Last ditch effort to save an old MBP

[RDenette]

I have a late 2012 15" MacBook Pro that was faithful and true for years before its untimely demise about a year ago. It stopped booting to such an extent that even the folks at the Apple Store couldn't solve it without suggesting a $500+ repair. The cost of the repair and the age of my old MBP prompted me to upgrade to the 2017 15" MBP, which I now use and love. BUT. At work, I inherited an old 2011 iMac with only 4 GB of RAM, so I decided to dig up my old 2012 MBP to salvage the 16 GB it runs on and soup up the iMac. I took out the RAM and replaced it with 4GB, just because it felt weird to leave the RAM slots empty and I had the old 4GB handy. Then I decided, on a whim, to see if my computer had magically healed itself over its year in the closet. I plugged it in to charge, started it up and - Gasp! - it got farther than it had a year before at the Apple store, which is mysterious and delightful. I took this screenshot of the error message that appeared before it crashed - hopefully someone here can help me decipher it.

And I realize now that it cut off a bit of the first line. I only had about a second to snap the photo, so it's a wonder I got it at all. I can try again if the first line is imperative. The way things went a year ago was like this. It went to start up, slammed into a big error message, then restarted immediately. It did that for the first five or so crashes, and then after that the screen wouldn't even turn on. Therefore, I'm hesitant to keep trying to restart to get more pictures of the crash screen. BUT, if it's important, I'll try it.

I recognize that hope is slim here. Thanks for anyone's time who is willing to take a look!

 

[slam5]

I have a late 2012 15" MacBook Pro that was faithful and true for years before its untimely demise about a year ago. It stopped booting to such an extent that even the folks at the Apple Store couldn't solve it without suggesting a $500+ repair. The cost of the repair and the age of my old MBP prompted me to upgrade to the 2017 15" MBP, which I now use and love. BUT. At work, I inherited an old 2011 iMac with only 4 GB of RAM, so I decided to dig up my old 2012 MBP to salvage the 16 GB it runs on and soup up the iMac. I took out the RAM and replaced it with 4GB, just because it felt weird to leave the RAM slots empty and I had the old 4GB handy. Then I decided, on a whim, to see if my computer had magically healed itself over its year in the closet. I plugged it in to charge, started it up and - Gasp! - it got farther than it had a year before at the Apple store, which is mysterious and delightful. I took this screenshot of the error message that appeared before it crashed - hopefully someone here can help me decipher it.

And I realize now that it cut off a bit of the first line. I only had about a second to snap the photo, so it's a wonder I got it at all. I can try again if the first line is imperative. The way things went a year ago was like this. It went to start up, slammed into a big error message, then restarted immediately. It did that for the first five or so crashes, and then after that the screen wouldn't even turn on. Therefore, I'm hesitant to keep trying to restart to get more pictures of the crash screen. BUT, if it's important, I'll try it.

I recognize that hope is slim here. Thanks for anyone's time who is willing to take a look!

Have you change the hard drive? Realistically the time have come for that MacBook Pro.

 

[RDenette]

Have you change the hard drive? Realistically the time have come for that MacBook Pro.

I haven’t. Think it could be a hard drive failure? If that’s the case, it would be no big deal replacing it. There’s nothing on the old one that needs saving.

 

[Frieg]

Boot os x from an external drive to verify this. If it's just the hdd, then it's time to replace it with a ssd, put back the 16 gigs an let this gem rock for another some years.

 

[Fishrrman]

The very VERY first thing I do with a "non-booting" Mac is to attach an EXTERNAL boot drive and see if it will boot up.

I would put a basic copy of the OS onto a 16gb USB flashdrive, take it to the 2012 MBP, and try to boot it that way.

 

[RDenette]

The very VERY first thing I do with a "non-booting" Mac is to attach an EXTERNAL boot drive and see if it will boot up.

I would put a basic copy of the OS onto a 16gb USB flashdrive, take it to the 2012 MBP, and try to boot it that way.

I'll try that! Thanks.

 

[slam5]

I'll try that! Thanks.

If looking at your picture again, your problem is a kernel panic, it doesn’t bode well.