Please help with my 2011 15" MBP that will not load OSX

[jherich]

Please help, I'm having an issue with my machine. Its a 2011 MBP i7 15", it originally had 4 gigs or ram and a 500gig hd. Two days ago it stop loading my hard drive after I ran disk repair and and a restart. So I took the opportunity to get a new hard drive. I purchased a seagate 750gb hybrid drive. The machine still will not boot. I've tried loading from the online recovery and the partition on the original drive with no luck. I finally decided to by mountain lion on my wifes machine and create a boot disk.

I'm still having no success. This is a big deal since I lost my job last week and I'm trying to do contact work from home until I find something else full time.

IF anyone can help me sort this out it would be greatly appreciated.

In short its a MBP 15" i7 with 4 gigs of ram installed. And a New formatted 750 gig hd.

I thought maybe it was some how related to some other hardware failure, but the machine runs super fast when Its in recovery mode. I even have internet access.

When I start an installer it begins but at some point to stops and takes me back to the Restore/Install/Get help/Utility Disk screen. It never finishes the install, and I never get the apple id prompt I think I'm suppose to see. Again if anyone can help me get this done I would be super grateful.

BTW it does see my new hard drive, and it does see the thumb drive and hard drive I used as boot up disk.

 

[justperry]

Is your wife's Mac the same model as yours?

You could try this, it only works with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.

Start your Mac up in Target Disk Mode, connect the both Macs with the FireWire or Thunderbolt cable, download the purchased Mountain Lion on your wife's Laptop, open it when finished, try to install it on your machine.

You could also restore the Mountain Lion App onto a USB stick with the help of LionDiskInstaller, then plug it into your Mac and install.

 

[jherich]

No her machine is a macbook air 11". And she is running snow leopard. She really doesn't want to upgrade based on the issues I've had. But I did download Mountain Lion on to her machine then transferred it to a thumb drive to load it on to my mbp. So no luck.

Is your wife's Mac the same model as yours?

You could try this, it only works with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.

Start your Mac up in Target Disk Mode, connect the both Macs with the FireWire or Thunderbolt cable, download the purchased Mountain Lion on your wife's Laptop, open it when finished, try to install it on your machine.

You could also restore the Mountain Lion App onto a USB stick with the help of LionDiskInstaller, then plug it into your Mac and install.

 

[justperry]

No her machine is a macbook air 11". And she is running snow leopard. She really doesn't want to upgrade based on the issues I've had. But I did download Mountain Lion on to her machine then transferred it to a thumb drive to load it on to my mbp. So no luck.

You bought Mountain Lion, download it to her Mac, then with the help of Lion Diskmaker restore it to an empty USB stick, when finished startup from the USB stick on your machine by holding the Option key.
If it doesn't work check if the drive is formatted the right way, GUID Mac os extended journaled.

 

[jherich]

I did that. When OSX Utilities loads I formatted the drive as listed. I then Reinstall osx and it starts the install process. After a few minutes the OSX Utilities screen pops up again. It doesn't seem like its finishing the reinstall but I'm not positive.

You bought Mountain Lion, download it to her Mac, then with the help of Lion Diskmaker restore it to an empty USB stick, when finished startup from the USB stick on your machine by holding the Option key.
If it doesn't work check if the drive is formatted the right way, GUID Mac os extended journaled.

 

[justperry]

I did that. When OSX Utilities loads I formatted the drive as listed. I then Reinstall osx and it starts the install process. After a few minutes the OSX Utilities screen pops up again. It doesn't seem like its finishing the reinstall but I'm not positive.

No you didn't, that is Recovery, or am I wrong here.

I have a 2012 Mini, bought it 3 months ago, I have installed numerous OS X versions but not 10.8 Mountain Lion yet so I could be wrong, but a normal OS Installer like before does not have such a screen, again, I could be completely off here.

 

[jherich]

I will say i attempted it. I don't know if the screen I was was from the start up disk or recovery, but I followed the steps you listed.

No you didn't, that is Recovery, or am I wrong here.

I have a 2012 Mini, bought it 3 months ago, I have installed numerous OS X versions but not 10.8 Mountain Lion yet so I could be wrong, but a normal OS Installer like before does not have such a screen, again, I could be completely off here.

 

[justperry]

I will say i attempted it. I don't know if the screen I was was from the start up disk or recovery, but I followed the steps you listed.

You should hold the Option key as long as you see the boot manager appear, it can take 20 seconds or so, from there you choose the USB stick.