Crashing at progress bar

[flood2]

Looking for some advice..

I have a mid 2011 Mac which has been running fine on Yosemite since last upgrade. However, it has crashed and now will run for about 45-50 seconds after switch on and will bomb out while screen is grey and progress bar is about 25% along the way.

I cannot get to Disk recovery as when I hold Command R it crashed on grey screen at progress bar..

I have tried holding option key and selecting the backup and the recovery USB that I use and they still crash. When I do this after it crashes I hear the unit say "to continue in english press space bar", which I do but it goes no further and screen stays black

I have tried AHT mode and this picks up no faults even in extended mode.

I have tried booting in safe mode, and it still crashes.

I have tried in verbose safe mode and it appears to crash at different sections, as I have videoed three times before crash and the last command is different each time.

I have tried in single user mode and tried the fsck -fy to check hard disk and it appear OK. I then do reboot and it just crashes again at progress bar.

I am currently trying to download Yosemiti on my macbook to try and create a bootable USB drive to reload OS X.

Is this likely to be hard disk related or does it look like my logic board is dead? I am not sure if the disk recovery software is kept on hard disc or on some kind of RAM.

Thanks

 

[paulrbeers]

Looking for some advice..

I have a mid 2011 Mac which has been running fine on Yosemite since last upgrade. However, it has crashed and now will run for about 45-50 seconds after switch on and will bomb out while screen is grey and progress bar is about 25% along the way.

I cannot get to Disk recovery as when I hold Command R it crashed on grey screen at progress bar..

I have tried holding option key and selecting the backup and the recovery USB that I use and they still crash. When I do this after it crashes I hear the unit say "to continue in english press space bar", which I do but it goes no further and screen stays black

I have tried AHT mode and this picks up no faults even in extended mode.

I have tried booting in safe mode, and it still crashes.

I have tried in verbose safe mode and it appears to crash at different sections, as I have videoed three times before crash and the last command is different each time.

I have tried in single user mode and tried the fsck -fy to check hard disk and it appear OK. I then do reboot and it just crashes again at progress bar.

I am currently trying to download Yosemiti on my macbook to try and create a bootable USB drive to reload OS X.

Is this likely to be hard disk related or does it look like my logic board is dead? I am not sure if the disk recovery software is kept on hard disc or on some kind of RAM.

Thanks

Memory gone bad? Try memtest to see if your memory is faulty....

 

[rigormortis]

Memory gone bad? Try memtest to see if your memory is faulty....

yeah he already did that with a.h.t

----------

ideas

standard stuff

reset pram
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

reset smc
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

you said it passed aht. and you also say it locks up trying to boot from usb. it has to be a hardware failure. the only way to rule it out is to check permissions or check the disk or maybe even erase the hard disk entirely and then use internet recovery ( or usb recovery ) to reinstall the operating system from scratch

considering the mac crashes, your only alternative to do disk tests and erasing is target disk mode. find another mac that is either firewire or thunderbolt and turn on the mac mini holding down the T key, and use the other mac to either check permissions, repair the disk, or erase the disk entirely, do the 7 pass erase. i know i know. you don't need to, but the 7 pass erase might reveal errors on the disk that might not show up on a 1 pass.
make sure you do at least 1 full pass.



if you can't check the disk, check permissions or erase the disk in target disk mode you know the computer is screwed

instead of command R for recovery, try option command R , to restore over the internet. it may be possible that your usb key was written wrong. and that the official internet based recovery will fix your computer.



i think your hard disk crashed. i think you need a new hard drive. if none of this works.

a note about AHT , AHT does not actually check hard drives, all it does is check to see if its installed.

i suppose you could try DISK WARRIOR, but its $99 and $99 is a lot when you can erase and restore from time machine for free

if you use internet based recovery it will reinstall whatever software version it originally came with and you will need to redownload ( for free of course ) Yosemite from the app store when its done

with the mac connected in target disk mode, see if "smart status : verified " shows up anywhere in about this mac , system report, using the host computer. like click on storage.. or something.. it might say unsupported.
which is normal , because its an external disk. but it might be worth double checking

 

[flood2]

Memory gone bad? Try memtest to see if your memory is faulty....

Hi. Thanks for replying

I had 16 gb crucial sims in that I bought at same time, never had an issue with them.

However I swapped these with the original sims and the fault is the same

 

[flood2]

yeah he already did that with a.h.t

----------

ideas

standard stuff

reset pram
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

reset smc
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT20... so hopefully it will be resolved either way.

 

[rigormortis]

oh if your replacing it with a SSD don't wipe it 7 times haha

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
If you can't boot from the "regular" internal partition, and can't boot from the recovery partition either, that severely "limits your options" -- perhaps only to a "network boot" and restore.

Could the internal drive have failed on you?

I realize this suggestion doesn't help with your current predicament, but this is why one always keeps a CLONED BACKUP around as a second, tested bootable alternative. When one has an "I can't boot!" moment, such a cloned backup makes recovery and restoration FAR easier...

 

[rigormortis]

OP:
If you can't boot from the "regular" internal partition, and can't boot from the recovery partition either, that severely "limits your options" -- perhaps only to a "network boot" and restore.

Could the internal drive have failed on you?

I realize this suggestion doesn't help with your current predicament, but this is why one always keeps a CLONED BACKUP around as a second, tested bootable alternative. When one has an "I can't boot!" moment, such a cloned backup makes recovery and restoration FAR easier...

yeah i told him that the drive probably failed. it won't do an internet recovery, so a network boot probably won't work either.

network booting is like something that most of us probably have no idea how to configure. thats something that someone can try at an apple store

if only remote install mac os x wasn't removed

target disk mode will let you install yosemite to the external mac mini once you replace the hard disk. i forgot to mention that
you just select the external mac mini drive as the install target

target disk mode and internet recovery ( option command r) are a lot easier to do in this situation then configuring a net boot server

 

[flood2]

OP:
If you can't boot from the "regular" internal partition, and can't boot from the recovery partition either, that severely "limits your options" -- perhaps only to a "network boot" and restore.

Could the internal drive have failed on you?

I realize this suggestion doesn't help with your current predicament, but this is why one always keeps a CLONED BACKUP around as a second, tested bootable alternative. When one has an "I can't boot!" moment, such a cloned backup makes recovery and restoration FAR easier...

Thanks. I reckon it has died big time.

I always keep a my passport drive for time machine after losing a hard drive on my last macbook pro and not backing up. It however, does not me recover from here as I assume my hard disc is so badly damaged. I assume once I install new SSD I can recover from the passport and recover all my files.

I will wait and see if genius bar can confirm the death of the HDD before I start swapping out

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yeah i told him that the drive probably failed. it won't do an internet recovery, so a network boot probably won't work either.

network booting is like something that most of us probably have no idea how to configure. thats something that someone can try at an apple store

if only remote install mac os x wasn't removed

target disk mode will let you install yosemite to the external mac mini once you replace the hard disk. i forgot to mention that
you just select the external mac mini drive as the install target

target disk mode and internet recovery ( option command r) are a lot easier to do in this situation then configuring a net boot server

Thanks again.

I will go to genius bar this afternoon, and hopefully they can confirm the death of my hdd. I will get firewire cable delivered today at sometime so hopefully tonight I can install SSD and remotely sort out SSD from my Macbook pro.

However. If i install blank SSD can i boot from the USB Yosemite install drive and let me format SSD ready for a clean install? I will then do a restore from time machine once I have clean OS installed.

 

[flood2]

Update...

mac mini is fine, it appears to go to black screen due to my Dell U2412M monitor! It powers up fine at Genius bar with HDMI. I will need to try different method of powering monitor or getting a new monitor.

Cheers for assistance. Just need to get a data doubler and fire in SSD with existing 500GB disk!