2008 MacBook Pro won't boot from Leopard DVD or Target Disk

Yesterday I was working on my MacBook Pro. I use FontExplorer to manage fonts. I ran the conflicts diagnostic looking for missing font files, which returned about 200 results (I was expecting this). I've moved the fonts installed by Adobe/Microsoft out of my fonts folder in my user library (user library, not system). For some reason the computer started to become very slow, to the point of beachballing. The freezing seemed to start and stop. I was able to close FontExplorer and Illustrator without force-quitting. I tried to shut it down gracefully at that point but it froze up again, so I hit the power button to force a restart. It started up but now it hangs on the gray screen right before the Apple logo. The logo doesn't come up, I can hear the drive spinning as normal but it doesn't do anything.
I've tried booting from a retail copy of the Snow Leopard, but it doesn't work. I can hear the disc spin up in the DVD drive as though the computer is about to read it, but nothing happens. It just stays on that same blue screen. I've tried booting my MBP in Target Disk mode from my iMac. The target disk icon appears, however it just sits in the middle of the screen and my drive doesn't mount on the iMac. I've noticed now that the white status light on the front of the MBP (on the latch) doesn't come on, and if I cover the speakers the backlight doesn't turn off.
What do I do now? I have an enclosure I could use to try and boot the MBP's drive from, but I'm running out of options. I'm really starting to worry about my data. I have a major school project that's already late which is on there, and I don't have a recent backup. If I don't hand it in... let's not go there. I don't understand how this could happen; I take very good care of my computer, I turn it off when it's not in use, and I run Cocktail on it once a day which does a SMART status check.
Help?

sig,
The first thing I tried was booting from the install disk. The 2008/2009 MBP's aren't able to boot from a retail DVD of Snow Leopard, which is why I ended up using the original hardware-specific install disk that shipped with my computer. That didn't boot either. I was able to view the drive in Disk Utility when it was in the enclosure, but the partition with my data on it would not mount. I attempted a repair disk on the drive but that failed. It wouldn't mount in Terminal either. I considered trying to rebuild the volume catalog using TechTool Pro but there's the possibility that could actually make things worse. So I've taken it to the repair shop. They're running it through DiskWarrior overnight, last I heard there were 60-something thread errors. Yesterday my SMART status was fine, today my drive is dead. What happened? Hoping for the best (but expecting the worst).

Similar Messages

MacBook Pro Won't Boot from Leopard DVD

My brother's MacBook Pro (2009 13") won't boot from the Leopard install DVD. Here is what happened:
- I tried to do Bootcamp on it. I installed Windows 7 but realized that there were no Bootcamp drivers for that.
- Deleted Widnows 7 and put the XP install disc in. Somehow, it formatted my Mac partition instead of my Windows partition.
- Now that the MBP was only running Windows XP, I connected it to my iMac in target disk mode and wiped it (GUID, one Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition).
- I tried to put the Leopard (10.5.0) install DVD in there so I can restore from the Time Machine backup, and it sees it when I hold option at bootup but refuses to boot from it.
- I reset the PRAM and tried again, no luck.
What is going on here? Does it have to do with the fact that it was doing Bootcamp? I either want to boot from the disc or somehow restore from Time Machine some other way. I can use another computer (my iMac) if I need to.

Haha yeah, I posted right before. The thing I'm wondering now: Does this mean that a Mac that came with Lion cannot be downgraded to Snow Leopard? Well, I'll save it for another question if I ever cross that bridge.
Limnos wrote:
Just so we know, this is the original OS disc that came with this computer? Even if you're trying to use a retail installer disc I am not sure those came out the the sufficient sub-version required to boot the computer (I think it needs at least 10.5.7 but don't have the specifics of your model).
Edit: I guess I'm a slow typist.

BRAND NEW Mac Pro won't boot from Leopard DVD, kernel panics!

I just received my brand new Mac Pro today. It's a BTO machine with the upgrade to the NVIDIA 8800GT, a second optical drive and a Mac OS X Server license. The system has Mac OS X server installed on the default 320GB drive. I decided to use the server license as a virtual machine running in Leopard client. So, I installed 2 new 500GB Seagate 7200.11 (Retail) drives in the machine, zeroed them out in prep for installing Leopard client.
At this point, I pop in a freshly-purchased retail copy of the Leopard DVD and restart. When I try to boot from the DVD and install Leopard to one of the new Seagate drives, I get kernel panics - need to restart the machine. Also tried booting from the Mac OS X Server DVD and this too only caused kernel panics. The DVD's read perfectly from within Mac OS X Server and boot from hard disks is flawless.
I spent an hour on the phone with a level 2 tech at Apple - Tried swapping out the RAM and moving around the DIMMS to no avail. I am at a loss to what this could be. Seems to be a hardware issue and the tech thought it was likely a problem with one of the memory risers but couldn't send replacements. Anyone else with a similar issue?
This is my first Mac and it looks like this Mac Pro is going back for an exchange and I'll have to wait yet another 10-12 days for a replacement to arrive. Bummer.
Am I missing something simple here? Does this seem to be a hardware issue?
If anyone has any ideas before I ship this one back, please write!!!

New Mac Pros will not install the Leopard retail disc. They will only install the Leopard disc which shipped with them labeled Mac Pro. That has always been true. Macs can only boot the system that ships on DVD in the box that came with them, and newer retail releases. They can never boot from an older retail release than what shipped in the box.

MacBook Pro won't boot from Superdrive

I have a MacBook Pro which is around 7 Months old, I wanted to run Disk Warrior on it but the Macbook Pro wouldn't boot from the disk, tried the MAC install disk same issue.
Holding down the C key at boot time causes the drive to spin up it gets as far as the grey screen with the apple logo then the drive stops. Tried also holding down the alt key, I can see the hard disk and DVD icons but selecting the DVD same thing happens as above.
The superdrive seams to work fine when the machine is running just refuses to boot from it.
Any help would be much appreciated
rgs
Colin

Colin: Are you trying to boot from the Install/Restore DVD that was shipped with your MacBook Pro? If not, do. Your DiskWarrior DVD may not be able to boot your MBP model, and an older Snow Leopard installer DVD can't either.
The best setup for using DiskWarrior or any other Disk utility on your MBP's internal drive is to have a bootable clone of that drive as a backup, with all your utility software installed on it just as it is on the internal drive. Then whenever you have a problem, you can boot from the other drive to repair the troubled one. No need then to boot or run the utilities from a DVD, which is tediously slow at best, even when it works perfectly.

Mid 2006 Macbook Pro won't boot (from HD or optical)

My mid 2006 Macbook Pro will not boot from the hard disk, or from the internal DVD. I am currently running the latest version of Lion (10.7).
I tried searching the forums and found a similar issue here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1687899?start=0&tstart=0
But that was with a Mac Mini. And it doesn't look like the OP issue was ever resolved. I am having the exact same problem.
When attempting a normal boot from the internal HD of the Macbook Pro. It will make the happy chime of a successful POST. It will display the Apple logo. And that's as far as she gets.
No spinning wheel, no error image, no nothing. Eventually the system will start spinning up the fans as if it were under load (this was after about a half hour of just letting it sit there).
Doing a verbose boot, it never went past this:
com.apple.driver.Apple.IntelCPUPowerManagement
Photo of verbose boot:
Here's what I've tried.
1. Bought a brand new battery (as the current one was at death's door)
2. Zapped PRAM (Apple + Option + P + R)
3. Reset SMC according to these directions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US
4. Attempted to boot to my original Tiger (10.4) install DVD, only to stop at this point during a verbose boot (Apple V):
Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpi components; use only one style
Photos:
5. I am able to put her in Target Disk Mode (hold T at boot). Then with a firewire cable I can connect it to my wife's Macbook 13" and I am able to run disk utility on it! Disk Utility did find and repair errors, however, it still refuses to boot.
6. I attempted to boot from my wife's Macbook 13" in Target Disk Mode. I put her machine in Target disk mode. Connected the firewire cable. Powered on my 15" MBP while holding the option key. Then I selected her drive as the boot disk... however it still refuses to boot even from a known working HD.
7. Finally, I swapped around RAM DIMMs with no change in behavior.
Help! I know she's an older gal (Laptop is 6 years old now) but I'm not exactly flush with cash and would rather not give up on her just yet.

My Mac started freezing (colored pinwheel) every time I tried using any application (i.e. Safari, iPhoto). After restarting for the 2nd time, it would no longer boot - makes start up sound but gets stuck on gray screen w/ apple icon. I tried resetting PRAM also - did nothing. I decided to reinstall OS; problem now is my HD is nowhere to be found! I am a tech dummy so this is way beyond my comprehension...I'm not seeing my HD from the Disk Utility either???
Side question...I backed up my files (mostly pics JPEG and videos) on DVD (had to compress to save). Why can't I open files on PC?

IMac can't/won't boot from Leopard DVD

My 1GHz G4 iMac can't or won't boot from the DVD, although I know the media is good.
I get stuck on the grey screen, the rotating bug stops rotating after about 5 minutes.
It will still boot from the hard disk fine, and will boot with other DVDs as well. Hardware diagnostics check out fine.
I did try single user mode, it will get there OK.
Verbose mode spits out a lot of messages (who knew? - lol), but nothing that seems to point to any one issue. It too stops spitting out messages after about 10 minutes.
Any ideas?

I did try the clicking the mouse thing just for the heck of it... no joy.
I do see a few other threads like this one, so I'm not alone on this.
The error messages I see are (not going to type them out all the way):
launchd[1]: Failed to count the number of files in /System/Library/StartupItems no such file or directory
Then a bunch of mDNSResponder errors, also saying either no such file/directory or invalid destination port.
Then a message saying Folder Manager is being asked to create a folder (cach) while running as uid 0
Then Cannot use ATS Persistent Store - switching to old FODB cache code
kextd[47]: root filesystem is read-only; skipping kernel link data generation
followed by a couple of errors from configdp[41]
Then nothing....
Still stuck...

Macbook Pro won't boot from any partition, at all

I tried updating an Early 2008 Intel-based Macbook pro to a clean install of Mavericks with a bootable USB drive, once in the startup manager, it would show the USB as an "EFI BOOT". and trying to access the EFI BOOT just gives me a prohibited sign
The boot copy of Mavericks was installed with Disk Utility, so it shouldn't have had any problems.
So I thought, "I'll completely erase the HD and try again". Did that, and still, "EFI BOOT".
Next thing I did was ditch the USB method, and go for brute force, booted the Mac in Target Disk Mode, and through firewire I was able to install Mavericks into the HD of that Mac, using my brother's Early 2008 intel-based Macbook pro. The clean install worked, it made the recovery partition with no problem. Next thing I know, upon booting the laptop, after restarting it from Target Disk Mode, the darn computer decides to give me the "no boot device found" dreaded Question-Mark-on-a-folder sign. So I restarted the thing to the Startup Manager, and both partitions showed up, I tried both partitions, and no luck, same Question Mark Sign-Thing, not even the recovery booted.
So on target disk mode again, I made 2 partitions, one with a bootable mavericks EDM, and the other one, free space, Mac OS Journaled, ready for the OS installation. So that it would install it by itself, to itself. Upon restarting and accessing the Startup Manager, the bootable partition I had created, was seen, but clicking on it would just give me the question mark.
I shrank the partition on the other macbook to make a bootable firewire device on the other mac, and that partition also said "EFI BOOT" when clicked on.
I burned a recovery DVD to boot from it, and it won't boot from it. Every time I try to boot from something, all I get is the question-mark-on-a-folder-sign.
I disassembled the laptop, got the HD out, tried installing straight into it via USB, and was not able to access it using an external HD case, the power light comes on, and right back off.
PRAM and SMC have been Reset.
any ideas?

When I removed it, it was to install mavericks into it, via usb, with the other macbook, through disk utility, but disk utility was unable to read it then.
And yes, I am able to boot from that HD, on the other macbook, either through firewire or USB... I've verified that it is working fine, no sounds, no clicks, no scratching noises.

MacBook Pro won't boot from HD or Install CD

I have a 15" MacBook Pro running Lion. It won't boot from the HD or Install CD.
1. When I try to boot it from the HD, it makes the boot sound and displays the Apple logo. The small "working" wheel spins for about 20 seconds, and then gets stuck mid-spin.
2. When I try to boot from the Install CD, I eventually get a gray screen with a large power button image and the text "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button."
I have tried resetting the PRAM and SMC per another post, but nothing changed. I have also tried to boot it from an Ubuntu 11.10 CD, which also got stuck.
Any idea what the problem could be and next steps I should take?

My Mac started freezing (colored pinwheel) every time I tried using any application (i.e. Safari, iPhoto). After restarting for the 2nd time, it would no longer boot - makes start up sound but gets stuck on gray screen w/ apple icon. I tried resetting PRAM also - did nothing. I decided to reinstall OS; problem now is my HD is nowhere to be found! I am a tech dummy so this is way beyond my comprehension...I'm not seeing my HD from the Disk Utility either???
Side question...I backed up my files (mostly pics JPEG and videos) on DVD (had to compress to save). Why can't I open files on PC?

Early 2008 MacBook Pro won't boot after Lion 10.7.1 update

My 2.4 GHz 4GB RAM Early 2008 MacBook Pro wont boot after downloaded the Lion 10.7.1 upate. Upon restarting the screen went dead and now the system does not boot, as if the bootloader has been wiped out. Screen appears dead but was known to be working before hand. The hard drive spins up but doesn't sound like it is searching for data.
Can anyone help me?

Okay, I tried everything I can think of last night. I removed every startup process and every tool or programm that goes deeper into the system (GlimmerBlocker, LittleSnitch, Parallels). Cleaned Up every Cache I could find and refreshed every necessary Cache or Database possible. Took me a couple of hours. But still no luck - the machine doesn't boot, just in safe mode. Right now I copy all my personal stuff to a new external harddrive because TimeMachine doesn't work, after this I will do a clean install of Lion.
It's not hardware related, it's the 10.7.1 update that doesn't work properly. By the way, the only errors remaining are:
WindowServer - kCGErrorFailure
ManagedClient - kCGErrorFailure: CGSPackageGetWorkspaceType: couldn't get workspace type
SecurityAgent - kCGErrorFailure: CGSPackageGetWorkspaceType: couldn't get workspace type
and a lot of:
com.Apple.SecurityAgent.00000000-0000-0000-0000-0000000186A7: CoreAnimation: rendering error 506
that's also the last one I get before the system hangs…

Macbook Pro won't boot from Restore CD

I followed the instructions in order to restore my MBP to it's factory settings, but upon attempting to restore, the Macbook won't boot from the CD drive. It get's stuck on the gray screen with the apple logo, but no spinning wheel shows up. It's just the gray screen with the apple logo. Is there any solution?

1 Insert the Mac OS X installation disc that came with your computer, and then double-click the Install Max OS X icon.
2. In the Installer, click Utilities, and then click Restart.
3. When the Language Chooser appears, select your language, and then click the Continue button.
4 Choose Utilities > Desk Utility
5...
6...
7...
I can only get past step two. When the computer restarts it goes the the grey screen with the apple logo and freezes there. The spinning wheel that shows that it is booting doesn't appear. So, I attempted to just do a regular restart and hold down the 'c' button so that it would boot from the restore disc, but the same thing happens. It goes to the gray screen with the apple logo and freezes there with no spinning wheel to indicate that it is trying to boot. For about five or ten seconds when this screen is on I can hear the CD drive spinning, but it shortly stops spinning. (I've tried two discs -- the original disc that came with it and a replacement disc that they sent me).

Macbook Pro won't boot from DVD with SSD

Here's the timeline of events.
Had a running MBP 17 Early 2011 Thunderbolt with OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 115GB drive.
Installed Windows 7 via bootcamp. I have done this multiple times before and every time I need to format the bootcamp partition before installing. I think this time I actually deleted the partition and then selected the freespace to install. This worked fine for the most part but I wasn't able to boot the boot camp partition using vmware fusion.
I gave up and used the boot camp assistant to revert back to one mac partition. I was getting some odd behavior so I rebooted the machine. It then came up with a message saying no bootable partiton. This made me think (and still does) that the windows install using the free space versus the boot camp partition caused the windows MBR boot loader to get installed incorrectly and mucked up the OS X installation. Ok, fine, I can just reinstall.
I can't seem to boot from the original MBP installation DVD. I hold down c on boot but I never get past the all grey screen. I hear the DVD drive spin up but it eventually stops. I put the original HD back in it and everything works fine but when I put the SSD in, I can't boot from the DVD drive.
I have already set up an RMA with OWC to send back the drive but considering the order of events, I feel as though it isn't a hardware issue but can't seem to figure out how to fix it. I can always send it back in but figured I would check this community forum and see if anyone could offer some guideance/assistence before doing so.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Haha yeah, I posted right before. The thing I'm wondering now: Does this mean that a Mac that came with Lion cannot be downgraded to Snow Leopard? Well, I'll save it for another question if I ever cross that bridge.
Limnos wrote:
Just so we know, this is the original OS disc that came with this computer? Even if you're trying to use a retail installer disc I am not sure those came out the the sufficient sub-version required to boot the computer (I think it needs at least 10.5.7 but don't have the specifics of your model).
Edit: I guess I'm a slow typist.

Wiped macbook pro will not boot from install DVD

I recently purchased an older MacBook Pro that came with the OS system wiped but it did have the original Install DVDs. The computer will not boot from the DVD. I have booted holding down the C key and nothing happens. I have booted holding down the Option key and it shows the Install DVD and I select this and nothing happens.
How do I get it to open up the Utilities from the DVD to install the operating system?

It could be a problem with the optical drive, but also may be due to the DVD's being for a different model.
Exactly which MBP do you have, and what serial numbers are on the discs ?.

MacBook Pro does not Boot from the DVD

If I want to boot from the DVD Insatll and "C" button, then you can hear noises as though it accesses the DVD but there is a gray background with the Apple logo and a spinning circle. I do so not in the Mac operating system but only in Windows.
Please help

"I do so not in the Mac operating system but only in Windows."

MacBook Pro won't boot from recovery disc

Hi, I've got an early 1998 15" MacBook Pro that came with Leopard I think, but I've upgraded along the way and was running Mountain Lion when trouble started. A few months ago it started randomly crashing and restarting, then progressed to not starting up but sitting on the grey screen.
After reading some of the discussions on this and following the suggestions there, such as verifying and repairing the disk and the disk permissions, clearing the nvram etc, I took it in for a service and had the hardware checked - no problems found but the battery was replaced as it was pretty dead. A few days later the laptop started doing the same thing again.
I backed up, downloaded a recovery disc to USB (on a Linux computer as mine was not compliant) although there was already a recovery disk on the laptop, and then erased the hard drive. This was pretty difficult as by this time all it could do was sit on the grey screen for a a bit and then restart, never actually booting up, but finally it worked.
Now it won't boot to the recovery disc, either on the laptop or on the USB drive.
Startup pressing Command R does not get me anywhere but the grey screen. Startup pressing Option usually shows me a picture of the Recovery disc but clicking on it gets nothing but the grey screen. With both, there's either a freeze or a continuous spontaneous restart. I also tried telling it I'd install Linux if it didn't want to let me reinstall Mountain Lion, but it did not respond to that either.
If anyone has any ideas I'd be really grateful. The hard drive showed no problems in the test the service guys did and when I run verify disk it also shows not problems.

Edward Durrant wrote:
My question is, do I need the harddrive in for the laptop to function relatively normally?
This is where you would install OS X, so yes, you need a hard drive.

Early 2008 mac pro won't boot from hdd when ssd is installed

I have Mountain Lion 10.8.3 installed on my 1TB HDD in my early 2008 mac pro. That is the only OS install on my mac. I have an OWC SSD formatted but left as an empty drive that I am trying to use but when it's installed my mac hangs on the blank gray screen.
My mac cold boots fine and runs fine when the SSD is *not* installed. When I shut down and put the SSD into a drive bay the mac does seem to boot ok the first time, but when the computer is off for a while it will not boot. It just hangs on the blank gray screen (no apple logo). As soon as I pull out the SSD, the computer boots fine and runs fine again. I am not trying to boot off the SSD, I am booting off the HDD. The correct drive (1tb hdd) is selected in startup disk.
OWC has been helping me and I have tested 3 SSD's. So it does not appear to be a problem with their drive.
The mac will boot into safe mode with the SSD installed. It will boot if I choose the boot drive with the option key at startup.
Mountain Lion was clean installed.
Could it be some sort of library pref or cache issue?
Any recommendations on what to try?

A HT does not find a lot of errors.
It doesn't look for bad sectors or directory or file problems.
Clone your SSD now that you have a clean OS and has the Apple updates on it. Before you make changes.
Install TRIM Enabler 2.2+ on it and any boot volume, to enable TRIM and so that Disk Utility's Repair Disk will trim cells. Mountain Lion Recovery won't which is a shame, so...
Clone and keep bootable backup clone of your system to use for maintenance.
A really bad directory on a system drive will cause interference from booting.
SSDs really need extra care, and even with TRIM, to be repaired from time to time and couple times a year, to do an erase and restore from a current image.
Of course Mac OS system even iwth apps is small and doesn't need to have any data or media and fits on 120GB usually just fine and still have a good enough amount free so TRIM and Garbage Collection can work properly and not get low on free pages. But 20GB free should be the minimum free, and better to have more, at least whatever total amount is written out in a month.

2008 MacBook Pro won't boot from Leopard DVD or Target Disk

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