Chosen Solution
I have the original MacBook Core Duo 1.83GHz, and without warning I got the spinning color wheel, it never stopped. I tried to reboot and it went to the blank grey screen. I tried booting while holding option and it the gave me the flashing question mark, there also seems to be a persistent, one pixel wide line down the screen (that issue started before these new problems, but used to go away when I moved the screen.) I can hear the computer trying to start, when I power it down it makes a single click sound. I replaced the RAM several months ago so I tested with the old RAM, but to no avail. I read through similar questions but since I don’t have the original OS disk, I tried booting from a friends copy of Tiger. Now the disc wont come out, but I do hear it spinning. I tried all solutions for that as well. Based on the ‘click’ and the answers on this forum, I started honing in on the Hard Drive so I opened the case, cleaned out any dust. disconnected all cables related to the Hard Drive and reseated it as well. No progress. Is it safe to assume I need a new Hard Drive? Is there anything specific I should know before buying a new one? Is there any chance of recovering the data from the old HD on my own and without incurring too much cost?
Sounds like the HD is dead. You can try cloning the drive using SuperDuper to a new HD. Another option you have is to try to mount the HD on your desktop with a Adapter/External Enclosure and just copy your HomeFolder once you have installed a new HD and OS. I have managed to retrieve data this way on a Mac, even with HDs formatted for windows. The Optical drive issue, I would try to hold down the left mouse button during boot up and see if that works. If that doesn’t work, you might have to remove the optical drive and remove it manually.
