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Help Please

L

leau

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 19, 2012
10
0
Hello,

I have a MBP 13" from early 2011. The HDD was seeming to be a bit slow so I looked around online and many suggested the Seagate Momentous XT, the hybrid drive. So I ordered that and I also upgraded from 4GB to 8GB RAM, looking online to make sure I got the right type of RAM.

Installed RAM and went to do a fresh install of Snow Leopard to my new HD. It wouldn't boot from USB stick or DVD. So hooked up my drive to a friend's Mac and installed Snow Leopard to it through his Mac. The install went fine there, and so I plugged it into my MBP 13" and it tries to boot up, but then gives me an error that says I need to reboot my MAC.

Edit: Any time I tried to boot up to DVD or USB stick, it would give me the same error. Where it tells me in 5 different languages to reboot by holding down the Power key. Same one as with new HDD with Fresh Snow Leopard install.

Edit: It still boots from the old HDD, but just runs slowly.

Any ideas before I go to the Genius Bar this weekend?
 
Tried booting into Safe Mode, via Shift Key.

Same error.
 
Tried resetting PRAM and NVRAM, not thinking it would help. It didn't.

Is that Command-R to boot into Recovery Mode that in SL?
 
leau said:
Tried resetting PRAM and NVRAM, not thinking it would help. It didn't.

Is that Command-R to boot into Recovery Mode that in SL?
Click to expand...

It should be Command-R I believe. When you installed your OS did you properly partition the drive?
 
leau said:
I partitioned it with the Mac Extended Partition, 1 of them and then installed SL into that Partition.
Click to expand...

Is it partitioned as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? It sounds like it is but just want to be sure. Also did the drive work in your friends machine?
 
The drive was hooked up externally through my friends machine, so it didn't boot from it.

It did see the drive correctly however. Also yes, that is the format that we used. It seemed to be the default one.

I tried booting with Command-R and nothing seemed to happen. When I booted up using the Option key, it saw only the "Macintosh HD" and when I clicked on that it told me to do a hard shutdown. Just like before.
 
Hmm, again just to clarify, you only have 1 large partition right? Is there any chance you can test the HHDD in another machine and se if it boots? At this point I think you may have to wipe it and try reinstalling the OS again, that may be your best bet at this point. Best I can tell you did everything correctly. Alternately instead of doing a fresh install of SL you can try just cloning your current HDD onto the HHDD and see if that works.
 
One big partition--that is correct.

Alright, I'll give it a shot with another Mac.
 
So it wouldn't boot with the new ram? Have you tried removing the new ram, and/or reseating the ram?

Does it boot with the old ram and the old drive?
Does it boot with the old ram and the new drive?
Does it boot with the new ram and the old drive?

Just trying to get a clear picture...
 
Resolved

Thank you for all your help. On my way home from work I realized I hadn't tried putting the old RAM back in. That evening I put the old RAM and the old HDD back in, and it booted up slowly.

I connected via a USB adapter my new HDD, installed a clean copy of Lion onto it by upgrading through the App Store and kept the old RAM in and placed the new HDD in. And it worked!

Today, I received a new 8 GB of RAM and placed that into the MBP and that worked too.

So it is resolved and working better than ever. Thanks for your help.
 
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