Need help troubleshooting - MacBook Pro startup issue?
Asked by
Aqua (
2546
)
May 31st, 2011
from iPhone
For some reason I can’t get my MacBook Pro to startup. All I get is a screen with the apple logo and a spinning gear. I’ve reset the NVRAM and the SMC. I’ve also done the extended apple hardware test, ran fsck from single-user mode, and run disk utility and found no hardware problems whatsoever. It won’t boot in safe mode and I still can’t get past the apple logo/spinning gear screen. I’ve spent lots of time searching google for info and tried a lot of things without any luck. Since the HD seems to be fine I’m hoping I won’t lose everything, but I’m running out of ideas short of taking it in to the Apple store tomorrow (which, unfortunately, is an hour away). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I just bought this MacBook Pro last August, so it’s running the latest OS (10.6.7 I think).
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5 Answers
Is it one of the MacBooks that has a FireWire 800 port? If so, can you target boot it (hold down the T key at startup) and then plug it into another Mac so you can retrieve your data?
Can you try restarting in verbose mode and report the last few lines of the output?
To boot into Verbose mode hold down Command + V when you hit the power button and keep holding it down until you hit a wall of white text on a black screen.
Will it start up with the system / install disk?
If so, you could try a re-install. `That should save your personal data and most of your programs. You might need to reinstall some applications such as microsoft office, the apple life-sutie etc. But that is likely what the apple store will do as well.
Did you have a backup of your data?
If time machine, then start up using system disk and rebuild last status from time machine back up. If you don’t have a backup, then consider making one from now. :-)
Target boot is a good idea but I don’t have another mac around.
The last few lines of output in verbose mode:
SystemShutdown false
NVDANV50HAL loaded and registered.
Previous Shutdown Cause: 3
DSMOS has arrived
Airport: Link Down on en1, Reason 1 (Unspecified).
AppleBCM5701Ethernet: 0 0 setFixedSpeed – logic error, speed any?
It will startup with the system disk. As longs it saves my personal data I can try that. I do have a backup, but my external is only 60 gigs, so it’s just my most important things.
Thanks for the suggestions. I took it in to the Apple store and they had to rewrite the directory and reinstall the OS and everything works fine now.
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