the mac ER

it's just dang bad timing

I felt like restarting my Macbook Pro tonight after 3 weeks not closing it.
Just right after it shut down... the screen got stuck on the startup screen


Then I had a really bad feeling about this.



After ten minutes....the wheel is still spinning...

No response

Just like patient that went into coma, and about to die.


I was thinking, "oh boy, not again.. not another harddrive failure"


It's not going to be the end of the world, cause I have a backup in my time machine drive.
But that copy is older than 15 days... still gonna be heck of lot files to lose (mostly songs and movies I brought on iTunes.)[Not to mention that I just dwnloaded the HD version of Quantum of Solace.]

Just the process of trying to retrieve those files, transfering them back on to a newly installed partition and blah takes the whole day away. Like a organ transplant surgery, it's complicated, difficult(not really difficult), and time consuming.

I'm pretty lucky to say that I'm not unfamiliar with this kind of things after all those years of torture dealing with PC's.
I don't have to go to the nearest Apple store and cry to the Genius Bar service people to save my mac.
Although the Mac system didn't totally solved the whole issue of Hard drive crashes since it's still a "Personal computer", but it definitely lowered the occurring numbers to a degree, and with a lot safety figures, that I really started to feel safe not worrying about losing information.

But sometimes things still happens, and you just have to deal with it.

And the worst case scenario, the drive is totally busted. I will not be able to save any data and have to replace the drive with a new drive which will cost me some extra money. I will have to start from the back up I had 15 days ago.

Lets hope it won't be that worse.


So I started the whole emergency procedure:

I turned it the power off
restarted it, loading the install disk pressing C while booting to use the Disk Utility on the install disk to try to fix the drive's error.

but it's not working
It turns out that the system info is messed up that the partition can't even be detected.
Shoot! This is something new.


Time for Plan B!

So I turned off the Macbook pro again. restarted it, unloaded the install CD. Pressed T to switch into "disk mode."

Plugged the firewire and connected it to my mac mini I have in home.

Use the Disk Utility on the Mac mini system to initiate permissions verify and repair on the Macbook pro.
First try didn't work, it got stuck in the middle.
I still had hope.
So I gave it a second try, this time I gave it a bit longer time to do it.
It eventually went through.

So I ejected the mac drive from the Mac mini, rebooted it to see if it will turn on like it supposed to be.

It went into the same situation in the very first place when it crashed.

This time I gave it extra time.

I waited, and waited, 15 minutes went through.

Still no response other than the wheel turning.

So I told myself, "there is no hope anymore." Then everything happened when I my finger was about to press down the power button to shut it down and sentience it to death...

The screen suddenly jumped into the log in screen.

OMG!!!!

It's alive!

It's a miracle!


I felt like a doctor in the ER that just had saved a severely injured patient from dying.

It felt so good.

What a big relief.

No data lost, no money has to be spent, no tears, no broken hearts.


What a good way to end a day.

Don't you think so?