Hard disk problems with OS X Lion on MacBook Pro

[Espen]

This morning my MacBook started behaving strangely. Everything froze while I was browsing the web, and the beach ball started spinning indefinitely.

I rebooted it, but only to be greeted by the grey screen with the blinking question mark-folder. I rebooted it again, and everything seemed fine. Then I launched Chrome, and it froze up again. Thinking it was an issue with Chrome, I did another reboot and did a fresh reinstall of Chrome.

New reboot. Gray screen with question mark folder (which I later found out is due to the system not finding a drive to boot from). I rebooted several times with the same result before I found out about the command+r that would take the computer into recovery mode during restart. In recovery mode, Disk Utilities shows this screen, and I was unable to do anything with the hard drive (the utility only shows the Superdrive DVD-drive and the image for the recovery system, not the "Macintosh HD" it should):

I did another restart and held cmd+r, and suddenly the drive was discovered by Disk Utilities in the recovery options. So I did a verify- and repair on it and was able to boot into the OS. There I first did a virus scan with Sophos (no threats reported) before I checked the disk in Disk Utilities again. S.M.A.R.T. reported the drive was OK, and I couldn't see anything indicating that the drive itself is mechanically failing. I took the opportunity to back up my important files to a cloud service.

Crossing my fingers that the issue was transient, and that I had rectified it by verifying and reparing disk permissions, I rebooted again. Grey screen with question mark folder again. New reboot, cmd+r held in. Back to recovery mode. No disk is selectable, neither as start up disk nor as a disk where I can do a clean OS install.

Any clues as to how I might get my MacBook up and running again?

 

[oldscribe]

Hi and welcome,

New reboot. Gray screen with question mark folder

Yes the ? mark means that your Mac can't find a bootable system on any connected hard drive. This could be possibly dying HD or other hardware issue.
Personally I would book a GB appointment ASAP at your nearest Apple store and get the techs to diagnose the issue, it will be quicker in the long run.

I took the opportunity to back up my important files to a cloud service.

Good to hear,

 

[Espen]

Hm. I just hope its the drive itself (as it's easy to replace myself), and not the controller on the motherboard... the strange thing is that S.M.A.R.T. didn't report anything faulty with the drive the one time I got Disk Utilities to discover it.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

I did another restart and held cmd+r, and suddenly the drive was discovered by Disk Utilities in the recovery options. So I did a verify- and repair on it and was able to boot into the OS.

The above is an encouraging sign that it is the HD and not logic/motherboard or other hardware. But the techs will get it sorted.

 

[Espen]

I hope so! Thanks for your time.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Your welcome and please let us know the results. Sorry I could not be more definitive.

 

[charliekqpr]

hang have you got the title wrong or did you mean lion and if you did i do not think that apple even has anything to support lion anymore

 

[Espen]

Hey, yeah. No support. I haven't upgraded my OS in a while.

I got it working on my own, by the way. I see many others experiencing the same issue. So, for those with non-bootable drives and the question mark folder, here's how I got my Macbook Pro up and running again:

I swapped out the SATA-cable (which turned out to be the faulty part, not the drive nor the motherboard).

It's not very expensive, and it takes 5 minutes to do it and it's very easy. No reason to send the computer to any Apple techs, assuming the same faulty part.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Good news indeed, thanks for posting back may help other users.