Can't boot MacBook Pro-Prohibitory Symbol

B

bobjohnson457

macrumors newbie
Ok, so I've been having a bunch of problems on my MacBook Pro from 2013 with El Capitan. Everything below happened in period of a few hours.

I first noticed something was wrong when I tried opening applications from my applications folder but they wouldn't open and gave me error messages. Then I tried to delete a file, but it gave me error code - 50. This happened whenever I tried to move files.

I tried restarting, as I hadn't in a couple of days, but it got stuck at the apple loading screen. I then booted it in safe mode, and it worked, so I restated it again regularly. It worked, but I still couldn't open any applications, including safari and chrome. I ran first aid on my disk, and it said everything was normal.

I restarted again, but this time, a prohibitory symbol (circle with a line through it) appeared in place of the apple symbol. This happened every time I booted, even in safe mode. So then I booted in recovery mode and tried reinstalling OS X. However, when the progress bar reached the end, it just went back to the recovery mode home screen. I knew something was wrong so I tried to erase and resintall my hard drive. I went to disk utility, selected Macintosh HD, clicked erase, and set the name to Macintosh HD and format to OS X extended (journaled). But then, "Erase process has failed" and "could not mount disk0s2 with name (null) after erase."

Does anyone have an idea why this would happen or have any suggestions? I am still in high school so taking it to apple would be my last resort.
 
bobjohnson457 said:
Ok, so I've been having a bunch of problems on my MacBook Pro from 2013 with El Capitan. Everything below happened in period of a few hours.

I first noticed something was wrong when I tried opening applications from my applications folder but they wouldn't open and gave me error messages. Then I tried to delete a file, but it gave me error code - 50. This happened whenever I tried to move files.

I tried restarting, as I hadn't in a couple of days, but it got stuck at the apple loading screen. I then booted it in safe mode, and it worked, so I restated it again regularly. It worked, but I still couldn't open any applications, including safari and chrome. I ran first aid on my disk, and it said everything was normal.

I restarted again, but this time, a prohibitory symbol (circle with a line through it) appeared in place of the apple symbol. This happened every time I booted, even in safe mode. So then I booted in recovery mode and tried reinstalling OS X. However, when the progress bar reached the end, it just went back to the recovery mode home screen. I knew something was wrong so I tried to erase and resintall my hard drive. I went to disk utility, selected Macintosh HD, clicked erase, and set the name to Macintosh HD and format to OS X extended (journaled). But then, "Erase process has failed" and "could not mount disk0s2 with name (null) after erase."

Does anyone have an idea why this would happen or have any suggestions? I am still in high school so taking it to apple would be my last resort.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you may have a failed hard drive.
 
Yes.
I think you have done most everything that you can try, and the symptoms sound very much like your drive has failed.
You would fix that by replacing it.
If your MBPro is the 2012 model (not a retina model), then you may have a spinning hard drive. Those are fairly painless to replace.
 
DeltaMac said:
Yes.
I think you have done most everything that you can try, and the symptoms sound very much like your drive has failed.
You would fix that by replacing it.
If your MBPro is the 2012 model (not a retina model), then you may have a spinning hard drive. Those are fairly painless to replace.
Click to expand...
OK, thank you for your help. Would I have apple replace it or buy it and replace it myself?
 
bobjohnson457 said:
OK, thank you for your help. Would I have apple replace it or buy it and replace it myself?
Click to expand...

Depends on how mechanically inclined you are. If you are comfortable taking apart your laptop then go for replacing it yourself. Places like OWC have full kits with all you need available.
 
Capt T said:
Depends on how mechanically inclined you are. If you are comfortable taking apart your laptop then go for replacing it yourself. Places like OWC have full kits with all you need available.
Click to expand...
Will any hard drive work or is there like a specific one I need to buy for a MacBook Pro?
 
Go to the apple menu, and hit "about this mac." Under to OS version number you should see a line like "MacBook Pro (....)" What does it say? We can't tell you what you need unless we know specifically which model you have.
 
cmaier said:
Go to the apple menu, and hit "about this mac." Under to OS version number you should see a line like "MacBook Pro (....)" What does it say? We can't tell you what you need unless we know specifically which model you have.
Click to expand...
It's a 13-inch, mid 2012
 
That takes a standard SATA 2.5-inch drive.
You can replace with a spinning hard drive, or even better, replace with an SSD, which will give you a noticeable increase in performance. I like the Crucial drives. The current MX300 is a good value, with good performance, too.
 
Ok thank you guys. I will try to find a good one
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DeltaMac said:
That takes a standard SATA 2.5-inch drive.
You can replace with a spinning hard drive, or even better, replace with an SSD, which will give you a noticeable increase in performance. I like the Crucial drives. The current MX300 is a good value, with good performance, too.
Click to expand...
How thick should it be? Would this one work?
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Lapt...478901842&sr=8-4&keywords=sata+hard+drive+2.5
 
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
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bobjohnson457 said:
Don't SSDs require buying other things to install them? Also, im not sure if I'll need an SSD; I pretty much just use my mac to do school work and watch youtube.
Also, im not completely sure if it's a hard drive failure.
Click to expand...

You generally can just swap in the ssd (at least on those old machines). I did that to my 2009 MBP and it improved speed tremendously (so much so that I still use it as an iTunes server).

Definitely sounds like a hard drive failure, though.
 
You probably don't need an enclosure unless you want to try and recover what's on your existing disk (which may not be possible given that the disk appears pretty damaged). I believe the link I posted includes "kits" that come with enclosures and the required screwdriver though.
 
That "laptopmag" article that you linked is a pretty poorly written article., although the mechanical part of the replacement (various screws, and position of parts, etc) is OK. The reference to an "mSATA enclosure or adapter" is not correct at all. mSATA refers to the card-type SSD. You would just need a standard SATA adapter, either SATA to USB, or the more expensive SATA to Thunderbolt.
Use the iFixit.com replacement articles for a better view of what you need to do.

All you need is an adapter to connect your your drive externally, such as a USB enclosure of some kind, or just a simple SATA to USB cable. It would only be used when you need to have both drives connected at the same time.
The simple steps would be:
Connect the new SSD (or hard drive, if that's what you really prefer), format the new drive to Mac OS Extended format. Then backup your internal drive to that external drive. Swap the drives, so that the new drive is then installed internally. If you used a backup process that leaves the drive bootable, then you would be ready to go. The SSE will REALLY help with performance, even with casual use of your Mac. It will seem much like a brand new Mac, without needing to completely replace your Mac with a new one :D
 
DeltaMac said:
That "laptopmag" article that you linked is a pretty poorly written article., although the mechanical part of the replacement (various screws, and position of parts, etc) is OK. The reference to an "mSATA enclosure or adapter" is not correct at all. mSATA refers to the card-type SSD. You would just need a standard SATA adapter, either SATA to USB, or the more expensive SATA to Thunderbolt.
Use the iFixit.com replacement articles for a better view of what you need to do.

All you need is an adapter to connect your your drive externally, such as a USB enclosure of some kind, or just a simple SATA to USB cable. It would only be used when you need to have both drives connected at the same time.
The simple steps would be:
Connect the new SSD (or hard drive, if that's what you really prefer), format the new drive to Mac OS Extended format. Then backup your internal drive to that external drive. Swap the drives, so that the new drive is then installed internally. If you used a backup process that leaves the drive bootable, then you would be ready to go. The SSE will REALLY help with performance, even with casual use of your Mac. It will seem much like a brand new Mac, without needing to completely replace your Mac with a new one :D
Click to expand...
OK, but I probably won't need to back up anything as my old disk is pretty much destroyed. Would I just directly replace the disk and start the MBP to set up the disk?
 
Yes, that makes it much simpler.
Replace the drive.
Boot to Internet Recovery (Command-Option-R), and you can reinstall from Apple's servers.
For your mid-2012, 13-inch, the servers would likely offer you Lion (OS X 10.7.5), as that's the system that would have originally shipped when your MBPro was new. And, you can then upgrade to a newer OS X, or to current macOS Sierra, if that's good for you...
Or, you can download whatever system you like, from another Mac, such as El Capitan, if that's good for you.
Create a bootable USB installer from that downloaded installer app. There's several different methods to do that. Come back if you need some help with doing that.
Then, with the bootable installer, you can reinstall to start with whatever system you like...
 
It's actually a very easy process, and even the install is pretty easy on those old machines. And you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment when you're done.
 
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