MB A1181 wont boot :(

[aadilkhanmaniyar]

Hi, I have a MB A1181 Black. I have not been using it for a few years now. Now since I have some spare time on hands due to the lockdown I thought of working on that MB. However, it just wont boot. No matter what option I try it takes me to the flashing question mark screen. I was able to boot from USB previously but now even that does not seem to work no matter how long the option key is kept pressed. I have tried bootable USB, bootable DVD. RAM seems fine as the startup chime is played.

Any advise what could be wrong with the MB? Any suggestions would be much appreciated

 

[rampancy]

It's possible that the USB ports could have been blown. When you say you've tried to boot from USB, do you mean an external CD/DVD drive? Hard drive? USB memory stick?

 

[aadilkhanmaniyar]

Hi @rampancy , it was a USB memory stick. I had created a bootable USB stick with OS X SnowLeopard using Transmac utility. Using the same utility I did create a bootable DVD and tried booting using the inbuild SuperDrive but no luck.

quite possible USB ports are not working but is there any way I can be sure..

 

[rampancy]

What I would also do in your place would be to install OS X (10.6 is best, since it can run on either a Core Duo or Core 2 Duo A1181) on a known good hard drive/SSD, and then put that in the MacBook to see if it boots.

 

[EugW]

Many USB sticks don't work for booting on those MacBooks. I learned this the hard way on my MacBook4,1 A1181. This is true even if the USB sticks work otherwise. Try a couple of different USB sticks, and make sure they're formatted correctly too.

BTW, do you have a bootable USB hard drive with external power? That might be more reliable.