[ClaraT]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question as multiple things are happening. My fear is that my HD is failing because my usually trusty MacBook has suddenly acted strange. I've lost all my Mac Mail accounts (except the .me), Time Machine Back up failed, I get the spinning beach ball whenever I attempt to open Safari, keychain, Mail (etc.) and have to Force Quit because they are not responding.

Here is my tale of woe:

This afternoon my MacBook (2008 10.5.8) would not turn on as usual. Instead the spinning black circle we see on the gray screen with the white Apple logo spun for an unusually long time and finally a blank blue screen appeared. But that just stayed on--never moving on to my usual desktop, so I turned off the computer by way of pressing the control, command and power button all at once. Also I noticed the familiar chime did not sound as it was restarting.

After a couple of times of experiencing this, the gray screen does change but my normal desktop screensaver has been replaced by the Apple screen that looks like the heavens with stars comes on and my desktop files and dock appear.Ok. Progress, but uh-oh. Airport was no longer appearing in the upper menu bar. Safari is acting weird, spinning beach ball, pages not loading, etc.
Mail takes forever to open and nothing is there.

All mailboxes are gone. No folders, no sent, no outbox, no drafts. Then all of a sudden some mail comes in the in-box that is dated between July 2011 to Apr 2012. A warning menu comes up and then more mail comes in now dated from Nov 2007 to Apr 2011.

At some point I then discover that Spotlight is indexing the MacBook and although it says it's going to take 13 hours it does complete in about 45 minutes.

I have run disk repair.

A friend advises I do a back up on TM, but that failed.

I have an appointment at the Genius Bar in the morning and would appreciate hearing from anyone about what to expect.
Thankfully, I think my documents, photos and other data are still alright. I'm afraid to mess around with the computer any longer in case I do further damage.

I would really like to get all my emails back--that's what is worrying me. What are the chances that I will?

Many thanks.

[Waragainstsleep]

Try backing up your home folder manually. If that fails try backing up the Library folder thats in your home folder. Your email is in there. We'll cover restoring them later if or wen we need to.

[ClaraT]

Great! Thanks for the help.

But . .. how do I do a "manual" back up? Sorry, a bit flumoxed at the moment.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

You need a second drive, even a large enough USB stick would work. And you just copy them to it. Or a little more complex is something like Carbon Copy Cloner

[Waragainstsleep]

Just drag and drop to your time machine disk. Better than nothing.

[ClaraT]

Ok. Thanks again.

Sounds straightforward. Just drag and drop the Home Folder (the one on the sidebar in
Finder with the little house on it to the TM disk when it appears. Sorry for being so newbieish. Just
nervous about pushing this computer right now.

Heading to the Apple Genius appt. and will report back later.

[Doc HM]

Or just the mail and mail downloads folders inside your user library folder. The less workout you have to give a failing drive the better.

When you get your Mac back, make sure you switch your email account to a decent IMAP service.

He/she who holds all their mail on IMAP fears no hard drive failure.




Apart from at the server maybe.

[ClaraT]

Just a quick update as I'm waiting for TM to transfer my "old" hard drive onto the new one I just installed.

Had a very good "Genius" experience, several tests were run and the diagnosis was get a new hard drive.
No surprise there.

Picked up an Hitachi 7200, 500GB Travelstar at a local place for $70. This is my second installation of replacing
an HD. I upgraded from the original one to a Seagate Momentus, 500GB, 7200 perhaps three years ago. The Seagate
is the one I'm replacing.

At the moment, I'm looking at an ever changing message on the Transferring Information screen stating
about 3 hours and 13 minutes are remaining. Just started this process about ten minutes ago and at
first the message said it would take 12 hours and 18 minutes but every few seconds or so, the amount
of time is getting reduced.

I'm a little nervous because I didn't get a screen that asked me from what date of backup I wanted to transfer onto
the new hard drive, but I'm just going to trust Apple's on screen instructions. I'm hoping it will backup from
my latest backup which was done before I left for vacation on 7/23/12.

Once this is complete--and cross fingers, successful, I will bring the old HD and the Macbook back to the Genius, where Apple will
move the 600 photos I took since 7/23/12 (the last backup) into my iPhoto library.

Hope this is of interest and help to others.

(BTW, the transferring time is now about 1 hour and 24 minutes.)

Thanks.

[Waragainstsleep]

TM will restore from the latest backup, I've never known it to give you a choice when doing a full restore or migration.

[ClaraT]

Everything seems to have gone well EXCEPT - email.

On the two pop accounts I only have messages in from today back to the last
backup date of 7/23/12. None of my messages dating back 6 or 7 years are there.

If TM is supposed to restore to what the computer looked like from a specific prior
date, when all those emails were in my inboxes, why are they not there now? I was
expecting to see my computer look as it did, in all aspects, from the last time it
was backed up, but as far as Mail goes, it doesn't.

I do recall a message window coming up that
asked if I wanted to import mail and I chose not to. Sorry, can't completely remember specifically
what the message said, but I was reluctant to do anything that wasn't what I had read
about or was advised to do.

[Waragainstsleep]

If you chose not to import mail, that might explain it.

[shifuimam]

This is sort of after the fact, but you reallllly should consider switching to Gmail, which has both IMAP support (meaning your email is always on the server as well as in your client) and a crapload of ever-expanding storage (up to 10GB now; it's basically limitless at this point).

If you're still using POP3 and your only copy of your email is on your hard drive, you're doing it wrong.