| Most MacBook hard drive failures I've seen fail without warning. Actually, SATA drives seem to go all at once and no tricks seem to bring 'em back for the one last time like the IDE drives.
If the drive is chattering/clanking, then basically you are done. Maybe DriveSavers can retrieve, maybe not. Depends on the extent of internal damage.
If you can run disk utility on it, then put the MacBook into Target mode and connect via Firewire to another Mac. If it doesn't mount, follow Satcomer's advice. Data Rescue is also another utility to recover data.
In regards to S.M.A.R.T, I've seen failing drives not flagged by SMART and good drives flagged bad (poor firmware). I never totally rely on any diag as the final proof something is good or bad. |