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Floridagal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 8, 2018
6
3
Englewood FL
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro running High Sierra 10.3.6. I’m getting the “no entry” symbol when I boot up. I have tried all of these things
Resetting SMC
Resetting PRAM
Pressing “Option” when booting
Pressing “shift + control + option” when booting
Pressing Command + R when booting
Pressing Option + Command + R
The results are that I’m able to get to Internet Recovery and the loading bar completes, but then when it should move to the Utilities screen it doesn’t. Instead it sits at the Apple icon with no loading bar. I let it sit there overnight and it still did not move on to the Utilities screen.

Then I removed the hard drive and placed it in another MacBook Pro. Hard drive booted up fine there.

Then I replaced the hard drive cable but I’m still getting the same result.

Seems to be a hardware issue but it’s not the hard drive or the hard drive cable. Anyone have any other ideas?
 
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro running High Sierra 10.3.6. I’m getting the “no entry” symbol when I boot up. I have tried all of these things
Resetting SMC
Resetting PRAM
Pressing “Option” when booting
Pressing “shift + control + option” when booting
Pressing Command + R when booting
Pressing Option + Command + R
The results are that I’m able to get to Internet Recovery and the loading bar completes, but then when it should move to the Utilities screen it doesn’t. Instead it sits at the Apple icon with no loading bar. I let it sit there overnight and it still did not move on to the Utilities screen.

Then I removed the hard drive and placed it in another MacBook Pro. Hard drive booted up fine there.

Then I replaced the hard drive cable but I’m still getting the same result.

Seems to be a hardware issue but it’s not the hard drive or the hard drive cable. Anyone have any other ideas?
If you have a 15" or 17" 2011 MBP then it could be a failure of the dGPU (Radeongate), but the no entry symbol is not a common symptom. Usually no entry would be caused a problem reading the boot system from the drive.

It is possible that the new SATA drive cable is also bad, it happens. A good test would be to put your HDD in an external enclosure and try booting to your HDD in the external using the option key at startup.
 
If you have a 15" or 17" 2011 MBP then it could be a failure of the dGPU (Radeongate), but the no entry symbol is not a common symptom. Usually no entry would be caused a problem reading the boot system from the drive.

It is possible that the new SATA drive cable is also bad, it happens. A good test would be to put your HDD in an external enclosure and try booting to your HDD in the external using the option key at startup.

Thanks for that feedback. My MacBook Pro is a 13”. I will try your suggestion of connecting to the HDD via an external enclosure and see if it will boot up that way. Thanks!!!
 
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Thanks for that feedback. My MacBook Pro is a 13”. I will try your suggestion of connecting to the HDD via an external enclosure and see if it will boot up that way. Thanks!!!
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If you have a 15" or 17" 2011 MBP then it could be a failure of the dGPU (Radeongate), but the no entry symbol is not a common symptom. Usually no entry would be caused a problem reading the boot system from the drive.

It is possible that the new SATA drive cable is also bad, it happens. A good test would be to put your HDD in an external enclosure and try booting to your HDD in the external using the option key at startup.


Ok gave your suggestion a try connecting HDD via external enclosure and I’m still getting the same results so I assume it’s not the SATA cable. Tried booting while pressing the “option” key first. Then I tried booting while holding command + option + R. Still goes through the internet recovery process but doesn’t get to the utilities window. Just sits with an Apple icon and no progress bar.
 
Ok gave your suggestion a try connecting HDD via external enclosure and I’m still getting the same results so I assume it’s not the SATA cable. Tried booting while pressing the “option” key first. Then I tried booting while holding command + option + R. Still goes through the internet recovery process but doesn’t get to the utilities window. Just sits with an Apple icon and no progress bar.
I would recommend making an appointment at the Apple store to check your MBP. It seems like you may be having a hardware problem with the 2011 13" MBP that they could run their diagnostics to help pinpoint the problem.
 
I would recommend making an appointment at the Apple store to check your MBP. It seems like you may be having a hardware problem with the 2011 13" MBP that they could run their diagnostics to help pinpoint the problem.
Yea
I would recommend making an appointment at the Apple store to check your MBP. It seems like you may be having a hardware problem with the 2011 13" MBP that they could run their diagnostics to help pinpoint the problem.
Yes, I have definitely narrowed it to a hardware issue but just don’t know what component it is. I ran the hardware diagnostic (pressing D on startup). The only result said I would need to replace the battery soon. I don’t think that is causing the issue I’m having. So next stop is Apple. Thanks for all if your help. Appreciate it.
 
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I wouldn't put too much money into this.
No more than $70-100, tops...
 
It's a vintage model, if it's a hardware problem, Apple will not help you
 
Yea. Hoping for they’ll at least run a diagnostic on it and be able to let me know what the issue is. I suspect it’s the logic board though.
 
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