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insinkerator · 20-07-2011 11:10am #1

So, I dropped my mac this morning, it was about a 3 foot drop. It had been playing music at the time, music continued as it was, no skipping. I thought everything was ok.

Let it go to sleep, couple of hours later, I woke it up, plugged it in to charge, checked my emails, checked a couple of forums I use, played a couple of youtube videos, then, all of a sudden, the computer freezes. I left it for a about a minute to see would it sort itself out, nothing. So I turned it off, turned it back on again, and OS X is getting as far as the grey apple screen, with a turnwheel, and sticking at that. I've left it for about 7 minutes and nothing. I figured it was to do with the drop and I might have damaged something, but I am currently booted it into my W7 partition, on the same laptop, posting this right now, and Im having no problems.

Its a 2009 (i think) unibody macbook. 2Gghz 2GB RAM 160GB HD.

Sad Professor · 20-07-2011 11:32am

Boot from the install disc and try repairing the hard drive. Do you have a backup?

insinkerator · 20-07-2011 12:50pm

I don't have a backup, but I can access the partition through windows, and copy files from it, so that made me think it's not a HD issue?

Sad Professor · 20-07-2011 1:04pm

The same thing happened to another user recently. The Windows partition was booting okay for a while but the hard drive still failed. At the very least you probably have some bad sectors from the fall which may require a reformat (using zero all data). Anyway, boot from the install disc and try repairing the Mac partition using Disk Utility.

insinkerator · 27-07-2011 1:19pm

Took a while to getting round to it, but this is what has happened since.

Used windows since making this thread. Yesterday morning, Windows froze and stopped booting. This morning, Windows booted, so I made a backup of everything important that I needed (was able to pull like ~20GB from the Mac partition, no problem.

Inserted me SL disc, restarted, booted from the disc, repaired the drive, after about 30 minutes, it stopped repairing and told me I would have to erase the drive. So I erased the partition, repaired it(completed successfully in about 2 minutes) then reinstalled SL, which completed successfully, clicked the restart button and it froze on booting in the same spot that it always did.

Is this normal? Windows is still booting. Should I have wiped the drive in its entirety i.e both partitions? Does that make a difference?

Sad Professor · 27-07-2011 1:51pm

Like I said, the hard drive is either fecked or you have bad sectors from the fall. Try zeroing all data. This will delete both partitions. Apple changed this a while ago so I'm not sure how you do it anymore (anybody?). I think it's in security options in Disk Utility. It will take several hours. If it doesn't work you need a new hard drive.

insinkerator · 27-07-2011 2:05pm

Once I do that though, and if it doesn't work, I'm pretty screwed right? As in there's no way I can get it to work again without a replacement? If that's the case, then I'll just have to live with W7 for as long as I can, as I need some form of laptop.

A friend of mine has offered his 60GB seagate HD from his PS3 as a short term replacement. Its 5400rpm 2.5" and 9.5m high. Will that work/fit? Would it be possible to install OSX on my external HD and work from that for the short term, whilst I save for a new HD? It's a Lacie 500GB?

Finally, in terms of a new HD, seeing as I need to replace it anyway, I'm considering getting a SSD . Will most SSDs work in my macbook, or is there only certain types/connectors etc? Im totally clueless when it comes to internal HDs. My macbook is mid 2009, just before they rebranded all the unibodies to Pros.

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