Help"..MacBook Pro 2009, progress bar crashing at 80% on startup

[Pilgrim23]

Hi,
My MacBook Pro 2009 model won't start up properly.
I had the spinning Beach ball a few days ago and had to shut down by holding start button.
Since the everytime I try to turn my Mac this happens:
Apple logo comes up
Progress bar gets to approx 80% and then stops
The screen goes slightly darker with the progress bar just stuck.
I desperately need my Mac for work.
Can anyone help?
Thanks
Shaun

 

[Audit13]

Possibly defective hard drive or hard drive cable?

You could try putting the boot drive into an external enclosure and booting from the external.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If you "desperately need [your] Mac for work", you should have a BOOTABLE CLONED BACKUP drive (created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper).

Having one is "worth its weight in gold" when you get into an "I can't boot!!!" moment -- just like the one you're having right now.

It's trivial to connect a bootable backup drive and boot from that, if there's a problem with the internal drive.

Will the MacBoot boot into "safe mode" (boot with shift key held down)?
What OS are you using?
Can it boot to the recovery partition (if you have one)?

One other thought:
A 2009-vintage MacBook is starting to get fairly old.
If it's that important for work, might be time to start shopping for something new or newer...

 

[Pilgrim23]

Thanks,
Yes I agree, need to buy a new one.

Capitan
I can get it into safe mode yes, what can I do from in here ?
I have the Mac OS X install DVDs, fires up but won't install.
I can also get into Utilities, but doesn't let me install new from there.
I have no time machine back up.
I can see my documents in transparent can't get into them.
Any suggestions while in safe or utilities?

Thanks in anticipation
I'm not an expert lol in IT, I'm a pilot.