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Question

Is my Mac HD shot?

Feb 19, 2015 8:46AM PST

OK, so I made the mistake of shutting down my computer while trying it was trying to start up, and when I turned it back on a little file with a question mark was flashing on the screen. I forgot what I did but I searched the problem and managed to get to Internet recovery. When I try to search for a time machine backup it just searches forever and nothing came up. I thought I had backed up via time machine but I could be wrong. when I try to reinstall OS X lion theres no disk to select. I tried to look at the disk utility and erase or repair a disk, the only things that came up were disk0 and under it Mac OS X base system, and I can't do anything to it (repair, verify, or erase). am I screwed and just need to replace the HD?

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
(NT) How about a make/model of that drive?
Feb 19, 2015 8:57AM PST
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make and model
Feb 19, 2015 9:10AM PST

I don't know anything about computers so I don't exactly how to answer but its a MacBook pro that came out RIGHT before the MacBooks with retina. got it in 2011

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What timing.
Feb 19, 2015 9:23AM PST

OK, that's old enough for a possible drive failure. http://www.macworld.com/article/2860454/data-rescue-41-review-same-solid-data-recovery-and-a-new-bootwell-feature.html is worth knowing about since we boot from USB and see what it tells.

http://www.cnet.com/cheapskate/ notes it's on a BUNDLE sale today so some savings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHKUeRXDMic is among one of dozens if not more about pulling the HDD out.

Don't toss that drive. Put in a new HDD and then put the old HDD in some USB case. HDDs are cheap.

I see folk popping SSD in the machine too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxsAoZG42jM

So a 240GB SSD is under 99 bucks so if you want to do that, why not?

Candidates?

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Black-Notebook-WD5000BPKX/dp/B00DSUTWMQ/
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-240GB-2-5-inch-Internal-CT240M500SSD1/dp/B00BQ8RM1A/

Case for the old drive so you can see if you can get into it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DW374W4/ (I own this, very nice.)
Bob

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thank you!
Feb 19, 2015 9:59AM PST

just ordered the HD, I'm trusting your word and the Amazon reviews because I have no idea what I'm doing. not too concerned about recovering any files, not enough to spend the extra $100, anyway. I'll see how this goes, thanks again!

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(NT) Hope the video and such made it a little less stressful.
Feb 19, 2015 10:17AM PST
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On the subject of Time Machine,
Feb 19, 2015 8:48PM PST

Do you have a external hard drive connected to your Macbook Pro?

If you do, then you "may" have used Time Machine.

If you do not, then you have never used Time Machine and do not have a backup.

Good Luck with the HDD replacement


P