[inigopete]

(the moral of the story remains: don't buy a Rev. A Apple product, ever!)

After about two years of reliable service (and no spillages or knocks!), my Rev. A MacBook black didn't boot one morning. The MagSafe charger showed green and the battery was full. Resetting PRAM (and SMC) and trying to boot from CD gave the same result: the power would come on, there would be four "ticks" from the case near the right hand side of the trackpad, I'd hear the Apple "chime", the power light would flash rapidly and if I was pressing keys (cmd-opt-p-r, for example) I'd then hear a three-second-ish high-pitched beep. All this time the display would be on but blank and grey. Eventually, if left, the folder icon with a flashing question mark would appear in the middle of the screen.

So I'm pretty sure I've got the common MacBook Seagate drive failure - removing the drive, the case information confirms it's firmware 7.01. I've tried removing and replacing memory, giving the drive a sharp slap! and, of course, trying to boot from a CD, with the result that my backup OS X CD 1 is now irremovable from the drive (which was why I used the backup...).

Last night we went to the Apple store, who also established that it won't boot from an external hard drive and concluded that the hard drive had failed but that also there was a problem with the logic board. As it was going to be expensive to fix (why oh why did I not buy the extended AppleCare? I knew I was buying a Rev. A, it was practically inevitable!), we ended up buying a new white Macbook 2.4GHz and I plan to dismantle the old one to sell as spares.

So my questions are:

- does anyone else have any experience of this? I'm resigned to the fact that we've lost the data on the HD (please please backup regularly, people), but:
- can the logic board be saved or is it definitely dead?
- I have a shiny new MacBook with a fresh install of Leopard on it. If I remove the hard drive from it and try it in the old MacBook (to test the old logic board), what are the odds it will destroy it? If it's a dead cert then I won't try, but if it's only an outside chance and it does die, I'm willing to chance returning to the Apple store with the "it just happened" excuse...

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

: P

[Eug]

Sorry to hear about the logic board. As a last resort, try removing the dead hard drive and booting off an external drive (with the dead hard drive physically gone), just to be 100% sure. Oh and do all the initializing reset voodoo. It likely won't help, but it can't hurt either.

In my case, my hard drive did die, but my logic board was totally fine.

BTW, I've had just as many problems with later revision Macs as early revision ones.

[polendo]

I would definetly trouble shoot the logic board using another hard disk. You might have a perfectly fine macbook that might need only a new hard disk.

[seanc]

Eject the DVD by holding the trackpad button and powering the Mac up.

What spec was your MacBook, a C2D?

[tooki]

In your case, it could be either the hard disk or the logic board that went. I honestly think it's unlikely that both failed at the same time (the only reasons that might happen is 1. if the failure in one component actually causes damage in another, but that's really, really rare, or 2. an external influence, such as a large static discharge, power surge, drop or spill damaged both parts at the same time).

I'd check the old hard disk using a SATA->USB adapter. And test the logic board alone by removing the old MacBook's hard disk completely -- then try booting from an external disk or DVD.

[caleach]

I had the same situation just this week and hope to pick up the repaired laptop tomorrow. I had problems early on with the cursor not releasing but diagnostics couldn't find anything. The HD finally died and the repair center said the controller was fried. I will need to replace this one since I'm using a personal machine for work and am thinking of waiting until mid Oct to see what they come out with.

I think that the 12" PB that my son has is one of the best notebooks they ever made.