA it says "error detecting serial-ATA devices" or something similar.

Any suggestions? If it needs a repair then so be it but I'm lead to believe that logic boards are not cost-effective to replace, so I'd like some way to try to work out if it is the logic board or HDD playing up before paying for an inspection to find that a repair will not be cost effective

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#311062 24-Mar-2010 23:20

Plug another hard drive in and try installing. I think all MacBooks have user replaceable hard drives.

Hard drives do die, I had mine die over christmas ... My machine is mid 2007. (wow, I just realised how old it is!)

Logic boards can be very expensive. Hard drives are definitely cheaper - worst case scenario you have a 2.5" drive to find a case for and turn into a Time Machine Backup drive ;-)

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ahmad

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#311065 24-Mar-2010 23:29

How do I go about looking for said HDD? What do I look for on trademe? Will any 2.5" form factor drive work or am I looking for something specific?

I figure a 2nd hand drive will allow me to at least diagnose the issue?

Thanks.

lotech

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#311067 24-Mar-2010 23:37

The folder with question mark means your computer can't find a bootable drive. I would bet the drives failed.

ahmad

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#311070 24-Mar-2010 23:57

Thanks. Yes I was aware what the folder thing meant but I believe it can also just mean osx doesn't know which drive to boot from? Hence I tried the reinstall but yeah system couldn't "see" a drive. If I found an enclosure and tried the drive would this also achieve the same goal?

I was able to boot to osx installer despite this - does this exclude a logic board failure or not necessarily?

Cheers

code15

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#311074 25-Mar-2010 00:05

Check out this page, you might qualify for a free replacement as it is an acknowledged issue.

http://www.apple.com/nz/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/

gehenna

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#311083 25-Mar-2010 00:25

You can use any 2.5" drive just open it up and check the type - it should be SATA depending on the age. The hard drive is behind a panel in the battery bay.

You can also boot up off another mac if you have a firewire cable using Target Disk Mode. This way you can check that the fault is definitely related to the drive and not the logic board.

As code15 states the hard drive fault is known and is covered outside of warranty.

ahmad

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#311086 25-Mar-2010 00:41

Wow brilliant information. Thanks! I will check the specs and see if it falls in that range.

wazzageek

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#311123 25-Mar-2010 08:18

code15: Check out this page, you might qualify for a free replacement as it is an acknowledged issue.

http://www.apple.com/nz/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/

Haha - My machine appears to fall under that category ... although I have the extended warranty, so I had the drive repaired under that.

You can check things like manufacture date by entering the serial number into this page: http://www.apple.com/nz/support/macbook/

wazzageek

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#311125 25-Mar-2010 08:21

gehenna: You can use any 2.5" drive just open it up and check the type - it should be SATA depending on the age. The hard drive is behind a panel in the battery bay.

You can also boot up off another mac if you have a firewire cable using Target Disk Mode. This way you can check that the fault is definitely related to the drive and not the logic board.

As code15 states the hard drive fault is known and is covered outside of warranty.

If you format an external USB to the correct partition map first, you should be able to install the OS on the external drive and boot from that. (This is as I recall it, I only have home partitions on an external drive currently, not the whole system)

ahmad

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#311427 25-Mar-2010 20:09

Geekzone is awesome. This is going to be fixed under that programme linked to above. Cheers!!!

Aaroona

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#314909 5-Apr-2010 11:01

Ahh the wonders of Geekzone(ers!)

Glad to hear it's getting replaced.

ahmad

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#314911 5-Apr-2010 11:07

I am getting a little worried about Apple. This fault is within a batch of HDDs and causes catastrophic failure - ie. complete loss of data which is not recoverable.

Sure, data backups are our responsibility, but that's hardly a valid disclaimer when you've supplied ticking time bombs of drives to customers!

Here is a short explanation by a data recovery firm in the UK which diagnosed the fault in a batch of drives due to growing number of customers being affected by it:

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/notice_apple_seagate_drives.php

IMO these drives should have been recalled and I find it irresponsible of Apple to not do so!!

Aaroona

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#314992 5-Apr-2010 16:03

ahmad: I am getting a little worried about Apple. This fault is within a batch of HDDs and causes catastrophic failure - ie. complete loss of data which is not recoverable.

Sure, data backups are our responsibility, but that's hardly a valid disclaimer when you've supplied ticking time bombs of drives to customers!

Here is a short explanation by a data recovery firm in the UK which diagnosed the fault in a batch of drives due to growing number of customers being affected by it:

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/notice_apple_seagate_drives.php

IMO these drives should have been recalled and I find it irresponsible of Apple to not do so!!

Yes and no.

I mean yes, maybe they should have recalled them.

But then also, some people havent had any issue at all, so its hard to call on that one.

But i have to admit, its easy for me to say that because im not in that situation.. I know I would be pretty gutted if I was though.

ahmad

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#314996 5-Apr-2010 16:07

Aaroona:
ahmad: I am getting a little worried about Apple. This fault is within a batch of HDDs and causes catastrophic failure - ie. complete loss of data which is not recoverable.

Sure, data backups are our responsibility, but that's hardly a valid disclaimer when you've supplied ticking time bombs of drives to customers!

Here is a short explanation by a data recovery firm in the UK which diagnosed the fault in a batch of drives due to growing number of customers being affected by it:

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/notice_apple_seagate_drives.php

IMO these drives should have been recalled and I find it irresponsible of Apple to not do so!!

Yes and no.

I mean yes, maybe they should have recalled them.

But then also, some people havent had any issue at all, so its hard to call on that one.

But i have to admit, its easy for me to say that because im not in that situation.. I know I would be pretty gutted if I was though.

Dude, if the reports on the internet from various hard drive experts/data recovery people are to be believed, then it's not a case of IF but when (and I'm not exaggerating either).

That's why I think it's totally irresponsible.

Of course Toyota would never get away with it - when their stuff fails people die.

When Hard Drives fail, the "only" thing that is lost is memories. And many Apple users probably would think Apple was wonderful for fixing their drive "out of warranty" rather than wondering why they let it get to that point...

Aaroona

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#315000 5-Apr-2010 16:11

ahmad:
Dude, if the reports on the internet from various hard drive experts/data recovery people are to be believed, then it's not a case of IF but when (and I'm not exaggerating either).

That's why I think it's totally irresponsible.

Of course Toyota would never get away with it - when their stuff fails people die.

When Hard Drives fail, the "only" thing that is lost is memories. And many Apple users probably would think Apple was wonderful for fixing their drive "out of warranty" rather than wondering why they let it get to that point...

Thats a fair point.. I didn't think about it in that context.

With me, I have multiple computers with multiples hardrives with multiple backup, so I guess I'm just not used to having many issues like that, because when a HDD dies for me, its just like oh well, I have a backup.

But you're right, it is irresponsible of Apple not to have just fixed the problem straight off.
Being that it is a known issue, I'm actually surprized Apple hasn't done a recall.

If it were Dell on the other hand, I wouldn't be surprized.

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