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Macbook Pro A1211 Issues

P

Polish Don

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2014
23
0
Hi !

I traded my Mac desktop for a MacBook Pro A1211 and after playing with the laptop for a while I ran into a problem. (Operator error ?)

I turn it off for a few day and when I turned it on, instead of a apple logo I get a folder with a "?" mark flashing. It sounds like the hard drive may have died. I have another hard drive, but.........

Thing is, I have a perfectly good copy of Snow Leopard but it will not boot from the internal DVD. When I hold the option key down, I get a mouse pointer but no devices. And the DVD will eject. With either the new or the old hard drive installed.

I even hooked an external USB DVD drive but that doesn't show either. I hear both trying to read the OS disk, but nothing else. And the disk is find, I just used it a few months ago to put the OS on a older MacBook.

I've tried holding down the "C" key, the "Option" key and CMD + Option + R+ P and nothing has worked.

Help !!!!
 
Last edited:
Still Need Help !! :)

I purchased the original (gray) apple disks, but they have the same issue as the snow Leopard disk.

It sounds like they are trying to boot (I hear the D/DVD head move), but nothing ever appears.

I've tried resetting the Pvram (Command/Option/P/R)
Booting with Option C
and a few others
Eve holding the D key down does not give me a display

When I hold the option key down, I sometimes see the mouse pointer, but no drives appear to select. Then the DVD ejects

Any Suggestions ??????
 
All of these old GSA-S10M& UJ867C dvd burners were sh|t when they were new, and are certainly dead now. These are nine years old, and again, were garbage when they were new.

and the hard drive is dead.

Buy a USB external dvd drive from newegg for 30 bucks and a new drive. preferably an SSD, hard drives are so slow they make the laptop feel "broken" by comparison. Crucial has 256 GB MX100 for about $100 now. Good deal!

But this is $130 going into a nine year old machine. X1600 will be the next to go on this one, checkerboarding ahead!
 
Thanks!

I already have a new HDD drive and a USB external DVD drive. How do I get the MacBook to boot from the external drive?
 
Holding down the option key (not other keys) will bring up a boot menu for you to select the volume to boot up with.
 
Thanks!

I've held down the Option key. I get a mouse pointer, but no HDD (new or old HDD) or dvd drives.

I've reset the PVRAM, Booted holding C and a few others. No success.
 
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