Is the HD in my MBP dead?

flextone · 11-25-2012, 12:50 PM

Hi,

ok I'll give you guys the rundown... My 2010 MBP decided it doesn't want to boot up anymore. Apple logo comes on with a progress bar which does not progress, and the machine shuts itself down after two minutes.

I've tried extracting data from it by using firewire target disk mode, but the MBP's HD didn't mount. I even tried different cables.

Next, I inserted the OSX 10.6 install CD and tried to verify & repair the disk from disk utility. I received multiple errors:

invalid key length

invalid B-tree node size

The volume could not be verified completely

1) Is there anything else I can try before giving up on my HD and getting a new one? (SSD yay!) maybe trying to install 10.6 without erasing it? just to back up some files.

2) Can it be that it isn't the HD at all? I'd like to know so I don't shell out for a new drive and find out it still doesn't work.

I'd like to add that I haven't dropped the computer, didn't spill coffee on it, and it worked flawlessly until a few hours before this happened. How can it just stop working like that?

Thanks for your replies!

DeltaMac · 11-25-2012, 01:38 PM

The shutdown after a couple of minutes is a good possibility for a failed hard drive.
Your Mac does a boot test of the hard drive. If the test does not complete properly, it tries again, up to 2 more times. If the test still doesn't finish, the Mac will usually shut down.
The issue MIGHT simply be a corrupted directory
The "invalid b-tree node size" and "invalid key length" is a typical directory problem.
Try a more capable disk repair tool, such as Disk Warrior.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11707/diskwarrior

You get to spend $100 to try Disk Warrior, but it's a good tool to have, especially if you still need to try to save data.
On the other hand, if you DON'T have any files that are not already saved on another drive (your back up), then, sure, I think it will be a great opportunity to replace the hard drive.

ambrose · 11-26-2012, 01:08 AM

You might consider this no-cost way to repair a severely corrupted directory before purchasing a more powerful disk repair tool to do he job.

Restart your machine in Single-User mode—or at least attempt it, as this is sometimes possible when the full system is not bootable—by holding down command-S at startup. If that succeeds, you will be in the text-only command-line interface. Although you will be logged in with root access, the drive is mounted as read-only, meaning you need not worry about doing something nasty and permanent to your drive. Well, not unless you mount the drive with write access, which you're not going to do, right? Right.

When the screen has settled down, type

Code:

fsck -f

and press return. The resulting text will look familiar, as it's what you'd see when running Disk Utility.

Even if the announcement is made at the end of the repair process that the filesystem was repaired successfully, you're not done, as it may well be not all the problems were corrected. Run the process again and, if necessary, keep running it until the response says no problems were found.

Now you're done. Type

Code:

shutdown -r now

and press return to restart.

Good luck.

flextone · 11-26-2012, 04:22 AM

Thanks for helping guys.

Amrose, I did as you suggested and it didn't work. I ran fsck -f 3 times and got the following output:

** /dev/rdisk0s2
** Root file system
Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491 .6~3).
disk0s2: I/O error.
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
disk0s2: I/O error.
Invalid B-tree node size
(4,0)
** The volume could not be verified completely.
/dev/rdosk0s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIHNAL 8

I think I'd rather get a new HD than shell out 100$ on DiskWarrior...

Any other thoughts? Isn't a new install of the OS possible without harming the files?

agentx · 11-26-2012, 04:56 AM

disk0s2: I/O error normally indicates Hard disk failure so get yourself a new one and certainly look into an SSD drive if you want to make your MBP rock ! And if you are a power user then get rid of DVD drive and add a 750GB HDD for storage and 256 SSD for boot/system ;-)

flextone · 11-26-2012, 05:24 AM

I'm planning on a modest 128 SSD as a system drive, I use a G-technologies external firewire drive for files.

agentx · 11-26-2012, 05:51 AM

Please get a 256Gb i know money is always tight but this is the sweet spot.
I advise a Samsung 830 they are very good !

flextone · 11-26-2012, 06:58 AM

sweet spot in what sense? speed?

I really don't need 256gb on my system drive, and it's just too much money to put on an HD.

agentx · 11-26-2012, 07:34 AM

If 128Gb is enough then fine it is only because about 1 year ago we installed a load of 128GB drives and now regret the extra cost to get 256Gb. There is no speed difference just enough headroom to grow into.

flextone · 11-26-2012, 07:50 AM

I think my soon to be former HD is 160 and it wasn't even half full after almost three years so...

agentx · 11-26-2012, 07:51 AM

Ok all good then get yourself a 128GB Samsung SSD and enjoy the huge speed gains !

flextone · 11-26-2012, 11:25 AM

any word on compatibility? looks like the Samsung 830 is my top contender at the moment. My MBP is SATA II but that's no problem as SATA III is backwards compatible.

Anybody with an SSD drive in a mid-2009 13" 2.26ghz MBP?

agentx · 11-26-2012, 12:01 PM

I have 100s of machines with the Samsung 830s. ;-) I work in IT. We took other routes and regretted it OCZ had firmware issues with ML and was a pain to put right so never going there again. Crucial is what i have and although i am happy with mine i have seen some people have issues.

flextone · 11-26-2012, 02:05 PM

sounds convincing

I'll go with the samsung.

thanks!

agentx · 11-26-2012, 02:09 PM

;-) My advice is obviously have good backups(daily clone or weekly as a minimum) and that "the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long". This IMHO applies to SSD drives. We still are in the early stages of SSD being fully main stream and unlikely we truly know how long they will last ! But in some respects this is true of spinning drives too.....it could fail tomorrow or last 20+ years.

flextone · 11-28-2012, 03:42 AM

Samsung 830 installed. Speed is amazing, so far so good.

Would you advise turning TRIM on? I'm on 10.6.8

And while we're at it, what should I use for cloning? I hate Time Machine.

agentx · 11-28-2012, 04:12 AM

No I personally do not bother with TRIM the drive firmware on drive should handle everything.
As far as backup.....Just remember Cloning is only 1 part of a backup system.

Here is how i do backups
1) Weekly clone of main system drive to a dedicated disk/partition using Carbon Copy Cloner
2) Crashplan - Daily incremental backups to local disk of all data
3) Really important files ie. company accounts are backed up to Crashplan Cloud storage
4) Monthly offsite drives rotated at friends house using Crashplan.

flextone · 11-28-2012, 04:27 AM

I'll do a weekly clone with Carbon Copy Cloner. The rest is overkill for this specific machine.

Thanks agentx.

11-25-2012, 12:50 PM	#1
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	Is the HD in my MBP dead? Hi, ok I'll give you guys the rundown... My 2010 MBP decided it doesn't want to boot up anymore. Apple logo comes on with a progress bar which does not progress, and the machine shuts itself down after two minutes. I've tried extracting data from it by using firewire target disk mode, but the MBP's HD didn't mount. I even tried different cables. Next, I inserted the OSX 10.6 install CD and tried to verify & repair the disk from disk utility. I received multiple errors: invalid key length invalid B-tree node size The volume could not be verified completely 1) Is there anything else I can try before giving up on my HD and getting a new one? (SSD yay!) maybe trying to install 10.6 without erasing it? just to back up some files. 2) Can it be that it isn't the HD at all? I'd like to know so I don't shell out for a new drive and find out it still doesn't work. I'd like to add that I haven't dropped the computer, didn't spill coffee on it, and it worked flawlessly until a few hours before this happened. How can it just stop working like that? Thanks for your replies!

11-26-2012, 01:08 AM	#3
ambrose Triple-A Player Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Western New England Posts: 53	You might consider this no-cost way to repair a severely corrupted directory before purchasing a more powerful disk repair tool to do he job. Restart your machine in Single-User mode—or at least attempt it, as this is sometimes possible when the full system is not bootable—by holding down command-S at startup. If that succeeds, you will be in the text-only command-line interface. Although you will be logged in with root access, the drive is mounted as read-only, meaning you need not worry about doing something nasty and permanent to your drive. Well, not unless you mount the drive with write access, which you're not going to do, right? Right. When the screen has settled down, type Code: fsck -f and press return. The resulting text will look familiar, as it's what you'd see when running Disk Utility. Even if the announcement is made at the end of the repair process that the filesystem was repaired successfully, you're not done, as it may well be not all the problems were corrected. Run the process again and, if necessary, keep running it until the response says no problems were found. Now you're done. Type Code: shutdown -r now and press return to restart. Good luck.

11-26-2012, 04:56 AM	#5
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	disk0s2: I/O error normally indicates Hard disk failure so get yourself a new one and certainly look into an SSD drive if you want to make your MBP rock ! And if you are a power user then get rid of DVD drive and add a 750GB HDD for storage and 256 SSD for boot/system ;-) Last edited by agentx; 11-26-2012 at 05:00 AM.

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11-25-2012, 01:38 PM	#2
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,948	The shutdown after a couple of minutes is a good possibility for a failed hard drive. Your Mac does a boot test of the hard drive. If the test does not complete properly, it tries again, up to 2 more times. If the test still doesn't finish, the Mac will usually shut down. The issue MIGHT simply be a corrupted directory The "invalid b-tree node size" and "invalid key length" is a typical directory problem. Try a more capable disk repair tool, such as Disk Warrior. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11707/diskwarrior You get to spend $100 to try Disk Warrior, but it's a good tool to have, especially if you still need to try to save data. On the other hand, if you DON'T have any files that are not already saved on another drive (your back up), then, sure, I think it will be a great opportunity to replace the hard drive.

11-26-2012, 04:22 AM	#4
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	Thanks for helping guys. Amrose, I did as you suggested and it didn't work. I ran fsck -f 3 times and got the following output: /dev/rdisk0s2 Root file system Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491 .6~3). disk0s2: I/O error. Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume. disk0s2: I/O error. Invalid B-tree node size (4,0) The volume could not be verified completely. /dev/rdosk0s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIHNAL 8 I think I'd rather get a new HD than shell out 100$ on DiskWarrior... Any other thoughts? Isn't a new install of the OS possible without harming the files?

11-26-2012, 05:24 AM	#6
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	I'm planning on a modest 128 SSD as a system drive, I use a G-technologies external firewire drive for files.

11-26-2012, 05:51 AM	#7
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	Please get a 256Gb i know money is always tight but this is the sweet spot. I advise a Samsung 830 they are very good !

11-26-2012, 06:58 AM	#8
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	sweet spot in what sense? speed? I really don't need 256gb on my system drive, and it's just too much money to put on an HD.

11-26-2012, 07:34 AM	#9
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	If 128Gb is enough then fine it is only because about 1 year ago we installed a load of 128GB drives and now regret the extra cost to get 256Gb. There is no speed difference just enough headroom to grow into.

11-26-2012, 07:50 AM	#10
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	I think my soon to be former HD is 160 and it wasn't even half full after almost three years so...

11-26-2012, 07:51 AM	#11
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	Ok all good then get yourself a 128GB Samsung SSD and enjoy the huge speed gains !

11-26-2012, 11:25 AM	#12
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	any word on compatibility? looks like the Samsung 830 is my top contender at the moment. My MBP is SATA II but that's no problem as SATA III is backwards compatible. Anybody with an SSD drive in a mid-2009 13" 2.26ghz MBP?

11-26-2012, 12:01 PM	#13
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	I have 100s of machines with the Samsung 830s. ;-) I work in IT. We took other routes and regretted it OCZ had firmware issues with ML and was a pain to put right so never going there again. Crucial is what i have and although i am happy with mine i have seen some people have issues.

11-26-2012, 02:05 PM	#14
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	sounds convincing I'll go with the samsung. thanks!

11-26-2012, 02:09 PM	#15
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	;-) My advice is obviously have good backups(daily clone or weekly as a minimum) and that "the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long". This IMHO applies to SSD drives. We still are in the early stages of SSD being fully main stream and unlikely we truly know how long they will last ! But in some respects this is true of spinning drives too.....it could fail tomorrow or last 20+ years.

11-28-2012, 03:42 AM	#16
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	Samsung 830 installed. Speed is amazing, so far so good. Would you advise turning TRIM on? I'm on 10.6.8 And while we're at it, what should I use for cloning? I hate Time Machine.

11-28-2012, 04:12 AM	#17
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,807	No I personally do not bother with TRIM the drive firmware on drive should handle everything. As far as backup.....Just remember Cloning is only 1 part of a backup system. Here is how i do backups 1) Weekly clone of main system drive to a dedicated disk/partition using Carbon Copy Cloner 2) Crashplan - Daily incremental backups to local disk of all data 3) Really important files ie. company accounts are backed up to Crashplan Cloud storage 4) Monthly offsite drives rotated at friends house using Crashplan.

11-28-2012, 04:27 AM	#18
flextone Triple-A Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 115	I'll do a weekly clone with Carbon Copy Cloner. The rest is overkill for this specific machine. Thanks agentx.