Mac startup problem

[Julianveloso]

Hello guys,

This is my first post and im seeking help on saving my mac.

When booting my mac i get 3 things:

A folder with an interrogation sign
A stop sign (the circle with a line in the middle)
Or an extremely slow mac (if it boots at all)

As of right now my mac is turned on, it is extremely slow and its basically useless.

I've googled the symptoms and it all points either to the osx or the drive.

What i'm looking into is saving all my stuff, im a music producer and samples, music, etc is really valuable to me, it's stuff i've collected over years.

The mac does boot sometimes, so the drive must be salvage-able (if thats a word at all).

Any suggestions?

 

[Julianveloso]

Forgot to post this:

The mac was getting slower and slower, it still worked but it was just extremely slow sometimes.

Last night it lost all it's battery and the next day i got this.

 

[CoastalOR]

Forgot to post this:
The mac was getting slower and slower, it still worked but it was just extremely slow sometimes.
Last night it lost all it's battery and the next day i got this.

"i got this" Got what?
It would be useful to have some information about your system. What model MBP - year, screen size, OS,
GPU, and internal drive type/size? Do you have a backup of the data? Do you have an external drive available to save data? Do you have bootable alternative media (external HD, DVD, USB flash drive)?

 

[Julianveloso]

"i got this" Got what?
It would be useful to have some information about your system. What model MBP - year, screen size, OS,
GPU, and internal drive type/size? Do you have a backup of the data? Do you have an external drive available to save data? Do you have bootable alternative media (external HD, DVD, USB flash drive)?

By i got this i mean the boot problem.

I have an external 1tb drive, but its almost full and i wont be able to make space for the whole mac.

Right now im just trying to salvage whats really important to me but its taken 15 minutes transfering 2.8mb of data to the EHDD...

 

[CoastalOR]

For now, concentrate on getting your important files saved.

Once the file copying is done then, please provide some more information about your system. I'll ask again.
What model MBP - year, screen size, OS, GPU, and internal drive type/size?
Do you have bootable alternative media (external HD, DVD, USB flash drive)?

Your symptoms kind of sound like it might be a disk i/o problem, but it is hard to make that determination without more system information and some further testing.

 

[Weaselboy]

I've googled the symptoms and it all points either to the osx or the drive.

Certainly sounds like a bad drive. Could be a bad drive cable also, but that is less common.

Better get down to the store right away and buy another external drive to try and copy data off the old drive before it dies.

Do not try reinstalling the OS as that will only makes things worse.

 

[snaky69]

Hello guys,

This is my first post and im seeking help on saving my mac.

When booting my mac i get 3 things:

A folder with an interrogation sign
A stop sign (the circle with a line in the middle)
Or an extremely slow mac (if it boots at all)

As of right now my mac is turned on, it is extremely slow and its basically useless.

I've googled the symptoms and it all points either to the osx or the drive.

What i'm looking into is saving all my stuff, im a music producer and samples, music, etc is really valuable to me, it's stuff i've collected over years.

The mac does boot sometimes, so the drive must be salvage-able (if thats a word at all).

Any suggestions?

Your hard drive died.