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peeb · May 31, 2008, 10:24 PM

No, it's not supposed to rattle. Can you connect the drive to another computer? Sounds like the drive is shagged.

silverflyer · May 31, 2008, 10:25 PM

I am trying to diagnose a white Macbook that I was given to fix.

The story is that it worked fine when handed over to the 17 year old son of the owner, who dropped it off today and it will not boot, and infact only comes to the flashing file folder with a question mark in it. I was able to boot from the install DVD and open Disk Utility and the HDD was not recognized. I opened System Profiler and it also did not list the HDD and I also noticed the disk drive was not listed as being able to burn discs.

I have the HDD out of it, a 120GB Seagate and am wondering if a HDD is supposed to rattle a bit when shook? I always thought that they were not supposed to make any noise when shook. Is that correct?

Thank you.

silverflyer · May 31, 2008, 10:30 PM

Wow, you are good, you posted your reply before I even posted my question...

ROFL how did that happen?

Thanks for the answer too, That is what I thought.

I will try to connect it to another comp, I may need to go buy an enclosure for a 2.5 inch drive.

I should add something else I noticed, the HDD is not spinning up at all during startup.

idykenano · May 31, 2008, 11:25 PM

The hdd is toast. Well, toast broken into pieces. It sounds like one of the discs came loose from the spindle somehow or even the arm that reads the discs is loose. The hdd will probably never be readable, I hope they had a backup. (I will spare the backup speech)
Knowing 17yr olds/people and laptops... they get dropped and something WILL break. In this case, it just happens to be a very replaceable part that hopefully had backed-up data on it.
Sorry man.
Diagnosis: dead hdd
Fix: new hdd and fresh install
Estimate: around $100, depending on size of replacement

mduell · Jun 1, 2008, 12:13 AM

Try booting in Target Disk Mode (hold down 't' after turning it on), connect another computer via Firewire... basically turning an expensive Mac into a dumb $25 enclosure. You may be able to salvage some data. Then replace the drive.

seanc · Jun 1, 2008, 04:17 AM

I know some HDDs rattle, the one out of my old iBook had a note on top to say that the rattle noise is normal. In the case of a non-booting Sony Vaio that came in a while ago after being dropped, the rattling HDD was smashed platters.

King Bob On The Cob · Jun 1, 2008, 04:49 AM

Hard drives that are not running will rattle, as the heads are not locked in place, but the key issue is the hard drive will not read. If it is a Macbook it should be very easy to remove so you can try it in an external. If it doesn't work in an external, you may be very screwed, as yes, the head may have made contact with the platter, which would render the disk unreadable (I don't think he's going to have a problem with any portion of the drive becoming disconnected in a modern hard drive, at least I hope...)

silverflyer · Jun 1, 2008, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Try booting in Target Disk Mode (hold down 't' after turning it on), connect another computer via Firewire... basically turning an expensive Mac into a dumb $25 enclosure. You may be able to salvage some data. Then replace the drive.

The drive does not even spin up. That would get me nowhere I am not already.

silverflyer · Jun 1, 2008, 07:13 PM

My question now is this, is it possible there is a connector inside that may have come loose?

I think that would be very unlikely as the only two moving pieces inside the comp being the ones not working fully kind of points to a traumatic shock to the computer. Heck, the HDD and the CD/RVD-RW are right next to each other on the same side of the computer too.

I am trying to reason this out in an attempt to avoid opening the case, I really hate doing that...

ghporter · Jun 1, 2008, 08:51 PM

This is a SATA drive, right? There's generally one connector that goes across the back of the drive for both power and data. They should diverge somewhere outside of the drive space. The trick is that either power or data not being connected could keep it from spinning up. The quickest thing to do is to connect the drive to another SATA controller and see what happens then.

Getting back to that sound, if it "rattles" in your hand, versus "RATTLES!@!@!!!!" in your hand, it might just be a wonky read arm. But if it RATTLES!!!!! then you're almost certainly handling digital poo. So, does it sound like there's a tiny bit moving inside the case, or like it's full of loose screws?

silverflyer · Jun 5, 2008, 03:02 PM

The verdict is this.

I installed a new HDD and it works fine.

Thank you all for your help.