Help restoring MacBook

[dnanian]

Why not just mount it in FireWire target disk mode to your other iMac and access the files?

[EyefulPower]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Why not just mount it in FireWire target disk mode to your other iMac and access the files?

I did try that and the MacBook would not show up on the iMac. The large target disk icon on the MacBook was displayed so I assumed I did it correctly.

[dnanian]

That sounds like the disk is damaged enough that there's little you can do. Booting it from something else isn't going to somehow 'fix' the drive...

[EyefulPower]

Originally Posted by dnanian

That sounds like the disk is damaged enough that there's little you can do. Booting it from something else isn't going to somehow 'fix' the drive...

I've never run into this before, but i thought maybe even if the drive is damaged the MacBook could still boot from optical media or an external drive. That way I could run some utility that would definitively tell me it's no use.

During my attempts it's been either showing a cursor, or Apple logo, or spinning gear, or just a blank gray screen. I've read that it's possible the MB drives can get "unseated" but since I'm still under warranty I'm squeamish about taking the drive out to test it somewhere else. Should I?

[dnanian]

Well, you can try, sure. It should still be able to start up from something else, but if the internal drive isn't responding properly it could 'hang' there for quite a while as it tries to locate the internal drive.

[EyefulPower]

Thanks for your help, Dave. I'm trying to create a bootable FW 400 drive from the MacBook Install disk (OS 10.4.8) and I read on MacFixIt that "there is no single stand-alone Tiger installer DVD for an Intel machine". How is that possible when Apple supplied the Tiger install disk for an Intel machine?

Also, does the FW need to be GUID partitioned to be bootable or can it be Apple partition Map?

[dnanian]

If that's the disc that came with the MacBook, that's the one to use. Macs come with discs that are designed to work with them, and often support the new hardware on that Mac.

The FW drive should be partitioned as GUID, but APM will work if you must.