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Macbook Pro stuck at startup screen

J

Johnny Mix

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 31, 2010
8
0
My macbook pro keeps getting stuck at the startup screen with the spinning wheel. I have tried booting in safe mode but nothing different happens. I tried booting from the install disc but it keeps ejecting the disc before getting stuck at the startup screen again. Sometimes a folder flashes with a '?' on it a few times before going to the the apple logo with the spinning wheel when trying to boot from the disc. I have tried resetting the PRAM but that didnt work ether.

anything else I can do?
 
ok I did that and it ejected the disc just before showing a picture of my hard drive. I clicked on the arrow below the picture of my hard drive and it went right back and got stuck at the startup screen again.

any idea why it keeps ejecting my install disc?

i tried holding 'd' to get to the apple hardware test and that seems to work. any idea what i should do from there?
 
Did single user mode work?

Sometimes even with a thrashed file system, it'll load.

---

Target mode is also the other saving grace, if it'll boot into target mode. Just want to get at it with fsck, since you can avoid a $99 disk warrior tax if you can rebuild the catalog/directory with fsck.
 
single user mode worked but it ejected the startup disc again just as the black and white screen came up.

is this useful at all? everything i know about troubleshooting this issue i've learned in the past hour or so from reading forums, so i dont really know what's going on

EDIT: not sure if single user mode is working becasue the last line says

"Failed to issue COM RESET sucessfully after 3 attempts. Failing..."

and it won't let me type anything
 
Just need to get at it with fsck, then you can rebuild the b-tree catalog using the extended fsck modifier.

If you can't get at fsck to run it, can't rebuild the catalog.

Rebuild probably won't let you boot, but usually it'll give you some time to save some data.
 
ive been using the tiger install disk that came with the computer. i just realized i upgraded it leopard a while ago. should i be using the install disk for leopard instead of the one for tiger?
 
just tried booting while holding 'c' and while holding alt with the leopard disk instead but same results. it just ejected the disk.

should i try the apple hardware test? single user mode wont let me type anything
 
Don't need to hook it up to another computer, just boot into target mode to see if it works.

And AHT is always worth a shot.
 
target mode worked and now the firewire symbol is bouncing around my screen.

this helpful at all?
 
Johnny Mix said:
target mode worked and now the firewire symbol is bouncing around my screen.

this helpful at all?
Click to expand...

Basically yes, means if you can get a FW cable and another Mac, you might have a chance of repairing the drive and recovering the data.
 
well im posting on my brothers macbook right now, but i dont have a FW cable.

guess ill just run an AHT and see what it comes up with
 
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