Mac book dead again

liam887 · 14 Mar 2011, 17:30

Failed again and no apple care to protect me this time arghh. Spent all day trying to open it up but no torx screwdriver in work so two screws stopping me from getting at the vital hard drive with all my work on

Stinkie · 14 Mar 2011, 18:44

@liam887 said:

no apple care to protect me this time

Why not?

liam887 · 15 Mar 2011, 17:42

Been three years already, went to Apple by work today to look at a replacement

tfdesign · 15 Mar 2011, 18:10

Liam, the HD is fairly easy to get out. I've got the same book, and swapped the smaller drive for a larger one. I found the instructions on the internet. They were all in pictures, so pretty easy to figure out.

liam887 · 15 Mar 2011, 18:27

I don't need to replace the drive the mac-book is a write off I just need to get my data from it. I cant get it out as I don't have a torx screwdriver with me in London so I cant open the last 2 screws in the case lol.
Even apart form that the drive has failed so I need pro gear to retrieve data. Anybody know of anybody in the UK who can do this give me a heads up with a PM be much appreciated!

tfdesign · 15 Mar 2011, 18:48

Sorry, I don't understand. Why is it a 'write-off'? Does it power up? Even if it doesn't, the drive would have nothing to do with the logic board.

Does it do anything at all?

Getting data from the HD, if you have a corroded drive (which I doubt) is very, very expensive to achieve.

Khai · 15 Mar 2011, 19:41

ok we're talking a standard HD here right?
simplest method I know, and this has worked for me personally, put the drive in a ziptop bag and into the freezer for a few hours. you want it deep deep cold inside the drive.

then mount the drive - quickly - into a machine or more preferably an external drive case - if you can do the external, then you can leave the lid off, cover the top of the drive in papertowel (few layers) and put a freezer block ontop of it. the idea being to keep that sucker cold as possible for as long as possible.

either way boot up and if it responds, (touch and go), get copying. you won't have long before the drive heats up and you have to repeat as needed.

I've done this to 2 Seagates in the last year... (I won't buy anymore of their drives. too many failures going on)

dunno if the above will help you...

tfdesign · 16 Mar 2011, 12:17

What a great tip!

Rich O Brien · 16 Mar 2011, 13:01

Never heard of that before! Now i'm compelled to put a Hdd in a freezer...

I suppose i'll have to buy a Mac and wait for it to break (about a day) then try this trick

liam887 · 16 Mar 2011, 13:54

@khai said:

ok we're talking a standard HD here right?
simplest method I know, and this has worked for me personally, put the drive in a ziptop bag and into the freezer for a few hours. you want it deep deep cold inside the drive.

then mount the drive - quickly - into a machine or more preferably an external drive case - if you can do the external, then you can leave the lid off, cover the top of the drive in papertowel (few layers) and put a freezer block ontop of it. the idea being to keep that sucker cold as possible for as long as possible.

either way boot up and if it responds, (touch and go), get copying. you won't have long before the drive heats up and you have to repeat as needed.

I've done this to 2 Seagates in the last year... (I won't buy anymore of their drives. too many failures going on)

dunno if the above will help you...

Yeah this is my last resort, I also have a WD drive and I used this method and it worked. The computer is a write off the logic board has gone so basically the motherboard of the laptop, the drive is also wasted otherwise I would have just took it out and hooked it up to another computer. Ordering my replacement laptop today, hopefully I will get a much use out of it as I did this one.

Specs are:
2.3GHZ Quad core i7
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
512GB Solid State Drive
MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display

Any wishes of getting a flat down in London are gone, back to friends floors now

tfdesign · 16 Mar 2011, 18:03

Yummy!

(And use Time Machine for heavens sake! )

liam887 · 17 Mar 2011, 19:02

Nah time machine is a waste my drive is too heavy to back up so much. I backup my 'work' folder every weekend but with me moving down to London I haven't had time to to it in a few weeks so lost quite a bit of stuff unless I can recover my drive!

tfdesign · 17 Mar 2011, 20:16

You can change the amount of times TM backs up you know, just by changing a plist in the preferences.

@unknownuser said:

If you think Time Machine backs up too often (or not often enough) for your liking, navigate into /System » Library » LaunchDaemons. There you'll find a file named com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. Open it in your favorite text editor, and look for this section:
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>
Change the 3600 number to some other time interval in seconds, and you'll have changed Time Machine's backup interval.

liam887 · 17 Mar 2011, 21:33

Nah its not that its just only a small percentages of my drive is important, maybe 20gb the rest can ne easily replaced.