Late (October) 2008 MBP stuck at white boot screen

Howdy!
Several days ago, my MacBook (running mountain lion, though his problem started before I upgraded from lion) started lagging on and off. I would click on something simple (like clicking an Internet link, or an item in the menu bar), and sometimes it would work, fine, and other times, it would take up to ten minutes or so to complete the task! So I did some research to find out what could be causing this, and ended up finding out (via SMART utility) that my hard drive had some bad sectors, and was failing. So I was just planning on replacing it, but last night, Andrew shutting my computer down, and then tried rebooting it. Then my worst (techi) nightmere came true. The drive spun up, fans turned on, the screen turned white/gray, and it made the "Dooooooo" startup sound, and that's all. It just hanged there. I let it sit like that for well over an hour, and nothing changed. When I press the power button, I don't have to hold it for several second to turn it off, I just have to tap it, and it shutdown. I tried clearing Pram, and that caused it to reboot, so I know it's getting a signal from the keyboard, but that didn't have any effect.
What is this indicative of? I don't think it's tr hard drive because it does it even when it's removed. I'd read that some people had their graphics card give out, thus requiring that the logic board be replaced, but they usually had different symptoms.
Help!
Thank!
Paul

Bump.

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Sadly i cant get my warranty information since i cant get past boot up, and the serial number in the battery area is to small to read (the letters or numbers are literaly blobs)
I have tried holding shift at boot and it does nothing and holding alt during boot only shows the hard drive icon, but when i click it im back to stage 1.

Spaghettipopsicle wrote:
Today i was using my mac book pro and it was working just fine, and i shut it off and when i tried to use it later I get stuck at this screen.
Your Mac is attempting to fix your drive and it's not succeeding, you can let it go for some time and see if it clears up.
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS3148
Do these steps.
If on 10.6 stick a clean and polished 10.6 disk into the computer and reboot holding the c key down.
If on 10.7 hold the command and r keys and boot, you'll enter Lion Recovery Partition.
Under the Utilities Menu is Disk Utility, use it to Repair Disk (note any failures!) and Repair Permissions (ignore list)
See if your computer boots, if not repeat the above steps and use Disk Utility to format a blank external drive, Partiiton Tab, Option: GUID, format OS X extended (J) and click apply.
Next quit and install 10.6/10.7 onto the external drive, when that completes, hold the option key down and you can boot from it. Retrieve your files off the internal drive to the external.
If you cant' see your internal drive in Disk Utility, it's likely failed.
Sometimes you can software like Data Rescue, installed on another Mac or a external boot drive and "read" the failed drive for any salvagable data, provided it's still working mechnically. Good thing about DataResue supposedly is you don't pay unless it's sure it can recover some of your files. I never used it as I make many backups, or bootable clones.
Mechanically failed drives data can only be recovered by platter dissection, a very expensve process.
There is several ways to read the drive, take it out and place it in a enclosure or use a IDE/SATA to USB adapter cable with another Mac or PC (with MacDrive) or use another Mac and Firewire Target Disk Mode (hold T on the sick Mac)
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If the drive works and you got your data off of it, you can erase it (use the Zero option, GUID/OS X Ext.J) and reinstall OS X, same user name as before, update, (Repair Disk from disk if on 10.6.8) install programs and return files last (and in that order exactly) your machine will be as close as possible to the way it was.
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http://www.bombich.com/
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Berija wrote:
Ah. Its a MBP 3.06ghz- 4GB Ram and 500gb hd with 10.6.2 on it. Yes I have lost my restore AND Snow Leopard update disk..just moved and may have left it else were =(
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Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me?
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Hi BDAqua
i tried safe boot. The white apple screen still comes up pixelated but with a grey loading bar at the bottom. Once the bar has loaded fully, nothing happens. it stays frozen on that screen until I have to force it to shutdown by pressing and holding the power button on the front of the tower.
i Tried holding the alt key. It brings up the devices, the screen is still pixelated. Pressing either one of the disk drives, didn't do anything new Unfortunately.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SundeepToor/status/559966340883415040/photos
hopefully you can see what my screen looks like in the link.

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ok so my hard disk recently became full unexpectedly so I downloaded a few applications to clear out the small unneeded files that just take up disk space.
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Is there anything I can do tonight to fix the problem, or will I just have to wait until I can bring it into the store? I have some files i need to access tonight because I have a big exam tomorrow so it's pretty urgent.
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Press the Power Button and immediately press and hold down the Command and the S keys as the machine starts up. This boots you into Single-user mode and you should see white text appear on the screen.
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Click Repair Disk.
Starting up in single-user mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

Late (October) 2008 MBP stuck at white boot screen

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