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Macbook Pro Stuck at Blue Screen

T

TheYoungHustla

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 16, 2009
15
0
I have a Macbook Pro, have had it for about a couple of years now. Monday of this week, the computer was acting a little sluggish, so I decided to shut down the computer, let it cool down for a couple of hours, then turn it back on later. Well, once I decided to do that, I noticed after the grey screen & Apple logo screen appeared, the screen showed about 2 different versions of blue & stayed on the blue screen. After 3-5 mintues I knew something was wrong, so I justy tried restarting, nothing worked. So I google up similar problems, none have a conclusive ending.
I didn't recently install any new hardware, all I did recently was sync new photos from a trip to NYC. I've tried a PRAM Reset, SMC Reset. Boot from Snow Leopard CD, ran Disk Utility, repair disk permissions and repaired the disk, tried a reinstall of Snow Leopard, Install failed. I checked the log, it says:
file://localhost/System/Installation/Packages/MediaFiles.pkg
Click to expand...
failed to load (or something along the lines of that).
So, I went and got the Leopard disk that came with the computer and tried an archive and install, 15 mins later Install failed once again, yet it used about 4 GB in the process, so I went from 82 GB to 78 GB of space available.
So I put in the SL disk once again and tried to see if I still had the files on my HD still there by goign all of the way to the section where it asks you to accept the license agreement and if you want to save it. I clicked save to search my files, and they're still there, but I can't access them.
I'm currently stuck at Purdue in the middle of Indiana and the nearest Apple Store is over an hour away. I really need to get my files off of that MBPro.
If I can't even login, how can I go about doing so if I have a iMac w/ over 800GB of space & an ethernet cable?]
Also, if you have heard of something similar or know of a solution to my Macbook Pro's problems, please let me know. Thanks in advance.
 
Hellhammer said:
Try Target Disk Mode or take the HD out of the MBP and put it in an enclosure and connect that to the iMac.
Click to expand...

So for the Target Disk Mode you NEED a Firewire cord (don't have), not an Ethernet(do have), right?
I'm a pretty technological person, but have no idea of where the HD is on this MBPRo (never had to look for it) and don't want to get myself in deeper trouble trying to remove it and replace it back on. But could the HD be the source of the problem?
 
TheYoungHustla said:
So for the Target Disk Mode you NEED a Firewire cord (don't have), not an Ethernet(do have), right?
I'm a pretty technological person, but have no idea of where the HD is on this MBPRo (never had to look for it) and don't want to get myself in deeper trouble trying to remove it and replace it back on. But could the HD be the source of the problem?
Click to expand...

Yes, you need a FireWire cable for TDM. As the MBP seems to work fine, I would say it's either HD or the SuperDrive. Replacing the HD isn't that hard, here is a tutorial. If you're still inside warranty, you could just take it to Apple
 
Hellhammer said:
Yes, you need a FireWire cable for TDM. As the MBP seems to work fine, I would say it's either HD or the SuperDrive. Replacing the HD isn't that hard, here is a tutorial. If you're still inside warranty, you could just take it to Apple
Click to expand...

Forgot to mention that, my Applecare just expired, and I had to get a fan replaced about 4 months ago and it was about $60, so how much would you think this would run? Also, how long would this take? This is the week before finals, so it's like one of the worst times that this could happen.
Also, since I'm about to go get a Firewire cord, which specific one should I get?
 
TheYoungHustla said:
Forgot to mention that, my Applecare just expired, and I had to get a fan replaced about 4 months ago and it was about $60, so how much would you think this would run? Also, how long would this take? This is the week before finals, so it's like one of the worst times that this could happen.
Also, since I'm about to go get a Firewire cord, which specific one should I get?
Click to expand...

If you're out of warranty, do the upgrade yourself. A new HD is ~50$ depending on the capacity you want and replacing it is fairly easy as shown in the video. From Apple, it would likely be ~200$ and might take several days.

Do both of your Macs have FireWire 800? In case they do, I think you need a cable like this
 
Did you try to boot into Safe Mode? Sometimes when a boot gets stuck on the blue screen, booting into safe mode will rebuild files. Something you should try.
 
Hellhammer said:
If you're out of warranty, do the upgrade yourself. A new HD is ~50$ depending on the capacity you want and replacing it is fairly easy as shown in the video. From Apple, it would likely be ~200$ and might take several days.

Do both of your Macs have FireWire 800? In case they do, I think you need a cable like this
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll try, if that's the problem. You think I should just take it up to the Apple Store and see what's the problem exactly, then fix-it-myself? that's what I plan on doing.

iLog.Genius said:
Did you try to boot into Safe Mode? Sometimes when a boot gets stuck on the blue screen, booting into safe mode will rebuild files. Something you should try.
Click to expand...

I have tried that as well, and it loops over and over from dark blue screen to light blue screen, w/ the spinning wheel.
 
TheYoungHustla said:
Ok, I'll try, if that's the problem. You think I should just take it up to the Apple Store and see what's the problem exactly, then fix-it-myself? that's what I plan on doing.
Click to expand...

If the nearest Apple Store isn't too far away (you said about an hour), then go ahead. It's always good to let them troubleshoot it and if you're lucky, they may even repair it
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Ok, I backed up all of my info on the iMac HD. Still haven't made it to the Apple Store due to recent weather conditions...Now I'm thinking should I just try and format the Macbook Pro's HD & see if that'll help/fix it?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Does anybody think that this is worth the shot?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Ok, if anybody is ever in the situation that I was in initially when I started this thread, all you do is find another computer (preferably another Mac) and use a Firewire cable to transfer your important files over by using the Target Disk Mode. Once you accomplish that, you use the Leopard disk (not Snow Leopard) to "Erase and Install" Leopard. You know have your computer back to a usuable & functional state. Then Software Update to the most updated software. Once that's finished, use the Snow Leopard disk to update to the 10.6 and use Software Update to update to the newest version of the SL OS.
No new HardDrive installations, no HardDrive wasted, no external HardDrive needed (optional if you don't have another computer around), no Apple Store (or "Computer Specialist" charging you money or time that you can be using your computer…
Hope this helps someone in the near future
 
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