Hard drive death

[Frankie91]

Hi just posting for some advice before I give up and reformat the drive.

I was using my MacBook Pro as normal a few days ago and it shut down unexpectedly. I tried rebooting but it only loaded half way and powered off every time.

I connected it to another mac via firewire800 and booted with target disk mode. I was able to view the disk (SSD). Some of the applications were present but no user files are available. I tried running file restoration programs but they didn't retrive anything. Disk utility tried to repair the drive but couldn't.

There's a few documents and PowerPoint files I could do with getting back but this is looking unlikely.

Does anyone have any advice before I reformat the drive? Would Apple be able to help I'm booked in with a genius next week just incase.

Cheers

 

[honestone]

Some more information would be helpful:

1. What exact Mac OS are you using?

2. What exact MacBook Pro model do you have?

3. Are you making backups to an external device?

4. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs before you used Disk Utility on that other Mac?

I wonder if you have a permissions issue. If the version of Disk Utility on the "good" Mac was either the one with El Capitan or Sierra, then it no longer has Repair Permissions as one of its features. There is an excellent freeware program called Onyx that has that feature (I use it all the time for both of my Macs), but it would require installation on your "bad" Mac, so that it can do the Repair Permissions there.

However, another program, the excellent commercial one entitled TechTool Pro, has that feature, and can Repair Permissions on an external, bootable drive/partition. If your good Mac has that software, then you can try that. And TechTool Pro is much more robust than Disk Utility in terms of disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs. The ultimate one is Disk Warrior.

Beyond that, not sure what else you can do, as you did try to use Target Disk Mode. Given that Disk Utility could not repair the drive, it is definitely something "serious". Besides a Permissions issue, it also sounds like the disk directory is somewhat "hosed", and Disk Warrior would be the best attempt to get that as "straight" as possible. TechTool Pro could also work, but I have heard that Disk Warrior can do "wonders".

Finally, if you do have to Erase and Format your SSD (assuming it is OK otherwise), make sure you have a copy of the "Install MacOS X "whatever"" file on your good Mac, which would be for the Mac OS you want on your MacBook Pro. And what about your applications? If you don't have a backup, hopefully you have them someplace on your good Mac.

 

[honestone]

I guess I should add another question. What third party software do you have on your (problematic) MacBook Pro?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Disk utility tried to repair the drive but couldn't.

Did you run Disk Utility from the other Mac?

 

[honestone]

Did you run Disk Utility from the other Mac?

I had assumed, from his sequence of statements, that he did run Disk Utility from the other Mac. But yeah, it would be good if that is clarified.