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Stop/Prohibitory sign at boot up

W

willabbotsm

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 15, 2010
9
0
Hello all. I've come here before and it's helped with my issues, but this is my first post.

I have a black MacBook that I got about 2 years ago, running OS X 10.5. I had about 10 GB free space. It's been working fine until this unfortunate event. Let me explain.

I was recently working with my mac as usual (browsing the web, downloading torrents, reading an ebook, ect). I tried to load vimeo.com in firefox, when it froze. Nothing new, so I tried to open up force quit. Nothing I clicked on responded. It was frozen. I also heard some weird "tinking" noises from inside the machine that I had never heard before. So, I inferred I should force shut down. I held down the power button, and it turned off. I hit it again to turn it back on. I saw a grey screen and an apple and heard the"dinggggg" noise we've all come to love like usual. But, suddenly the apple changes to a circle with a line through it, which I've dubbed a stop sign. It just stays like this. I can turn it off, and try again and the same thing happens. I've tried it like 10 times. (I know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Call me insane. Thanks. :p)

This is getting my adrenaline pumping, and I can't figure out what to do. Should I reset the NVRAM and PRAM like Apple says? I'm at a loss. Right now I'm using my friend's computer (running Vista ugh) to type this.

I would greatly appreciate any help that you guys could possibly give, in whatever form it comes in. Even some warm milk and a comforting smile would help right now.

Thanks,
Will
 
Here's a nice glass of milk and some cookies.

:D

Sounds like the hard drive died, or, if you're lucky, just a fan. The computer won't turn on until it is repaired. If it is the fan, take it to an Apple store unless you're comfortable opening it. If it is the hard drive, same thing as above but it is a bit easier. Try booting off the system disk, hold down option at boot with the DVD in the drive; then select the DVD To boot off of. If that works, then it isn't the fan. If it doesn't, head to the Apple store.

:(

Sorry.
 
thanks for the advice, flopticaltube. I reset the PRAM and NVRAM, and now when I turn it on I see the apple, then the apple disappears. No stop sign, just a blank gray screen.

I might try booting from the startup disk, I'll have to rummage around in my basement and see if I still have the thing.....

but thanks!
Will
 
It won't let me boot into safe mode using the shift method. I reset the SMC, too. It shows the apple logo, flashes the stop sign for a split-second, and goes into a blank gray screen until I turn it off. I'm really not sure what caused all of this; I was just computing as normal when it froze. Now I have this problem. Like I said it was making a weird nose when it froze.
 
I just tried safe boot again holding down Shift-Command-V and it worked, so I could see the progress. It had a few lines of text, and ended with

..........Read file failed: status 7, buffer size 0x60000
Error loading kernel 'match_kernel' (0x7)
 
I'm going to try what you guys have suggested, and run disk utility off the installation CDs. I did this once a while back, but I've lost the disks. Anyone suppose I could *cough* obtain these, and burn them to a DVD/CD?
 
This morning I had the same problem, after restarting from Windows7 installed on Boot Camp, my computer just refused to boot up and showed a ''Stop Sign''. When I tried to boot in CMD-S mode a.k.a Single User Mode; I had an error like this:

hfs_mount root failed = 5
cannot mount root, errno = 19

Boot with Shift, a.k.a Safe Boot also did not work, I kept getting the same Stop Sign and nothing happens.

Finally, I booted with Cmd-R to get Disk Utility, I verified and repaired the Disk and it booted nicely.

Problems like these started when I clean installed Lion from InstallESD.dmg and whenever I reboot from Windows7. Maybe coincidence, but my opinion is that something with Lion isn't working nicely with Windows7 on Boot Camp.
 
Just to point out, this could be a hard drive failing, but it could also be a lose hard drive connection. If you're up for it, try opening up your computer and make sure the hard drive is pushed in all the way. I have a G4 mini that's been sitting on its' top for a few too many years and I recently had to tap it upside-down, to get the hard drive back in place.
 
"I'm going to try what you guys have suggested, and run disk utility off the installation CDs. I did this once a while back, but I've lost the disks. Anyone suppose I could *cough* obtain these, and burn them to a DVD/CD?"

A little late to reply to this thread, but -- if you had a "bootable cloned backup" drive sitting nearby -- you could have been back up and running in a couple of minutes.

Since you've had these problems, have you considered putting together such a drive?
 
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