so the hard drive in my laptop seems to have decided to toast itself. Natually, I have many important business and personal files on it that aren’t backed up anywhere. Apple says they can “fix it” for $330. Yay. Of course that won’t recover any of the data, some of which I really really really do need (including some of the stuff I was working on for a freelance client). All of my attempts to recover it have of course failed, and I am now so very very stressed out.
Christ, why did I ever decide to quit smoking?
Egad, I didn’t know that was what you’re in for… I wouldda had them cs code you for it. What happened?
I was burning a DVD overnight. Machine crashed, I guess (it didn’t progress at all in the 8 hours I was asleep). Finder was unresponsive, etc. etc. Ended up having to reboot, but it won’t come back up. Managed to boot the machine off of another machine over firewire, but Disk Utility and Disk Warrior can’t see the internal drive. The Apple Genius at your store couldn’t get it to boot off of his external firewire, so we assumes the disk is toast. Told me that they’d just replace the drive if I sent it in. I brought it back home to try a last ditch thing, pull the drive out and see if I can get it to boot in an external case, but despite the best help from the interweb, I can’t get to the drive inside the case. So I ended up just putting it back together. The really weird thing is, I actually did run the Apple Hardware Test on it (apple genius couldn’t get that far, the boot manager wasn’t returning for him), and it comes back passing everything, including the Mass Storage test. The machine thinks its fine. It just doesn’t know it has a hard disk in it. (can’t even locate it to reformat and reinstall, not that I really want to do that either). So basically, I’m currently fucked.
Question for you, if I bring the machine back and have them mail it away for repair is it possible for me to request that Apple not only return me a fixed machine, but also give me (at the very least temporarilly) the old harddrive. I had a similar problem with an iBook once. I don’t remember how, but I did manage to get them to send me the drive under a credit card hodl for 30days so I could extract data from it (only needed one). Is there some way to do that?
Also, if you want to mention that I got hardware test to run and all tests were passed, and see if the Genuises have any tips beyomd that, it’d be much appreciated.
OH NO! Good luck getting it fixed…I really feel for you, and hope you can recover everything ASAP. 🙁 🙁 🙁
I’m not holding my breath. Really, the client work I did, we’re only talking about 4 hours or so worth, plus some source files, that I don’t REALLY need, but would be nice to have (I have backups of the finals for everything that I did before the last week), it would make my life a lot easier in the future. As it is, I’ll have to recreate the last week worth of work on my own dime on my other machine since I really can’t wait for the machine to be fixed anyway. That I can at least do, though it will be painful. What I can’t do is get back a lot of the other stuff that I never bothered to back up. Photos, music, artwork, writing, chat logs.
I hate everything.
Ugggh! SORRY!
However, thanks for the reminder to back up. I’ve been way too lazy about that lately.
Christ, why did I ever decide to quit smoking?
Hey, at least you’re still sniffing glue.
why? you got any?
If the data is irreplaceable and invaluable, I suggest lookin’ at driversavers.com
yeah, I am considering it. But I dunno. Have you ever used them before? What are their rates like? Also, it all depends on whether or not Apple is willing to give me the disk back once I get the machine fixed so I can send it to them.
I doubt that apple will send the disk back. You might have had more luck just purchasing an internal drive and installing it yourself, assuming the hardware test is right and it’s not the controller that’s fried.
I managed to get them to do it before (in 2003). I just don’t remember exactly what I did to get them to do it. I know they put a hold for like $200 on a credit card or something, and said they’d charge me it if I didn’t send it back in like 30 days.
holy shit. that’s, like, my worst nightmare. All I can say is, I hope by some miracle your stuff is recovered, and i’m glad it’s happening to you and not me…
uh yeah, thanks for the words of encouragement. You’re a pal, and stuff…
apparently my natural inclination towards being a smartass has obscured the expression of my profoundest sympathies. i apologize. if by some herculean task i could restore your data, i would gladly do it.
heh…. if you were a real friend you’d toast your drive as a show of solidarity.
might as well kill myself then…
that’s the spirit!
Sounds like the controller card died. If you still have the drive, you could try to get another of the same model drive from ebay or maybe direct from apple and just swap the controller cards. If its a recent enough drive, sometimes you can contact the company that made the drive for a replacement controller. Its a pretty easy repair, provided you get the exact same model with the same controller.
All depends on how much that data is worth to you though.
Best of luck.
well, I certainly won’t be getting it direct from apple. that’s been made clear. If they do it, its pretty much an all or nothing repair. I have a couple other options to try still.