MacBook Pro won't boot.

[GoodDoc]

Switched on my MBP last night, and it sat at the Apple logo with the timer spinning for several minutes before switching itself off. The good new is that I backed it up yesterday (Time Machine) before leaving home for work. The bad news is that I work away form home so I'm laptop-less for the week.

By sheer dumb luck I happened to have an OS X Install disk for a MacBook on me and I booted from it to confirm if the disk was dead. I used 'Disk Utility' and to my surprise the OS X boot partition and the Boot Camp XP install where visible, and using terminal I verified that my data was still on the disk. Using a firewire cable I hooked it up to a MacMini I have in the living room and using Target Disk Mode on the MBP I copied all the data and applications I needed.

I then booted it from the OS X Install disk and attempted to Repair the disk using Disk Utility, however I got the following error.

Verify and Repair volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.

Missing thread record (id = 1084276)
Incorrect number of thread records
Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Invalid volume file count


(It should be 646598 instead of 646599)
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking colume information.
Invalid volume free block count


(It should be 20885304 instead of 24170987)
Volume Header needs minor repair
Repairing volume.

Missing directory record (id = 1084276)

The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.​

By booting from the MacBook Install DVD I can switch the MBP's startup disk, which means I can boot using the XP Boot Camp Install and XP works fine, but when I try to restart in OS X it won't can't boot into OS X.

Is there anything else I can do to successfully boot into OSX, and if not can I use the MacBook Install disk (from a two week old unibody MacBook) on my unibody MacBook Pro?

As it's all backed up this is far from being a disaster, but it would be extremely useful to bring my MBP back to life before I get home at the weekend.

Cheers in advance!

 

[Whiteman007]

something similar happen to me the other day and I put in the os x disk and did disk utility Did verify and failed then i tried repair worked restarted and it was fine.

does yours restart after that what mine was doing. Also try to repair if you didn't like i said my verify faild but repair worked.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

If Disk Utility repairs fail I'd highly recommend a more advanced disk repair tool, such as Alsoft's DiskWarrior. Unfortunately, DiskWarrior can't yet boot from Macs released 10/14/2008 and later... if you have one of these Macs you'll have to use another solution. (This is why I recommend making a bootable clone of your Mac's hard drive and periodically updating it - it comes in handy for these sorts of emergencies.)

 

[GoodDoc]

Also try to repair if you didn't like i said my verify faild but repair worked.

Cheers for the tip, I'll try the "verify then repair" tip this evening.

If Disk Utility repairs fail I'd highly recommend a more advanced disk repair tool, such as Alsoft's DiskWarrior. Unfortunately, DiskWarrior can't yet boot from Macs released 10/14/2008 and later...

Unfortunately my MBP is one of the new 15" Unibody models, so DiskWarrior won't work for me, plus it's 99 USD for a product that I can't guarantee will fix my issue.

So the plan is, try to use the MB install DVD on my MBP, and if that doesn't work then I'll wait until I get home and dig out the install DVD that came with the MBP (it is possible to copy the install disk so that I can leave the orginal at home and carry a copy with me at all times?).

In the past I've tried to install OS X on a plastic MB using a MBP disk (again because the original install DVD was too far away), but does anyone know if a MB Install DVD will work with a MBP, both of which are current unibody models.

 

[Whiteman007]

ok keep me updated if that worked or not.

 

[GoodDoc]

Well, the "Verify then Repair" tip didn't make any difference. I still got the same error.

However, using the Install DVD for a new Unibody MacBook I was able to successfully install OS X on my new Unibody MacBook Pro. I hade to erase the original volume "Macintosh HD" but my XP Boot Camp Install remained intact.

So I now have a working laptop with all my data copied back. I still don't know what actually went wrong, but I will make sure I carry a copy of the Install DVD with me in future!

 

[Whiteman007]

ok glad it works now.