So I own an old macbook pro from 2009. Ram has been updated once, otherwise standard hardware (not SSD harddrive, if those were an option back then).
For about a year, it has suffered a really strange problem which is that it takes about 9 hours to start. I am not exactly sure how long it actually takes, but my thumb rule is "if I boot when I go to bed and have a good nights sleep, it will be on in the morning. If I have short nights sleep, it will not". So probably round 8 - 9 hours. It's the "apple logo showing" phase that takes so long. Therefore I have tried to keep it on always, but sometimes I've accidently disconnected it and on battery it lasts maybe 20 minutes so every now and then it is accidently shut of. Sometimes several boots are required before it actually manages to start up correctly, sometimes it gets stuck on an entirely grey screen with mouse pointer but nothing else, sometimes it gets me to the log in page but wont log in.
Other issues: something wrong with the sound driver. External audio interface always works, but internal speakers and audio output rarely works. This differs from boot to boot, but in general it does not work. It had an issue with spotlight indexing going bonkers and eating up all available disk space, so I had to turn spotlight indexing of.
Now, I fear I have reached the end. Right now it seems to either freeze on the log in page (which I usually dont have to go through? It normally starts up unto my standard account), or I get the gray screen. I can start in recovery mode, and repairing the disk and disk permissions works (this also goes quickly, and starting up to recovery mode just takes a couple of minutes). Starting up in failsafe mode I was able to log in, but the computer was extremely slow.
What bugs is me is that disregarding the sound issue and the absurd start up time, the computer has been working fine, and has been able to deal with high CPU tasks like music production. I've got some projects on the thing that I wont be able to work on on my new mac (damn you logic x and your non compatability with 16 bit plugins!) so I really want to get this baby going if it is possible.
I guess the hard drive is bust. However, I am wondering if there is maybe some process going haywire behind the scenes, since starting into recovery mode works like a charm and the computer used to up until now work perfectly while having had its nine hours to get going. Can I bypess the login screen somehow and boot directly to a user? Maybe this "uncommon" step is the culprit, since this is the only difference I can think of compared to the usual ritual to get it going.
For about a year, it has suffered a really strange problem which is that it takes about 9 hours to start. I am not exactly sure how long it actually takes, but my thumb rule is "if I boot when I go to bed and have a good nights sleep, it will be on in the morning. If I have short nights sleep, it will not". So probably round 8 - 9 hours. It's the "apple logo showing" phase that takes so long. Therefore I have tried to keep it on always, but sometimes I've accidently disconnected it and on battery it lasts maybe 20 minutes so every now and then it is accidently shut of. Sometimes several boots are required before it actually manages to start up correctly, sometimes it gets stuck on an entirely grey screen with mouse pointer but nothing else, sometimes it gets me to the log in page but wont log in.
Other issues: something wrong with the sound driver. External audio interface always works, but internal speakers and audio output rarely works. This differs from boot to boot, but in general it does not work. It had an issue with spotlight indexing going bonkers and eating up all available disk space, so I had to turn spotlight indexing of.
Now, I fear I have reached the end. Right now it seems to either freeze on the log in page (which I usually dont have to go through? It normally starts up unto my standard account), or I get the gray screen. I can start in recovery mode, and repairing the disk and disk permissions works (this also goes quickly, and starting up to recovery mode just takes a couple of minutes). Starting up in failsafe mode I was able to log in, but the computer was extremely slow.
What bugs is me is that disregarding the sound issue and the absurd start up time, the computer has been working fine, and has been able to deal with high CPU tasks like music production. I've got some projects on the thing that I wont be able to work on on my new mac (damn you logic x and your non compatability with 16 bit plugins!) so I really want to get this baby going if it is possible.
I guess the hard drive is bust. However, I am wondering if there is maybe some process going haywire behind the scenes, since starting into recovery mode works like a charm and the computer used to up until now work perfectly while having had its nine hours to get going. Can I bypess the login screen somehow and boot directly to a user? Maybe this "uncommon" step is the culprit, since this is the only difference I can think of compared to the usual ritual to get it going.
