Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How Snow Leopard Nearly Killed My MacBook Pro

aaron.lee2006

aaron.lee2006

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 23, 2006
1,215
0
Ontario, Canada
This is just a warning for prospective Snow Leopard users. I had recently upgraded to SL on my 2.8 MacBook Pro. I have been a Mac user for 4 or 5 years now so I know the ins and outs, as well as a massive techie for my entire life.:cool: The upgrade went smooth and easy with a fresh install of Snow Leopard, updates, software etc. I had been using it for a few weeks when 2 or 3 days ago I began to experience some strange anomalies. I was casually working on my computer when I got the spinning beach ball, and I was forced to force shutdown my laptop. From this point on whenever I started my computer I would get the Apple logo as well as a grey progress bar as if I was doing a firmware update. At first I figured no big deal, I must have downloaded a firmware update by mistake, so I shutdown and restarted into the firmware install mode. Waited this time and let it boot. After another restart the progress bar kept presenting itself all the time and I would have to wait about 15 minutes for my computer to start. I figured I would just wipe my computer and start from scratch using Leopard. However, disk utility could not find my startup volume, I could not perform any first aid function on the drive, I could not wipe it, partition it or restore from an image. I started in single user mode with AppleJack which was also unsuccessful at repairing the drive. I could not boot from any 3rd party dvds such as TechTool or DiskWarrior. When I would try it would lock up. I had even drove to the Genius Bar and they ordered a new HD as they also believed it was fried. Today I decided I would give it another go by starting off my Leopard dvd again. I struggled to figure out what was going on, and suddenly "Macintosh HD" decided to appear. I quickly took advantage of this and wiped the drive, and installed Leopard. At the moment everything is fine, I am running Leopard and not having any problems. No more progress bar or disk errors. I do not know what solved the issue but this is just a heads up to anyone thinking of installing Snow Leopard and is uncertain about the decision. But I must say when it was working, I did love SL :)


I realize this thread is super old, but I just logged in after a very long time to see this.

#1 - To the smart ass who said I didn't know what I was talking about. You were wrong. Still using this MacBook Pro and has never needed a repair.

#2 - Why was it suspected an an OS issue? Well seeing as it was brand new at the time as was the computer, I'd go ahead and say that was a fair assumption.

#3 - Don't feed the trolls.

#4 - I never referred to anyone as an idiot.
 
Last edited:
Why do so many people have to say the OS nearly "Killed" their computer? Dude, please separate your paragraphs, it started killing my eyes trying to read all of that. Glad you got your issues solved though, but I have 5 Macs and none of them had SL install issues.
 
So I guess the 1000's of us running SL for the last month are idiots. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Or he might just be putting his opinion out there, and warning anyone that it is possible that might happen or if it has happened to someone it might help them.

I think it's pretty rare anything goes wrong with SL for people, it's just we see the cases gone wrong here.
 
Richard1028 said:
So I guess the 1000's of us running SL for the last month are idiots. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Easy bud lol, I clearly stated that I loved SL when I had it functioning properly. And by the way it did create an error with disk arbitration. It's an opinion, not a statement for everyone. No need to get snappy.
 
Make certain the SMC is recognizing the battery. The computer can do weird things if the battery isn't recognized properly. If necessary you might try an SMC reset, but don't know how that might work on a Mac with a sealed battery...
 
Oh I had tried everything... SMC, PRAM, NVRAM, blah blah blah. All to no avail. Still running fine back on Leopard at the moment. I made sure I backed everything up before I erased the disk so I just had to transfer everything over and redo my iTunes Library. The only pain was installing design premium cs4 again.
 
aaron.lee2006 said:
And by the way it did create an error with disk arbitration. It's an opinion, not a statement for everyone.
Click to expand...

And your "opinion" is that SL was the root source of your hardware problems which is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, it might have been the straw that broke the camel's back but only because something else was at play here. And instead of telling yourself that 1000's of others are running the update successfully and using this knowledge to try and isolate what that problem may be you jump to the conclusion that it's SL itself. What good does your post serve for future SL users when all you conclude is to go back to Leopard without applying all this "tech-savvy" know-how you claim to have?

For all you know, your superdrive is crapping out. After SL stopped working, this is the common component that points to all your subsequent problems.

As it stands now... you haven't fixed anything and whatever was there prior to SL still exists.
 
HLdan said:
...Dude, please separate your paragraphs, it started killing my eyes trying to read all of that. Glad you got your issues solved though, but I have 5 Macs and none of them had SL install issues.
Click to expand...
I gave up reading about 1/4 of the way through his titanic paragraph. But thanks for the cliffnotes. At least I know he got things worked out, and I didn't need to plow my way through his thread :D With threads like these, I find it far faster to just skim down a few replies. ;)
 
aaron.lee2006 said:
I figured I would just wipe my computer and start from scratch using Leopard. However, disk utility could not find my startup volume, I could not perform any first aid function on the drive, I could not wipe it, partition it or restore from an image.
Click to expand...

LouisBlack said:
Also, how is it hardware if Leopard is running perfectly now?
Click to expand...

This is why hardware is suspected as a possibility.
 
I saw nothing in your post that indicated that Snow Leopard was to blame, so your thread title is a bit misleading. The problem stopped long enough for you to reinstall Leopard, but my theory is that if you'd reinstalled Snow Leopard you'd still be running right now as well.

That being said it sounds like an interesting problem. Of course it just sounds like the HD is dying, but that doesn't explain the strange progress bar. Besure to keep us posted if anything else comes of this.
 
Maybe the original poster should reply in these threads:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/786526/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/779082/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/777006/

Seems they had/have the progress bar issue at boot. Maybe you can share setups to see what the problem might be. Are you running a Bootcamp partition?

To me it's almost sounding like a HD problem that SL is detecting that Leopard isn't. Remember that SL now checks SMART status of drives before installing, so maybe this is connected somehow.

-Kevin
 
I would agree that it does sound like a hardware issue with the HD.

I would suspect that your successful install of Leopard will work for now, but may fail tomorrow, next week, next month, or at best early next year.

When Hard Disks die, it is common for them fail intermittently at first.

What you are describing to me are the classic early symptoms of impending HD failure.
 
kbmb said:
Maybe the original poster should reply in these threads:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/786526/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/779082/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/777006/

Seems they had/have the progress bar issue at boot. Maybe you can share setups to see what the problem might be. Are you running a Bootcamp partition?

To me it's almost sounding like a HD problem that SL is detecting that Leopard isn't. Remember that SL now checks SMART status of drives before installing, so maybe this is connected somehow.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

I spent hour and hours researching and found all of these. No, I have never installed Bootcamp on this computer and the Startup disk was still set to OS X. As well, the drive still appears to be SMART verified and passes several diagnostics I maged to run.
 
The problem is not the super drive nor the hard drive. Most definitely the problem is NOT snow leopard. The OS on your hard drive can not prevent DVDs from booting. If you couldn't boot DVDs and you couldn't see your HD, then it sounds like a SATA controller issue, since its an MBP, it is a logic board error.

If you don't know what you're talking about, don't throw your theories out as fact. Snow Leopard is fine
 
sounds like a logic board problem.
however i havent updated all my systems to Snow Leopard (practically due to older software i cant afford to upgrade yet)

but on the systems ive installed Snow Leopard on, i do get this progress bar as well:

progressbar.png


I initially saw this when doing a safeboot once....

and No, no Bootcamp, Windows or other OS installed and it was a straight install, not an upgrade.
happens with multiple drives, and everything else passes through diagnostic tests (Logic board, memory, dvd drive, hard disks)
So im wondering if it does a random verification test upon start up?




As far as resetting SMC with sealed/built in batteries:

MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (Late 2008 and later)

1. If the computer is on, turn it off by choosing Shutdown from the Apple () menu.
2. Connect the power adapter to a working power source.
3. On the built-in keyboard, press (left) Shift-Control-Option along with the power button once.
4. Wait 5 seconds and press the power button to start the computer.

Note: You must use the keys on the left side of the built-in keyboard.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back