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Help! My MBP won't boot up

Weaselboy said:
I'm going to circle back around to my first post (#2 in the thread). If you can take the internal drive and put it in an external USB case, and all is well like you just described, then you have a bad internal drive cable. So you need to replace the cable then put your original internal drive back inside and all will be well.

https://www.ifixit.com Sells the cables.
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Weaselboy, boy am I glad to see you finally!

Let me also repeat what I said, since I know this thread is getting hard to follow! I responded to your post this mornng with... (Part of Post #23)

Next, I tried the same thing with my production/latest HDD. That is, I mounted the latest HDD into my case - with no other HDDs attached - and booted up using Option, and unfortunately I was stcuk on the grey apple screen again.

That says to me that something is dreadfully wrong with this MBP, and it probably screwed up my production HDD.
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As mentioned in Post #24, I have to go buy a USB hub and a 3rd external enclosure later tonight since I can't use any HDDs internally.


Questions:

1.) What are the chances that my original HDD is toast?? (My internal HDD is only maybe 3 months old.)

2.) Once I get a USB hub and 3rd enclosure working, what is the smartest next move to make?

Should I try to use CCC to clone the main HDD to my blank HDD?

3.) I read yesterday that if you reinstall El Capitan it could fix any issues with the EFI partition and that it will NOT erase my personal data. Is that true??
 
I was a little confused by the word "case" there.

So you have a known good drive (the old clone) and it works perfectly in the external case and does not work internally. That to me is proof positive you have a bad internal cable that needs to be replaced.

Now... on top of that, what it sounds like may have happened is the cable caused data corruption of the internal drive since it does not work internal or external now. I suppose it it possible that drive died, but with it being that new, it seems unlikely given what is going on here.

If I were you, I would get a new internal cable then take the known good clone and install it internally. Then boot to that with the old internal in the USB external case. Mount the drive in Disk Utility then File menu "unlock" the drive. Then look at the drive in Finder and see what you can recover.

Don't run Disk Utility first aid on the corrupted drive or try any reinstalling or anything like that. The more you fuss around with the drive the harder it is to recover data off it. You may want to try a utility like Disk Warrior ($$) to recover data off the drive if it is that important to you.

Once you get what you need off the drive and onto the internal drive, you can reformat and clone internal to external to see if that fixes up the new drive to put it back internally.
 
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Weaselboy said:
I was a little confused by the word "case" there.

So you have a known good drive (the old clone) and it works perfectly in the external case and does not work internally. That to me is proof positive you have a bad internal cable that needs to be replaced.

Now... on top of that, what it sounds like may have happened is the cable caused data corruption of the internal drive since it does not work internal or external now. I suppose it it possible that drive died, but with it being that new, it seems unlikely given what is going on here.

If I were you, I would get a new internal cable then take the known good clone and install it internally. Then boot to that with the old internal in the USB external case. Mount the drive in Disk Utility then File menu "unlock" the drive. Then look at the drive in Finder and see what you can recover.

Don't run Disk Utility first aid on the corrupted drive or try any reinstalling or anything like that. The more you fuss around with the drive the harder it is to recover data off it. You may want to try a utility like Disk Warrior ($$) to recover data off the drive if it is that important to you.

Once you get what you need off the drive and onto the internal drive, you can reformat and clone internal to external to see if that fixes up the new drive to put it back internally.
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Weaselboy, I think you follow the issue now. And, yes, it appears that a bad laptop cable may have corrupted my internal HDD.

Can I apply your advice above by using a USB hub and 3 external HDD cases?

That is, plug in a USB hub/splitter into my aging MBP and then that will allow me to power the following externally:
External HDD #1: My latest working clone
External HDD #2: My internal HDD which appears to be corrupted
External HDD #3: A brand new blank HDD to be used to capture whatever I can from #2

If I get an internal cable, I have to order it and maybe wait a week to get it. (I was supposed to be going out of state this weekend for a while. Why does this **** always happen when there are larger emergencies at hand?!)

Would that work the same as your advice above? (It would save me several days in trying to recover things.)
 
Texas_Toast said:
Would this work...

HornetTek USB-C to 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub - Black
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Nope. It needs to be a powered hub. Something like this that has an external power supply that plugs in the wall and provides supplemental power to the hub. Otherwise, one USB port is not going to be able to power up three drives. It could run something like a keyboard and mouse because don't use much power, but I don't think any unpowered hub will be able to run three drives.

Also, I would just get a USB3 hub. It will only cost a tiny bit more (or the same) and works fine, plus gives you USB3 if you get a computer later that ha USB3 support.
 
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Weaselboy said:
Nope. It needs to be a powered hub. Something like this that has an external power supply that plugs in the wall and provides supplemental power to the hub. Otherwise, one USB port is not going to be able to power up three drives. It could run something like a keyboard and mouse because don't use much power, but I don't think any unpowered hub will be able to run three drives.

Also, I would just get a USB3 hub. It will only cost a tiny bit more (or the same) and works fine, plus gives you USB3 if you get a computer later that ha USB3 support.
Click to expand...

What about the second unit I added in Post #30? I believe it is powered as you describe.
 
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Texas_Toast said:
What about the second unit I added in Post #30? I believe it is powered as you describe.
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That should work, but I am little bit skeptical because I never heard of that brand and they don't show the power specs. If Fry's is not far away and you keep the receipt to exchange if it does not work, you should be okay.

Some of these cheesy off brands have really low power output is my concern.
 
I'll let you know how things go.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. If I lose 6 weeks of business work I will be in really bad shape.

(I can't believe all this happened hours before I was going to do a clone?! I had an emergency come up after my last clone, and by the time I bought a new HDD and tested it out, it apparently was one day too much for my HDD cable...)
 
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If you get a USB hub, yes, get one that's powered and – critically, for storage – get a brand and model that's sold by Apple. As far as I can tell from Apple's site, only one product fits the criteria.
 
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