Major Macbook Problem - Please just see if you can help!

[DylanG3893]

Okay, I'm stressing out about this. I really need help.

I have 2 problems with this dirt machine.

I have a Macbook, it has Mac Leopard and Windows Vista on separt partitions, 2GB of recently installed RAM, yadda yadda.

I bought it 2 years ago, in December.


Anyway, My problem:

1. For some reason, all the sudden, when I choose to boot into Leopard, it takes like 20 seconds for the loading wheel to show up after the apple logo appears right after you press the power on button; but then, it just keeps on whirling around the loading wheel and NEVER boots the operating system. The windows vista partition boots up fine, very nicely. I don't have my Leopard disc but I have my Tiger disk and I checked for Disk errors and everything was checked out fine. What happened!!? I was installing memory recently so if I messed something up where the battery is; it's possible.
I reset the PRAM, and the PMU and even booted through pressing ALT while it starts up and selecting Macintosh HD from the partition list. Nothing works. (Typical).

2. Well, my battery won't hold a charge. Yay! Everytime I disconnect the power adapter it waits 5 seconds and ZIP! It shuts off. I mean, I pressed the button on the battery and it says its fully charged, but the power never switches to the battery. WHY!? Don't tell me my batteries gone bad, its possible that I acidentally voided something in the battery's compartment.. since I was working around there, and one screw isn't in because It's sooo hard to get that screw in there, could the screw be the problem??

Well, I have no idea whats wrong.
Apple Care support line did crap, and all I can do now is either try to fix it myself or take it to an Apple Store, where everything is high-priced and where all there technicians will charge 1000$ for you to fix the damn thing. They see one little scratch and they say, uh oh! Hard drives broken, gonna cost 129$! There self-obsessed in there company cuz they think there the best innovating corporation in the world, while my machine is basically broken after 2 years of use, and 1000$ of money. Oh well, at least I'll get a trip to the mall out of it.

So, I'd grrrrreatly appreciate it if anyone just checks to see if they can help or advise me in any way. It's so imperative I fix this, I just don't know what else to do.

Dylan

 

[SoLibertyDies]

Okay, I'm stressing out about this. I really need help.

I have 2 problems with this dirt machine.

I have a Macbook, it has Mac Leopard and Windows Vista on separt partitions, 2GB of recently installed RAM, yadda yadda.

I bought it 2 years ago, in December.


Anyway, My problem:

1. For some reason, all the sudden, when I choose to boot into Leopard, it takes like 20 seconds for the loading wheel to show up after the apple logo appears right after you press the power on button; but then, it just keeps on whirling around the loading wheel and NEVER boots the operating system. The windows vista partition boots up fine, very nicely. I don't have my Leopard disc but I have my Tiger disk and I checked for Disk errors and everything was checked out fine. What happened!!? I was installing memory recently so if I messed something up where the battery is; it's possible.
I reset the PRAM, and the PMU and even booted through pressing ALT while it starts up and selecting Macintosh HD from the partition list. Nothing works. (Typical).

2. Well, my battery won't hold a charge. Yay! Everytime I disconnect the power adapter it waits 5 seconds and ZIP! It shuts off. I mean, I pressed the button on the battery and it says its fully charged, but the power never switches to the battery. WHY!? Don't tell me my batteries gone bad, its possible that I acidentally voided something in the battery's compartment.. since I was working around there, and one screw isn't in because It's sooo hard to get that screw in there, could the screw be the problem??

Well, I have no idea whats wrong.
Apple Care support line did crap, and all I can do now is either try to fix it myself or take it to an Apple Store, where everything is high-priced and where all there technicians will charge 1000$ for you to fix the damn thing. They see one little scratch and they say, uh oh! Hard drives broken, gonna cost 129$! There self-obsessed in there company cuz they think there the best innovating corporation in the world, while my machine is basically broken after 2 years of use, and 1000$ of money. Oh well, at least I'll get a trip to the mall out of it.

So, I'd grrrrreatly appreciate it if anyone just checks to see if they can help or advise me in any way. It's so imperative I fix this, I just don't know what else to do.

Dylan

take it in to the apple store. they won't charge you a thousand dollars for something simple, and even if it is something big, I assume they will quote you and tell you what's wrong before they do anything.

Have you tried taking the ram you put in out? Sometimes bad ram or improperly seated ram can cause alot of problems.

I'm not familiar with the macbook but the mbp is relatively easy to upgrade ram, I don't really see how you could have messed up bad enough to do all the damage you seem to have done unless you really didn't know what you were doing.

My point, take it to apple, see what they say. They replaced the battery on my first gen Macbook Pro long after the warranty had expired for free. They might suprise you.

or just keep freaking out, either way.

 

[TheStu]

take it in to the apple store. they won't charge you a thousand dollars for something simple, and even if it is something big, I assume they will quote you and tell you what's wrong before they do anything.

Have you tried taking the ram you put in out? Sometimes bad ram or improperly seated ram can cause alot of problems.

I'm not familiar with the macbook but the mbp is relatively easy to upgrade ram, I don't really see how you could have messed up bad enough to do all the damage you seem to have done unless you really didn't know what you were doing.

My point, take it to apple, see what they say. They replaced the battery on my first gen Macbook Pro long after the warranty had expired for free. They might suprise you.

or just keep freaking out, either way.

My MacBook is 1.5 years old, and out of warranty, I just had my battery replaced through the Battery Replacement program. Absolutely free of charge.

And I second that you should check your RAM, it could just be bad RAM, which usually has a lifetime warranty if you bought it aftermarket.

 

[DylanG3893]

My MacBook is 1.5 years old, and out of warranty, I just had my battery replaced through the Battery Replacement program. Absolutely free of charge.

And I second that you should check your RAM, it could just be bad RAM, which usually has a lifetime warranty if you bought it aftermarket.

Well thanks but I've already taken out the RAM and put it with the default RAM and it still doesnt boot lol. just great.

 

[Csmitte]

I know this is probably a silly idea but, By any chance have you been backing up with time machine? if so all you need to do is borrow a copy of Loepard(your not gonna install it your just going to use it as a buffer between the external and Mac), then just goto a time where you feel the most comfortable and BAM your back in business.

 

[e12a]

in my experience Leopard decides to take a long time to boot occasionally. Usually it happens after I shut the computer down or restart it after leaving it on for an extended period of time. It will just sit with the spinning wheel for what seems like forever. I just wait it out and it usually keeps on booting, although it takes like a minute before I see any blue.

Hopefully an update will fix this.

 

[nzmc36]

Try booting from the OSX disk and run the disk repair permissions, better yet, if you have a copy of Disk Warrior run that.... it has fixed my PB many times.

 

[robotfist]

I Had The Exact Same Problem

I had the exact same problem with my MacBook Pro a week ago.

It all happened after I upgraded to Leopard.

Leopard is currently EXTREMELY buggy in my opinion.

Here's what I did:

1. Find another Mac, and connect your laptop to it via Firewire.
2. Boot up the laptop in Target Disk Mode (hold down T during start up).
3. The laptop drive should pop up on the other system. Find your user folder and back up all the files you need to back up on the older machine.
4. Disconnect.
5. Start up from the Tiger disk, wipe the drive, and reinstall Tiger, the most stable Mac OS system to date.

Once I went back to Tiger, ALL the problems that were plaguing my machine (even some of the hardware based problems with the battery and optical drive) magically disappeared.

Leopard just isn't ready in my opinion. Give it a while and they'll get the bugs worked out. For now, it's not worth the hassle of having so many application incompatibilities and OS quirks.

Good luck.