Sadly, your HD may be frelled. You have a couple of options which I will try to list in order of increasing pain, worry, and doom. Read through this before trying them in succession:
1. Your Volume is Corrupted: Unfortunately, this can happen, particularly when you hard-restart. Basically, your computer cannot find things--like itself. The "solution" to that is repairing the volume. Doing that depends on one critical question:
Do you have your Installation Disk? [
ID--Ed.]
If you do, start up on the
ID. If you
can start up on the
ID, then at least everything is working up to your HD/HD contents.
Try to repair with
Disk Utility. If it works, awesome! Unfortunately,
DU is a pretty weak repair program. UnLESS the problem is minor, you will need a better repair program. Hold that thought.
Be that as it may, SHOULD you repair your volume enough to "see" your HD, you need to
BACK UP YOUR DATA
Back in the day, when that involved CD, and--*
shudder*--floppy disks! it was understandable that people avoided it. No longer. So, now, before you do anything, go and get a
Big Ass External Hard Drive [Tm.--Ed.]. You can get them relatively cheaply now. So should you "see" your HD you can send all of your files over and perhaps save your data! Later, when you back up your system daily, and if a problem happens--and they will--you just simply recover.
But you are not there yet.
2. Disk Utility FAILS: Big surprise. You have another option, which is the
Archive and Install--you start up on the
Start-Up Disk and choose that option. It installs a brand new OS and leaves your data. BUT . . . if it cannot "see" your HD--because
DU is weak and/or your HD is frelled . . . that does not help you. So you must move to more desperate measures. At this point, consider getting a virgin to sacrifice and move on to:
3. Using a Repair Program: There are many. In my opinion--and that of many who seem to actually know what they pontificate about--
Disk Warrior is the one to go. It has repaired volumes, found HDs that no other program can. Believe me! I just saved data on an EX-HD with it a few days ago.
It costs about $100-89. It is money well spent. Trust me.
It will, on a FAILING HD, try to at least create an image of the data on your HD. You can THEN--and I have done this--send this to your brand spanking new Ex-HD and at least you have what you could recover. Then you need to see if you can salvage your HD/replace your HD. You can, incidentally, install your OS on the Ex-HD and boot from that and try
1 on your computer. At worse, you can still use the computer--connected to the Ex-HD--so you can order your new Int-HD, order your
DiskWarrior and surf your plant porn while you wait!
3. Disk Warrior Cannot Find/Repair HD: At this point, you are, to use the Anglo-Saxon vernacular f[
CENSORED--Ed.]'d. Your HD is probably 99.9% dead. You can try taking it to a service place--where they will tell you the same thing, charge $$$ to tell you you have been scrod. You can then move into desperation mode:
4. That is Not Dead Which Eternal May Lie: But ultimately, with strange eons, all hard drives die. So, at this point, you can search HERE for the two forms of desperation:
- A. Removing the HD and Sticking it in Your Freezer I have never done this. I have been told by a number of people it can work. Search HERE and see the instructions. This is ONLY to save your data. So you need . . . what? What do you need? An External HD! Yes! To put the saved data on.
B. Using a Data Recovery Service They will take your HD, put it in a clean room, have a bunch of people in suits inspect it, and, maybe, they will save your data. You will pay--I am not making this up--$2,000+ for this service. I know of no one who has used these services given the expense.
Good luck! It sucks, it really does.
--J.D.
