I think my MacBook is Dead!

[MuffinToptheMule]

I tried to turn my Macbook on earlier and instead of starting up properly it has a bley grey screen and a little symbol of a folder or document with a question mark keeps flashing on and off. Please help. I'm in the middle of my dissertation and I need my laptop.

Bump

Any help please?

Oh dear, poor you, I can sympathise as I had to get my mac fixed last week. Sorry, I have no idea what it could be but I could recommend a good mac repairer in North London if that's any help. Have you tried the apple support sites?

I had this sort of problem with my last one, i had to reinstall the software using the original disc that came with it. It gives an option of complete reset or reset which keeps your docs etc - I chose the latter, it worked fine. The Mac had been frozen on that sort of screen for days first and I had tried everything else by that point

My mac had a nervous breakdown a few weeks ago - I googled Mac repair firms (via dh's laptop) and this place in Walthamstow sent a courier to collect. Did a good job but it took three days including the journeys there and back.

They did a good job and saved all my data (apparently gave me a memory upgrade that I hadn't asked for too) but it cost me £300. Had to be done, though, I need the data and I needed a working laptop asap.

If you live anywhere near an Apple shop I'd recommend taking it to the Genius bar. My friend's did exactly the same when she was writing up her Phd (she was a couple of months off finishing, so quite a sizeable amount of it would have been lost); she took mine to download everything on it onto, and then transfer to a memory stick, before resetting it in some way. The long and short of it was it was fine, but given your dissertation I would do it in a supervised way.

My nearest apple shop is in Edinbugh and I'm in Aberdeen, so it's not really possible. My money situation is terrible so no hope there either. I'll try the cd I got with it.

there is a support section on the apple site, might be worth reading before you do anything

It's all well and good saying this after the fact, but if you have data you don't want to loose (work, photos etc) you should always have two copies of it. Hard drives do fail, sometimes after a year, sometimes after ten but they do have a finite life span.
Good luck with your macbook.