Pls Help! AlBook wont Boot!

[pinoymacuser]

Panic time for me! Need urgent help!

I left my Albook open at the office and left for a meeting. Normally I would shut it down but this time, I left in on and connected to the wireless network. When I got back to the office 4 hours later, the screen saver was frozen on the screen and the Albook wasn't responding

I tried to restart and force quit but nothing happened.
I pulled the plug, took out the battery, restarted..
Saw the Apple logo, got to the spinning circle... 30 mins later... still a spinning circle
(By the way, whats supposed to be happening when that circle spins?)

Tried to do it again... Same thing
Tried to start up using a Disk Warrior CD... still the same thing
Tried to start up using the Software Restore Disk... same thing

Couldn't get past the spinning circle thing..

All the time, I would hear the low hum of the hard drive
It just hums and hums and hums (more like a creaking sound really)

Am close to panic here.. Got very important files in there

Any suggestions, people?

If I dont find a solution by tomorrow morning... am headed off to the Apple Repair Center... I dont want to do that yet.. Would appreciate your advice

[peter_ob]

Check here. Specifically this.

[Edited on 2-3-2005 by peter_ob]

[penmanila]

hi, jun, long time no see!

my first thought is, try starting up in target disk mode, and see if you can get the HD to appear in the other computer, so you can either try to repair it with a disk utility or move your most important files.

or, use an external drive to boot from, same idea.

[pinoymacuser]

Hi, Butch!
Yes, I have been out of touch lately...
Too many projects... and been playing a lot of golf with Jojo
I just zapped the PRAM, restarted, saw a smiling folder briefly, went into the gray Apple logo... back to spinning circle
Been like that for 15 mins now...

If everything else fails tonight... will do the target disk mode tomorrow using my thin firewire cable..

Thanks for the suggestions so far.. trying them out now

[pinoymacuser]

Just tried the Start Up Manager
It only recognized the Software Restore Disk but not the Hard Drive
Chose to start up using the Startup Disk...
Just got into Installer Mode
Lets see what happens next

[pinoymacuser]

Ooops... Looks like it cant find a destination disk
Nothing... none of the 3 partitions show up
What does that mean?
My hard drive is gone?
No first aid option, no nothing :-(
What do I do next?
Can I get my data back?
I had it protected by Disk Warrior 3.. Would that help?


What do I do next?
Any suggestions?

[pinoymacuser]

Started up now using the DiskWarrior disk. Maybe it will see the Hard Drive.
If not, I'll have to find Ditoy tomorrow and get a new hard drive.

Will also have to find an external drive for back ups. Any recommendations?

More importantly, can anyone give me the name and contacts for the guy who does data recovery on hard drives. I've got tons of info on that Hard Drive that I need to recover

Thanks

[penmanila]

i think the hard drive recovery expert is christopher tan--yep, the former apple philippines big boss. do a local search for "cristopher" and you'll find a similar story.

[pinoymacuser]

Well... no disks seen by Disk Warrior either
Looks like my hard drive is dead.. unless you guys have any other suggestions
Time to get a new hard drive tomorrow..
And try to get the data recovered on the old drive ...

Cant even begin to think about the all the work that is in that hard drive
I really have to get help in the recovery process...

Any other input guys?

[penmanila]

you might as well get the 80 gig drive being offered by right_stuff for only 6.5K plus, of course, an external one. i got a 120 gig one in a firewire enclosure here a couple of weeks ago for 9.5K.

bring your albook to apple center--they'll bring it to christopher tan. good luck!