MacBook Pro won't boot

[greypalm]

Hi guys.

I have a 15" MB Pro with Snow Leopard (10.6.8) which I bought about 4 years ago. So far I've never really any had trouble with it. However 2 days ago while browsing online, the spinning wheel appeared and using Force Quit didn't work, so I performed a force shut down. After a restart, my computer would no longer boot past the grey screen with the spinning dial.

I went on the hunt for an answer:

>tried fsck -fy in single user mode but it still could not boot past the grey screen.
>I tried to load up the Install DVD that came with my machine. I've held down C as I boot up, but it won't load and the computer keeps ejecting it.
>tried resetting the NVPRAM but this doesn't help either.
>It won't boot into Safe Mode, the bar loads about half way and then disappears and I'm left on the grey screen.
>Holding "alt" as I boot only shows me the HDD icon. Clicking it brings me back to the grey screen.
>I tried booting in Verbose mode too, and eventually after a long wait begins a cascade of "disk0s2: media is not present"

So the current step I'm trying is an 8gb USB with DiskWarrior. The first time I booted up, it recognised my internal hard drive with no problems, but when I tried to rebuild it, it told me:

"The directory of the disk DiskWarriorDVD cannot be rebuilt.This disk is not eligible. Only Mac OS disks that are locally attached are eligible (2007)"

Now, when I try to load up DiskWarrior again, the HDD no longer appears on the drop down menu.

Have I missed a step here along the way with Diskwarrior? Is there anything else I can try? Or is this a death-knell for my HDD? 🙁

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[justperry]

Hi guys.

I have a 15" MB Pro with Snow Leopard (10.6.8) which I bought about 4 years ago. So far I've never really any had trouble with it. However 2 days ago while browsing online, the spinning wheel appeared and using Force Quit didn't work, so I performed a force shut down. After a restart, my computer would no longer boot past the grey screen with the spinning dial.

I went on the hunt for an answer:

>tried fsck -fy in single user mode but it still could not boot past the grey screen.
>I tried to load up the Install DVD that came with my machine. I've held down C as I boot up, but it won't load and the computer keeps ejecting it.
>tried resetting the NVPRAM but this doesn't help either.
>It won't boot into Safe Mode, the bar loads about half way and then disappears and I'm left on the grey screen.
>Holding "alt" as I boot only shows me the HDD icon. Clicking it brings me back to the grey screen.
>I tried booting in Verbose mode too, and eventually after a long wait begins a cascade of "disk0s2: media is not present"

So the current step I'm trying is an 8gb USB with DiskWarrior. The first time I booted up, it recognised my internal hard drive with no problems, but when I tried to rebuild it, it told me:

"The directory of the disk DiskWarriorDVD cannot be rebuilt.This disk is not eligible. Only Mac OS disks that are locally attached are eligible (2007)"

Now, when I try to load up DiskWarrior again, the HDD no longer appears on the drop down menu.

Have I missed a step here along the way with Diskwarrior? Is there anything else I can try? Or is this a death-knell for my HDD? 🙁

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Bold, that was your problem, you choose to repair the Disk/USB stick, you need to select the HD/Volume.

But, your HD might indeed be "dead".

 

[greypalm]

D'oh, thanks for the help justperry!
I tried DiskWarrior again. It found my HDD this time and it successfully built a new directory. However it said it can't replace the original because it was "severely damaged".

I don't think that's promising news...

Any other help or suggestions would be great appreciated!

 

[justperry]

D'oh, thanks for the help justperry!
I tried DiskWarrior again. It found my HDD this time and it successfully built a new directory. However it said it can't replace the original because it was "severely damaged".

I don't think that's promising news...

Any other help or suggestions would be great appreciated!

If it said exactly that it is contradicting itself, "successfully rebuid" and "severely damaged".😕

 

[greypalm]

Just a quick update and some good news, I managed to fix the hard drive and my computer has finally come back to life! I used DiskWarrior to fix it in the end. However, I used the Scavenge option which is more thorough. It doesn't appear when you load up to the main menu however, you have to hold "alt". This changes "Rebuild" to "Rebuild..." and clicking that gives you a hidden set of options. I don't know why they would do that...

The whole experience has been pretty strange, just like your said justperry. I often got mixed results and contradictory from trying the same process. I even tried to use Scavenge 2 or 3 times yesterday and it failed completely. I'd pretty much given up and resigned to defeat. However, I didn't touch it all of today and just earlier I decided on one more go... and it all went very smoothly much to my surprise.

ps. after the successful rebuild, my machine rebooted but still wouldn't get past the grey screen. I read somewhere that it's important to remove external objects from your computer. Once I removed the USB it booted up just fine! Just something to keep in mind 🙂