[asodamiac]

Hey folks,

My friend has a pretty new Macbook (the one before this latest revision) and after a restart, she wasn't able to boot up Leopard. All it showed was a gray screen.

I put in the Leopard install disk and tried running Disk Utility, but Disk Utility cannot recognize or find any type of hard drive. The only thing that shows is the Leopard DVD install disk. I've also looked under System Profiler while running off of the install disc and under Serial-ATA, it only shows:

Intel ICH7-M AHCI, but no hard drive underneath it.

Lastly, I tried reformatting the hard drive, but while running the install disc, the Macbook can't find a volume to install the OS X on.

Can anyone help us out?

Thanks!

[ibook_steve]

That sounds like one dead drive. Can you pull it out, put it in an external case, and test it out there?

Steve

[asodamiac]

Hmm seemed like it. I don't want to open up the Macbook as I'm not comfortable doing so. My friend made an appointment with the Genius Bar, so she'll be taking it in tomorrow.

I also tried the target disk mode via firewire, but no hard drive showed up on the other Mac.

It's a shame to see a Mac that's only a few months old circle the drain like this. Especially during final exams!

Thanks Steve!

(BTW, thanks for the quick reply!)

[seanc]

The hard drives in MacBooks are incredibly easy to remove.

- Pop the battery out
- Undo about 3 or 4 screws that hold a metal L plate in
- Remove the L plate
- Locate the hard drive caddy tab and gently pull it out.

Hope you can get it fixed soon via Apple, it's strange to see all of these drives dying.

[Andhee]

My macbook had similar symptoms to the one youre describing, its now in the shop (it broke 2 days ago). Mine is a fairly recent macbook also, bought it in august.

[asodamiac]

Hmm, my friend took it in today and the hard drive was replaced within the hour. Pretty good considering it took 7 days to replace the HD on my Powerbook.

Thanks for your help guys!