It is a bad morning. My primary computer, a 15″ MacBook Pro that is just a month short of a year old, has died. Again. It happened after following Apple’s advice and upgrading the system software. Now it will no longer boot. I get either an interminable gray or blue screen, or I get to the list of accounts to log on, but the whole screen is dimmed or grayed. The dim little curser moves, but nothing responds. Clicks aren’t recognized. Actually, I only got that far one. I did the command-option-p-r thing, no success. I booted into the hardware test, and it found no problems.
I tried to boot from a system disk, but can’t get that far.
It’s not a good time for this to happen. Well, is there ever a good time? Probably not.
In any case, it is going to take me a while to regroup.
Computer will have to go back to Apple. This will be the second time. The motherboard was replace, along with the trackpad module, several months back.
If anyone has any brilliant suggestions for things I should try, please leave a comment!!
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Ian–
Priority 1 would be to get the Mac to boot. Have you tried resetting the System Management Controller? For your model, where the battery can’t be removed, the steps are:
Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own
Note: Portable computers that have a battery you should not remove on your own include MacBook Pro (Early 2009) and later, all models of MacBook Air, and MacBook (Late 2009).
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.
If it boots, disk repair is in order. The simplest way is to reboot into single-user mode:
1. Restart the computer and before the startup chime sounds hold down the Command and “S” keys simultaneously.
2. A black screen will appear and a bunch of white type will scroll up as the startup process completes.
3. When all the processes are done and the scrolling stops, type: fsck -fy
(that stands for file system check…the hyphen-f-y means force the check to proceed)
4. It may take several minutes to complete the check and the repairs, if necessary. At the end, you’ll likely see a message that “The System Was Modified” or something similar.
5. At that point, type “reboot” (without the “”), and the Mac should restart.
HTH.
I’m trying your suggestions as I type. Reset the system management controller. It showed the apple, spinning while, now has stalled in blue screen. I’m hoping it will get through this.
I’ll wait for a while.
It has booted!!
Now on to the second step.
So far, so good!
It is fsck’ing away right now.
It seems I spoke too soon. Now back to boot issues.
Hmm. If Apple Hardware Test came out clean, there’s a possibility that a component of the system software might have gotten fried.
I know you said you tried booting from the installation DVD, but maybe try that again…or if you have an external drive with a backup (not a Time Machine backup, because they’re not bootable), try starting up from it.
If you can boot from something other than the internal drive, run Disk Utilities and try and repair the internal. If not, I’m afraid it’s back to the Apple Store.
Good luck!
I have a cloned image made by carbon copy on a SSD drive inside a housing with firewire and USB ports. I’ve tested it in booting all my macs and it is fun and easy. I am thinking bring your laptop to my office and we could try the booting steps as outlined. It is odd you can’t boot from CD. Perhaps someone else can comment on this idea? I am a novice user.
Could be bad or loose memory (RAM) modules. Try removing one at a time and booting up with just one in. It’s just a guess, but it is one of the few hardware problems that can be fixed easily.
Yes, hardware test should catch bad RAM, but I would still try it.
Here’s the latest.
I’ve been able to boot in the SAFE mode and retrieve essential stuff.
And I realized why booting from the system disk isn’t working. I have set that deep level of security that prevents booting from another drive without the password. But when it hasn’t gotten as far as the prompt for me to enter the password, and just hangs. So I can’t run the Disk Utility to catch problems on the main drive.
Hmmmmm.
This may help gain access to booting password?
Booting to the Open Firmware prompt (Command-Option-O-F at startup) and issuing commands
Figure 3.2 shows the Open Firmware Password utility in action. Be sure you use a difficult-to-guess password.
Maybe I should be thankful that I am still using a 2003 Dell desktop after all.
two words; Disk Warrior
Ian, if you are still seeing this thread…what happened? Did you fix it? I am very curious. Please explain.