So yesterday, something bizarre happened with my Macbook. I had left it running, as usual, with a number of windows of different applications, again, as usual, and gone to have dinner. I came back to while away time on the Internet after dinner. I don’t know what happened, but nothing on my Mac seemed to work properly, and suddenly, I am informed that I have to restart the computer. This normally doesn’t happen with a Mac, so when it does, something big is about to happen.

So I held down the power button, let it shut down, and hit the power again to start it up. I got a white screen for a while, then after a long time, the Apple logo appeared, and an indicator was showing that the system was in the process of starting up. This went on for a really really long time, accompanied by the fans spinning like crazy. I should have left it alone, and it might be alright, but I hit the power button again. It turned off, then I turned it on again. Same white screen. But now no Apple logo. There was a strange ticking sound though, like ticks of those 80’s style alarm clocks. After a few minutes, I was faced with a folder having a question mark on it. I had never ever seen or heard about this phenomenon before. Numerous restart attempts did not help at all. Turns out, for some reason, the startup disk can’t be found. Hence, no normal operations of the Macbook.

Apparently, you could use the Disk Utility software that came in the original CDs. I, however, left all these important CDs back in the US. Lucky Apple support is so wonderful! Though they couldn’t help me fix it, they set up a case ID and sent me to an authorized service provider in Singapore. The hard drive has to be replaced unfortunately. There goes everything on the disk. Luckily, Time Machine had backups from like 2 weeks ago, whicih is good enough for me. Will need to download quite a few papers again though. And since I got Applecare 2 years ago when I bought the Macbook, I don’t have to pay for the new hard drive. Not sure about labour though. Oh, plus, they will install the Mac OS for me, which is good, since I don’t have the CDs here, and won’t be back in the States for another 2 weeks.

It’s going to be strange not having my own laptop for almost a week. I’m sharing with mum now. Happens to be Vista, but beggars can’t be choosers I’m looking forward to getting my Mac back!