Late 2009 MacBook issues

[tl01]

Of course my apple care expired 9 days ago... I had forgotten when it ended and we have had some horrible things happen in our household for the past two to three weeks so getting a genius appt wasn't a priority. Anyway... Here's the issue... About half the time I try to start up my MacBook it just stays at the apple screen with the spinning wheel. It's been doing this for a while but I hardly ever use this machine. If I stop it and restart again then sometimes it works. I'm making another back up right now and then I'm going to wipe the drive. Is this likely a hard drive issue? Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Brian Y]

Could be HDD, could be software.

Try to hold CMD and V together while it's booting, and tell us the line it stops/hangs on - that'll give us a better idea of what's causing the problem.

 

[tl01]

Could be HDD, could be software.

Try to hold CMD and V together while it's booting, and tell us the line it stops/hangs on - that'll give us a better idea of what's causing the problem.

Bummer.... Wish I had known about this a few minutes ago!. I reset the pram and it seems to be working now. Could it have been that easy?
Would it have made a log where the error was? I have an appointment for it with a genius in a few hours. It also seem faster now. Placebo effect?

I verified the disk a zillion times and repaired it though it didn't look like any repairs were necessary. The disk check out fine.

 

[Brian Y]

In console, check System.log.

If it's suddenly started working, it's probably not hardware so you should be OK

 

[tl01]

In console, check System.log.

If it's suddenly started working, it's probably not hardware so you should be OK

The "genius" checked it and said he didn't see any particular issues. It seems to be working now... Just in case I'm reinstalling the system software. He said if the drive is failing then doing the install should cause some issues. We shall see.