Hey everyone,
Today my mid 2009 13" mbp froze for at least 15 minutes. Thus as one would usually do(?) I held down the power button to do a cold reboot. Unlike the other 50 times in the last 2.5 years that this has happened the Mac now boots to the white screen and I get mixed results - either a pure white screen, a white screen with the apple logo that turns to the prohibitory sign etc. I tried going into safe mode which didn't work most times but once loaded the same white screen just with a cursor also (which I was able to move around). I tried going into verbose mode which has only worked once out of many times I tried, the computer hung up on "Still waiting on root device."
Also, intermittently when I try and boot up, it will go to the white screen but also the fan will be on (seems to be going at full capacity).
I've researched this a lot today, and everyone else seems to have a slightly different scenario. From what I understand, the 09' MBPs are notorious for having the HDD cable go faulty. Though it could also be the HDD or the Logic board, right? Bottom line is I am a college student and have finals very soon and would like to fix this as cheaply and quickly as possible (i.e. not have to buy all three components before finding the problem). I have a time machine backup from something like 2 weeks ago... while it would be a shame to loose that info it wouldn't be the worst thing (however if it's not the HDD I don't want to preemptively erase and install).
I don't have my OSX CD that came with the MBP (it's at home, I live in my dorm) however I can probably get access to one which will be of a newer version, maybe even snow leopard (is it dangerous to use that to try and repair?)
Lots of sources from blogs/ forums point that it might be a physical problem, however the whole cold boot thing might have just corrupted the HDD(?) Though in recent months my laptop has hung up on me for long periods of time (where I would usually do a manual reboot and everything would be fine).
Sorry for the verbose post, just wanted to have all available info.
Thanks!
Max
Today my mid 2009 13" mbp froze for at least 15 minutes. Thus as one would usually do(?) I held down the power button to do a cold reboot. Unlike the other 50 times in the last 2.5 years that this has happened the Mac now boots to the white screen and I get mixed results - either a pure white screen, a white screen with the apple logo that turns to the prohibitory sign etc. I tried going into safe mode which didn't work most times but once loaded the same white screen just with a cursor also (which I was able to move around). I tried going into verbose mode which has only worked once out of many times I tried, the computer hung up on "Still waiting on root device."
Also, intermittently when I try and boot up, it will go to the white screen but also the fan will be on (seems to be going at full capacity).
I've researched this a lot today, and everyone else seems to have a slightly different scenario. From what I understand, the 09' MBPs are notorious for having the HDD cable go faulty. Though it could also be the HDD or the Logic board, right? Bottom line is I am a college student and have finals very soon and would like to fix this as cheaply and quickly as possible (i.e. not have to buy all three components before finding the problem). I have a time machine backup from something like 2 weeks ago... while it would be a shame to loose that info it wouldn't be the worst thing (however if it's not the HDD I don't want to preemptively erase and install).
I don't have my OSX CD that came with the MBP (it's at home, I live in my dorm) however I can probably get access to one which will be of a newer version, maybe even snow leopard (is it dangerous to use that to try and repair?)
Lots of sources from blogs/ forums point that it might be a physical problem, however the whole cold boot thing might have just corrupted the HDD(?) Though in recent months my laptop has hung up on me for long periods of time (where I would usually do a manual reboot and everything would be fine).
Sorry for the verbose post, just wanted to have all available info.
Thanks!
Max