MacBook hard drive clicking

Glico Man

Hi there, my MacBook has started giving me issues for the first time since I purchased it back in 2008 (I know, it's old). The hard drive has started clicking recently and now can't even boot. Am guessing from a quick google that it's goosed now, but am wondering if it's possible to save what's on the drive to a thumbdrive or external as I'd like to keep my data if it's at possible without going to a data recovery type place?

Thanks in advance

ZENER

Sounds like you're probably too late.

You could try taking the drive out now before it gets any worse. Get a new drive for the Mac and install the OS again.

Once done you can get a USB to SATA adapter to hook your old drive up via USB and hopefully get your files off.

Ken

5uspect

As above, but also get a new external drive to use as a Time Machine backup drive while you're at it.
Plug it in every few days and let it do its thing.

Dan_Solo

If it's accessible at all, try to image the drive straight off. Then you try to recover from the image.

Banta

First off, yep, the hard drive is 'borked'.

Next, and I'm aware how crazy this sounds, but so far for me, it's worked 6 out of 9 times, over the last 10 or so years.

Place the hard drive in zip top bag, or an anti-static bag and seal it and....... put the hard drive in the freezer. Yes, the freezer. Leave it in there for about 12 hours. Then hook it up and quickly start to get whatever info you want off it and backed up else where.

Basically, a part of the platter in the hard drive has 'popped up' and is now hitting off the needle. Chucking it in the freezer essentially contracts the platter. Now the hard drive is going to fail again (and you can repeat the process), but hopefully you can get all the info you want off it before it fails again.

Dan_Solo

Banta wrote: »

First off, yep, the hard drive is 'borked'.

Next, and I'm aware how crazy this sounds, but so far for me, it's worked 6 out of 9 times, over the last 10 or so years.

Place the hard drive in zip top bag, or an anti-static bag and seal it and....... put the hard drive in the freezer. Yes, the freezer. Leave it in there for about 12 hours. Then hook it up and quickly start to get whatever info you want off it and backed up else where.

Basically, a part of the platter in the hard drive has 'popped up' and is now hitting off the needle. Chucking it in the freezer essentially contracts the platter. Now the hard drive is going to fail again (and you can repeat the process), but hopefully you can get all the info you want off it before it fails again.

The freezer could help, but as I said above, image and recover is better. Each read will damage the platter and mechanism more and more. It's safer to do a file recovery on a disk image stored on another computer.

Mycroft H

Either way the drive is goosed. Your unlikely to get an entire image of the drive off so i'd concentrate on any files you really need saving; family photos etc.

Banta

Yep, by the sounds of it she's already cooked, so little chance of getting an image from it. Based on my own experiences anyway.

Dan_Solo

Banta wrote: »

Yep, by the sounds of it she's already cooked, so little chance of getting an image from it. Based on my own experiences anyway.

If the file system is damaged then you'd be doing no more damage imaging than doing a file recovery. I agree with you alright if the files are visible and there only a percentage of what's on the drive that you really value.
Imgaing has certainly done the job for me more than once where the drive is continuing to deteriorate.

Banta

Dan_Solo wrote: »

If the file system is damaged then you'd be doing no more damage imaging than doing a file recovery. I agree with you alright if the files are visible and there only a percentage of what's on the drive that you really value.
Imgaing has certainly done the job for me more than once where the drive is continuing to deteriorate.

Oh I completely agree with you! However, I believe it's beyond that now based on the OP's first post:

The hard drive has started clicking recently and now can't even boot.

Only reason I suggest going down the Princess Elsa route and chucking it in the freezer and just getting files off there asap, and not trying to image.

Glico Man

Thanks very much for the advice folks, very much appreciated

Will bring it to my local Genius Bar for a quick looks first to see if they can do anything...

Time for an upgrade anyhow

Glico Man

Coming back to this more than 2 months later down the line and well, after leaving my Macbook alone for the rest of May and the early part of June, the HDD started working again and it managed to boot up.

Thankfully after my hallelujah moment, I managed to get the whole thing backed up with an external HDD acting as a Time Machine, and to this day the MB continues to run smoothly.

Was this just a case of pure dumb luck? or was the HDD just 'overworked'?

5uspect

Dumb luck, replace it asap, ideally with a cheap SSD since you're most likely running SATA II.