HOWTO: Fix a dead Hard drive (sometimes)

So this morning I had a little bit of a terrifying moment when Katrina brought me her computer because it wouldn’t boot. and the hard disk was making terrible noises.
Immediately I started going though my “I’m really sorry but…” IT speech in my head. Then, as if the IT gods of yore touched me with a ray of shining light, a solution came to me: smack the crap out of the drive and see if it works again.
So I did! I held the drive in my left hand and gave it two solid whacks with the right, then replaced the drive in the computer and booted it into firewire mode. Ta-da! The drive showed up, no problems at all. Immediately made a backup of her system and now we just gotta wait to get the drive replaced under Applecare!
Who would have thought that literally giving the computer a spanking would make it behave? teehee
photo by flickr user jon_a_ross

2 comments

On June 27, 2008 at 06:49 PM, pfeffer wrote:
You can fix watches this way too sometimes. The hands get stuck and all it takes is a few good thwacks to set it straight.
On June 29, 2008 at 04:21 PM, sunjie wrote:
works on my wife too ;)
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