The best case is that the disk's volume data (essentially, your hard drive's table of contents) has somehow gotten corrupted or the Mac has forgotten which disk to boot, both of which can be fixed with special reboots or Disk Utility from your Mac startup CD or DVD.
The worst case (as it was for us) means that your hard drive is dead and needs to be replaced.
In my role as "tech support for my friends and family", I've gotten a bunch of questions about what happened and what my backup regimen is. So over the next few posts, I'll describe what happened, what I did to restore our data, my experiences with Apple tech support, and what we do to backup data.
Here's the Reader's Digest version:
- After a call with Apple tech support where we tried various reboots and software-based repairs, I took the iMac down to the local Apple Store and they replaced the drive with a brand new one.
- We had a Time Machine backup on the HP MediaSmart server, so we didn't lose any data.
- After restoring from Time Machine (my first successful computer restore experience ever, I think) and a few application re-installs (most Mac apps don't need this, but I'll name names for the few which do), we're back in action. Hurrah!
Our family does not have a physical disaster emergency prepardness plan (yes, I know -- it's on the list with getting our trust notarized), but we do have a data disaster plan. You should too, if any of your data is important to you.
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