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insomniacl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2011
3
0
Hi guys,

I'm sure you've heard this issue a few times by now. I'm trying to repair my brother's macbook actually which wasn't loading past the bootscreen and showing an image of a globe.

After some googling, a lot of people mentioned a dead hard drive, so I suspected the same. I replaced the hard drive with a new one, but now all I get is the question mark folder. I can't seem to boot from the CD's either.

Any ideas on further things to try? I've done most of the "hold down a button at boot" things. One thread mentioned an HDD cable (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/316294/), maybe its the logic board?


** PROBLEM SOLVED, SEE BELOW
Thanks
 
Last edited:
Does the HDD have an OS inside? Insert the OSX install CD, right after boot press alt/option and you should be able to see the CD as a bootable medium.
 
Does the HDD have an OS inside? Insert the OSX install CD, right after boot press alt/option and you should be able to see the CD as a bootable medium.

No luck unfortunately. Tried with the old HD, the new HD, and with no HD lol.
 
** PROBLEM IDENTIFIED & FIXED **

Hello friends, so I took my macbook into a repair shop for diagnostics.

It turns out the CD-ROM had died, and wasn't able to read the boot CD to reinstall OS X. The HDD also failed but was replaced, but I could never get past a gray screen because I couldn't install from CD.

So I opted to just let the CD-ROM be dead (replacement would have costed around $150?) and they reinstalled the OS for me.

If you have another mac or a friend, there are guides on how to install mac from USB drive, so you can do that as well. Thanks
 
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