Cannot startup from disk

I have a disk error on my HD, but I cannot get the machine to startup from the Tiger Install disk or the Techtool Deluxe disk. I have tried (repeatedly...) holding the 'C' key down on startup, but no luck. I went to the Genius Bar today, and the technician helped my fix another problem, and told me that on intel Macs, you have to hold down the 'D' key. Still no luck.
Am I doing something wrong, or do I have another problem?

The D key is held if you want to run hardware test from the DVD. You hold down the C key to boot from the DVD drive. Try booting and holding down the opton key. This will let you see what all drives are bootable. It should show the DVD drive as a boot option with the install disk in.

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BootCamp cannot load from disk code 5

I tried to install Windows 7 using BootCamp from an ISO image DVD I made. Now when I restart my iMac, it takes me to a black screen with the "cannot load from disk code: 5" error message. The "option key" and "eject key" don't work at all and no matter how many times I restart it, it always goes back to this screen where I can't seem to press anything and the dvd is stuck. Please help.

I burned my disc at 2 speed in Toast. Burned my XP iso like this too, and that worked (not on early 2011 mbp's)
I even deleted the bootcamp partition and resized the osx partition to the max. That way i have a clean partition/install each time i trie. Used partition size is standard (20gb) so that shouldn't be an issue. And the iso i'm using for win7 is being used by al lot of others and they seem to have no problems and claim it to be a bootable disk.
The only probable solution i've found is a workaround in which you launch your install from a different running OS, and go from there. However i'm not such a windows fan i got a full working pc. Just my mbp's so this really isn't an option and it seems a bit far off because i got a concrete error code.
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As many of you know there is a bug going around where the OS “forgets” what user accounts are on the machine. The only user at login is “Other”. This has happened on 10.6.5 and 10.6.6. In the past I have been able to fix this issue by booting from the Snow Leopard disk, change the root password, login using root and re-add the user accounts back under system pref’s. The issue I’m currently having is that two Mac Pros will not boot from disk, external HD, or into single user mode. None of the key commands work at boot up.
The computers do not chime at boot and the apple logo shows up very quickly. I’ve tried resetting PRAM and the logic board. I now have two BRICKED machines and cannot afford to have any more go down.
Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

gregfl wrote:
The issue I’m currently having is that two Mac Pros will not boot from disk, external HD, or into single user mode. None of the key commands work at boot up.
I just had a very similar problem this morning on my iMac. Plain white screen on boot-up. No Apple logo. No booting from my SuperDuper clone, no booting from the DVD, no booting into Startup Manager by holding down the option key, no booting even into Apple Hardware Test. I was getting ready to take it in for service.
What finally fixed it was resetting PRAM three times. Hold down command, option, P, and R, and keep them down until you hear the third startup chime. That's what finally breathed life back into my iMac.

Only see multiple disk icons at startup from disk

I disconected my G3 a few months ago and now reconected it and I can't get it to show anything on the desktop. I tried to startup from the Apple startup disk and only see the disk icons all over the screen. I can get to the help file which works and see my pointer but no extensions when starting up like usual.
I hear the HD spinning and sounds like the extensions loading but nothing on the screen. I know the monitor is working otherwise I wouldn't see the disk icons or the help file. I checked all connections and they are tight. I checked the battery and that's fine. I tried the P ram setting as well as rebuilding the desktop , still nothing. Any ideas?

Try a CUDA reset. See Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial
 Cheers, Tom

Problem with kernel panic message - Cannot boot from disk or usb

Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if someone could help me with a problem I've been trying to tackle for the last few days. I have a 24" iMac 2.33 Ghz Dual Core, with 2 gigs of RAM. A couple of days ago my computer crashed, and when I tried to boot up again I got the infamous grey screen kernel panic message ("You need to restart your computer..."). What's worse is that I get the same message when I try booting from my external drive and the installation disk itself.
I've basically planned on formatting since it's been a while anyway, but since I can't boot from my external drive or the installation disk that came with my computer these are not options at the moment. I can only get into the computer via safe mode. I've used disk utility to verify the disk, and it comes up with no errors. Anyways, I'd really appreciate if anyone had any advice on this. I've scoured the internet for advice about kernel panic messages, and they all suggest booting from disk or external drive etc., which is not a possibility for me right now.
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If you get a panic when trying to boot from the installation disc, and the disc is not scratched or dirty, then you have a hardware fault.
Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.
Back up all data on the internal drive(s) before you hand over your computer to anyone. If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to bare metal from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.
*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup) or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Cannot Startup from LaCie FW800 Clone

Hello,
I have a LaCie 2Big Triple 1TB Drive that I use to make clones of my System using Carbon Copy Cloner. I made a new clone yesterday and now cannot boot from the external LaCie cloned drive. The drive shows up in the Preferences as a bootable drive but will not boot up the computer.
When I restart with the LaCie selected as the boot volume, a small folder icon flashes between smiley face and a question mark 2 times, then the computer proceeds to boot up from the internal system drive, not the external LaCie.
Before I made my clone with CCC I erased the LaCie drive as usual using Disk Utility. I am using CCC 3.1.3, OSX10.5.6.
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Bernard

No, but there is a rotating selector to pick which RAID scheme to use (RAID 0, 1, JBOD, etc.).
Like I said, I have made a clone using each of these settings and none works. It take a little over 4 hours per clone operation so this is a huge time commitment I have wasted so far....very discouraging!
Thanks for the help!

Cannot startup from Tiger installer DVD or any other CD

When I try to startup from a system CD , DVD, or Diskwarrior CD the system folders on the external media will not mount.

I have yet to see an Apple update that is responsible for an OS X installer not booting a computer. The installer discs are self contained with their own bootable system. It is independent of what may be installed on the hard drive.
I've been involved in beta testing Tiger updates as well as several security updates for Panther. I have not run into a "bad Apple Update" problem. It is possible to get a bad download, however, but that's not a problem with the updates themselves.
Just because other users experience similar problems does not always mean the problem is with OS X or OS X updates. Many times the problem is with poorly maintained or corrupted systems that are not repaired before updates are applied. Inexperienced users are frequently their own worst enemy. Also keep in mind that for every user posting a problem on the Discussions, there are thousands having no problems whatsoever.

Cannot boot from Disk Warrior 4.0

Is any one having this problem ? When I try to boot from the Disk Warrior disk it just goes to the apple icon then restarts. I must have tries for 20 min holding the "c" key watching my system restart over and over again never mounting the disk. It has been totally unsuccessful using DW 4.0. Its a bummer because I am a fan of this product.

-mio- wrote:
DW dose not boot with the new intel macs!
As you noted you cannot boot an intel Mac from DW 4. Disk Warrior 4.1.1 is the intel version and now boots a version of Leopard from the DVD (the previous version booted into Tiger). If you can't get it to boot using the keyboard at startup try going to System Preferences - Startup Disk and setting to boot from the DVD and restart. If your Mac still refuses to boot from the DVD then as others have already indicated you may have a hardware problem.
Have a look at the Disk Warrior Support Page to get the free update to 4.1.1
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/support.html
Message was edited by: Noiseboy2006

Cannot start from disk!!!!!!

Whenever I try to install Mountain lion on my Brand New Macbook Pro 13 inch 2012. It restarts as expected, then it shows all my drives as unable to be used to install because it cannot use any of them as a startup disk. First off, the drive Im using has Lion and it boots just fine, and there is no Time machine backup folder on the root of the drive. I checked using terminal. Now I do have a bootcamp partition with windows 8 on it. I even redownloaded the installer and deleted all of its contents on the disk. It wont work.

I got the disks by clonning, downloading, etc. Since I own all this software, i should be able to legally have it in disk form. And upon formating the Osx partition, it seems to have also deleted the recovery partition, laving the windows in tact. Ya i know, stupid huh. Anywho i got mountain lion back on the mac after following apple's guids on how to remove your harddrive without voiding your warranty. Once done with that, I got my external hdd and dismantled it, then took the tiny usb to sata converter and hooked it to my Imac and installed mountain lion on that. Then put it back into my laptop and BOOM goes the dynomite. Now i have to re-install it to get back my recovery partition back. All in all, what a pain. this should have never happened.

IMac won't startup from disk

After start-up issues, Apple replaced the hard drive on my iMac.
After getting it back today, I restored my files and settings from my last Time Machine backup.
However, after restarting it would not accept my password.
However, when I try to boot from the leopard disk, A circle-cross symbol appears instead of the usual apple one. Thus, I have no chance to reset the password. This cross symbol, with the spinning one beneath it, just goes on infinitely.

Try this.
1: Turn the machine on.
2: Hold down the Apple and S keys (this starts the machine in single user mode)
3: What to see the root prompt (hit the Return key a few times to make sure initialization is complete)
4: Type the following command followed by the Return key (see general warning below)
mount -uw /
5: The above command mounts your file system as modifiable
6: Type the following command, replacing shortname with your actual short name, followed by the Return key. Follow the prompts
passwd shortname
7: With the password reset, enter the following command followed by the Return key
reboot
Note 1: Your keychain may not unlock. Unlock it manually and then reset the password.
General warning: Single User Mode is all powerful and a mistake could result in loss of data, loss of function, or permanent damage to the operating system. Be careful. I am not responsible for any damage you may cause Research the information above if you have distrust.
Oh, and please, no debates about "security holes." This is a normal function of the machine and there are methods to prevent it.
Hope this helps.

Cannot startup from Tiger installer DVD

I am not able to restart from the OS 10.4 DVD. After several seconds of spinning with the apple on the screen I get a circle with a line through it and the spinning just continues

simply mac wont start up from usb devices... u need
an external firewire device to be able to boot...
Okay, that helps me. My device will do firewire, I'll just have to find the correct cable.
While I'm here, lemme explain my situation.
Recently, my father purchased an iMac with OS 9.2 preloaded on it for me (I'm mainly a windows user, but I've used an OS X machine at school so I'm fairly comfortable with Mac, and I'm adapting to OS 9). After tinkering for a while, I came to the conclusion that in order to make full use of my Mac, I'd probably want to upgrade to OS X. So my father went and purchased a copy of OS X from owcomputing.com (I'm thinking it's preowned as the seal was previously cut and taped together).
As all disks are DVDs, and iMacs have a CD-ROM drive, I connected a USB DVD drive to it and atempted to install. I have a black disk, reads "Mac OS X Tiger CPU Drop In DVD" and mentions "This software is part of a hardware bundle--not to be sold seperately" (it was bundeled with software, but not hardware. So perhaps that may be a problem). When I click the restart button from the installer it tells me it could not set to start from that disk.
As besous here has said, that probably means it just doesn't like the USB connection, I'll seek a means to make it firewire. In the meantime, it's mentioned in this thread that the grey software discs may or may not work for me as they did not come with my Mac originally. They read "eMac Software Install and Restore" Discs 1 & 2. This once again suggests the CDs were bundeled with a Mac previously and now is being sold separately as that's entirely the wrong model of Mac.
ALAS, those grey discs also read they're "Mac OS version 10.3.3". The black one says "Mac OS version 10.4". Does this mean I can disregard the two greys as they're for the wrong model of Mac and for a lesser version? And I should be okay to install off the black disk once I hook up the firewire cord for my external DVD drive correct?
iMac Mac OS 9.2.x Trying to upgrade to OS X Tiger

UPDATE : Toshiba Recovery Wizard 'cannot read from source file or disk' error (satellite L500)

UPDATE 2: Phoned Toshiba tech support again, guided by techie to begin the recovery again. Just before phoning I was able to go into recovery options and view the drive setup and all the files that couldn't be read are on the CD so I've no idea why the error kept occuring, and neither did the techie. Fingers crossed it works this time but I'm not overly hopefully given that we've just done exactly the same as I did before. UPDATE 1: I got into the BIOS and reset everything back to defaults and yay, my toshiba recovery wizard now starts! :-D On the down side, when trying to do a factory default software / out of the box recovery I continually get error messages with regards to copying the files, for example
cannot read from source file or disk
7z.dll
Type application extension
size 585kb
date modified 7/14/2009 10.26pm
other read / copy errors include PREINST6.SWM, BOOT_32, BOOTPRIORITY, CHECKMAXPTSIZE, CHGBOOT, CPU, CPUCHECK, CREATEPARTITION, CTRLDRVINFO, DISKWIPE, DMI, DPINST32, EBLIB.DLL, ERRORDIALOG, EW3BOOTSEQ, FWLINK, FWLINK.SYS, GETHDDINFO, GETKEYSTATE, IMAGEX, INFILED, INITRECAREA, KRAIADAPI.DLL ..... at which point I decided to 'skip all' :-/
Any explanations as to what's going on and how I might be able to fix it would be very much appreciated! :-) Thank you!
I have a two and half year old satellite L500 with an Intel i-3 and 4 gigs of RAM, on which I was running Windows 7.
Admittedly it’s had rather a hard life (I ran some very demanding CAD / graphics software on it) but it had always performed well until just recently, when after suffering several BSOD (which had never happened before), the hard drive failed.
I partitioned and formatted a brand new hard drive (which is perfectly fine and functions normally when hooked up to another laptop with a SATA to USB cable) and obtained system recovery discs from Toshiba. Unfortunately, when I try and run the first disc, windows starts to load files but then generates an error screen with the message Error F3-F100-0003 and a request to turn the computer off.
When I use the windows Memory Diagnostic to get into the Windows Boot Manager Screen I get the following;
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware / software change might be the case.
To fix the problem
Insert your windows installation disc and restart your computer
Choose your language settings and click ‘next’
Click ‘repair your computer’
File: \boot\memtest.exe
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: the selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.
I can also use F8 on startup to get into the advanced boot options but selecting any of them simply results in the F3-F100-0003 error message. I’ve run a memory test using the UBCD, which tells me the memory is fine, and tried another hard drive (which also works perfectly well in another laptop) but no joy. On phoning Toshiba support the techie said my hard drive had failed, but as I say, both hard drives are perfectly fine / usable when hooked up to another laptop. I’m now completely stuck as to what the problem is and how I might resolve it – any advice / suggestions would be most gratefully received! Thank you in advance :-)

Satellite L655-S5096
Downloads here.
the second disc gives me the the "cannot read from source file or disk PREINST8.SWM"
My best guess is that the disc is not readable. Try copying it to another. Sometimes that works.
Otherwise, order new discs from Toshiba.
-Jerry

Cannot Boot Windows 8 x64 Startup Repair Disk

Hello, I have a Toshiba Laptop Satellite L875D-S7332 Part No. PSKFQU-008003 With Windows 8 x64 Preinstalled. I created a Startup Repair Disk with a DVD. My problem is i cannot boot from this DVD. I changed the Bios to boot from DVD but it still doesn't work! Can Anyone help me? Thank You, heaven5733

Have the recovery disc in dvd drive restart and press f12 at startup then select optical disc drive.
S70-ABT2N22 Windows 7 Pro & 8.1Pro, C55-A5180 Windows 8.1****Click on White “Kudos” STAR to say thanks!****

TS3243 My Desktop Mac won't startup, it turns on to the grey screen flashing question file. I have been able to startup from the snow leopard install cd but once I try to repair within DU the disk never appears in the side panel. The only thing there is "

My Desktop Mac won't startup, it turns on to the grey screen flashing question file. I have been able to startup from the snow leopard install cd but once I try to repair within DU the disk never appears in the side panel. The only thing there is "Media"... What can I do? Help!

If Disk Utility cannot see your drive it doesn't look good.
You could try DiskWarrior. It is expensive but can often fix directory structures where DU cannot.
Replacing the drive is also a strong likelihood. If you don't have a fairly recent backup, then it might be worth buying DiskWarrior
additonal notes;
Gray screen appears during startup

Cannot delete file from disk after emailling that file like attachment

After i send some file from disk in Mail like attachment i cannot delete that file from disk unless i quit Mail. Like Mail is still using a file. Of course, that mail is in Sent mail, not in outbox.

This deeper than that. I created another account on the same iMac and it works in Harmony with my other devices and Documents in the cloud. I can only imagine the icloud account is somehow corrupted (I am on my macbook not iMac at the moment). There have been no updates to the Calendar, Contacts or Documents since early January on that account. I have spent 1hr on the phone with support and they were baffled as well. Only thing I can gove as insight to the problem is this, I was on the Mac Mini which was backed up on Time Machine. about 4 or 5 months ago I had to completley restore the Mac Mini becasue of the never ending circle on the load screen. The Backup failed to work it kept loading the issue and 4 or 5 times the circle of death kept coming up I would subsequently wipe the Mini and go further back in the back up until I go a copy that worked. I then loaded the Time Mache back up into my NEW iMac and wnet from there. It took about a month for this problem I am detailing above to start happening. It maybe a corrupt file loaded from the backup into the new iMac causing this problem. Best answer I can think of on my own???

Cannot startup from disk

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