Booting and "out of sleep" problem ... suspecting the hard drive ...

[MrKing]

Hello there fellow apple users!

Background info:
A few weeks ago I upgraded from a regular macbook to a brand new macbook pro 2.66 ghz. I replaced the hard drive right away with a 500gb one (had it done by apple). So my machine runs snow leopard now, I used the data transfer mode to basicly copy the data and apps from my old macbook to the new MBP.

The "problem"
It all worked fine and smooth until a week ago ...
For a week now I have a problem that really concerns me. Whenever I open my laptop from a sleep mode he gets really slow and unresponsive to my commands. Its like its crashing, all I can do to get out of this is a hard reboot.

However .. during a reboot OR a cold bootup the MBP gets stuck in the grey screen with only the apple logo .. after a minute or 3 it will start loading but it will never reach the login screen...
The strange thing is that when I do reboot it over and over again .. it eventually will boot normally and when it does the MBP runs fine .. until I turn it off or put it in sleep mode .. then the nightmare will start again.



What I have done

I personally suspects the Hard Drive to be the culprit, I get the feeling that the Hard Drive is having trouble starting up or getting out of sleep mode. I am not sure tough.
I have done the following:

- Disc Utility (gives no errors)
- Booting up in terminal and run Disc Utility there (repaired a volume issue)

Could this be a leopard issue? I actually can't remember if this issue happened after the last macOS update or not ..

I never had a problem with my iBook and Macbook so I have little experience on troubleshooting. So I hope you more technical experienced users can give me some tips on what to do here.

Thanks in advance!

 

[bblrsn1234]

I am not a TECH guy, but it happened to me too. Then I had to hard reboot my mac for about... 10 times a day or so. Then it got worse and I had to hard reboot... 20 times. After, I only saw apple logo, and not the spinning wheel below that logo. You should either reformat before your mac will be like my Mac. I have leopard.
By the way, did you BUY snow leopard? Because there are so much people downloading and installing snow leopard on the leopard for free by torrents. If you did download them, that might be the problem.

 

[MrKing]

Yes my Snow Leopard is absolutely original, it came with the new Macbook pro.

 

[SamNeeds]

Sounds like the OS or HDD. I'd reinstall the OS as a first step (a fresh OS never really hurts now and then).

I don't think it's RAM as the problem still exists from a cold boot (as opposed to sleep where stuff would be in RAM).

Failing the OS reinstall, I'd say, if you can, try the HDD in another MBP, if it follows then it's the HDD. In that case it would probably be a trip to the Apple store genius to see if you can do that with one of their devices or possibly if you've got any friends with an MBP, try it there.

 

[MrKing]

I'd reinstall the OS as a first step (a fresh OS never really hurts now and then).

Thanks for your interest and help Sam!

I'm planning to try that out. Can I however load up a time machine image on the clean install? or does doing that defeats the purpose of a clean install?

 

[SamNeeds]

Yes, as you'd just be putting back the files you removed with the OS reinstall. It would make better sense to just restore certain files and folders instead of the OS itself from TM.

 

[MrKing]

Can I use timemachine just to restore my applications too?
Having to reinstall all my software is keeping me from reinstalling the OS ... it cost me too much time and effort.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Can I use timemachine just to restore my applications too?

Yes, you can use Time Machine to restore applications, user files, and settings during a fresh install.

If you experience any instability after the reinstall, take it to Apple right away. Intermittent problems while under warranty become constant problems as soon as your warranty ends.

 

[Sun Baked]

I'd say dying HD...

If you have the same problem on a cold boot as you do on after leaving it on for awhile.

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Usually SW when the problems go away on a reboot after repairing the volume.

Since yours don't, all we can say is bad drive. And as a side note, rarely does the SMART status register a bad drive before it fails, seen only 2 people so far since I've been here say their SMART status is failing (and one used a suspect 3rd party app.)

Just because the drive is new, it doesn't mean anything ... so call up the company with the warranty on the drive and see how to handle it.

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If you have the clock in the menu bar, and it freezes when the machine crashes, that is the drive ... since basically the OS will freeze when the HD suddenly stops working.

 

[MrKing]

Thanks guys, I will create a new partition to put the time machine image on and do a fresh install. The hard drive and the laptop are both less then 5 weeks old so I'll visit the apple store if problem occurs after a fresh install.

Thanks again !

I will leave this thread open for more suggestions.