MacBook Pro doesn't boot after attempting hard drive install

Here is what happened:
Installed new hard drive and ram upgrade.
Hit power button. (Nothing on the display or keyboard turned on.)
Heard the optical drive turn on every few seconds.
Held down the power button until it turned back off.
Installed the old hard drive and ram so everything I did was reversed like I did nothing at all.
Pressed power button.
Heard optical drive turn on (no chime noise-just the drive.)
Still no display on (it remains black.)
Tried resetting the smc. No changes.
Tried to attempt a pram reset. Nothing.
Battery shows full charge. Charger shows green light when plugged into computer.
Idk what I could have done or not done to make this happen.
MacBook Pro 15" 3,1 early 2008 or earlier.
Running mountain lion.

I fixed the issue. I researched many many forums and found no help on any of them, and sorry-no help on this one either.
What solved the issue - and I hope this helps someone else who has the same problem:
1). Install new hard drive (with or without osx pre installed)
2). Remove all ram
3). Power on and wait 1 minute
4). Hold power button until it turns off
5). Install ram
6). Power back on
7). BOOM! It works again.

Similar Messages

Late 2008 Macbook Pro doesn't boot after installing Mavericks

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, dual core 2.53 GHZ, 4 GB Ram (2x2).
I've been tearing my hair out trying to get this computer to boot up. Many things have been tried here. So here's the history.
Before starting this, I was running 10.6.8 on this computer.
First time I tried to install Mavericks, the installation failed, and when the computer went to restart, it just went in a loop, never really booting up, just getting the to gray screen with the apple symbol, spinning the wheel, and then going black again, restarting, and repeat. So, I took it into the Apple Genius Bar, and they diagnosed a bad battery. I replaced the battery, and had them do a clean restore back to 10.6.8.
I got it home, and tried to do an install again. This time, I downloaded the installer, and put in on an external firewire drive, and attempted to do a clean install of Mavericks. I ended up with the same boot failure problem.
I went back to the apple genius bar, and even though the diagnotics said my harddrive was fine, they said in the troubleshooting list, that the harddrive with the first thing they suspected. So, I replaced the harddrive. I did the Mavericks install again from an external HD, and for a moment, everything was great. It booted up into Mavericks. But, after my first restart, the problem was boot failure was back.
After reading a few articles, I tried booting in Safe mode. That worked. I also ran disk repair on the HD and it looked great. Still, it won't boot up out of Safe mode.
After being very frustrated, I tried just installing snow leopard from the dvd, but the install keeps failing.
Not sure what to do next.

Micajah10,
rather than a hard drive problem, you might have a faulty internal SATA cable. Do you have an external disk enclosure, or a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter? If you can boot from your hard drive without problems when it’s external, but it remains problematic internally, then that could point to the internal SATA cable as the culprit.

IMac taking long time to boot after new hard drive installed. Help?

I recently had a new hard drive installed on my iMac (running Snow Leopard). After the intall all was well, but I couldn't get my screensaver to work. Erroneously thinking it was missing, I reinstalled it and ended up with two screen saver folders in the system files. Now when I turn on the Mac, I get a white screen for several seconds (close to a minute) before the system shows me the Apple logo and then boots. I'm concerned about this. Did my copying the screen saver cause the problem? Should I reinstall my system software? I was planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion anyway. Will that fix the problem? Any suggestions appreciated.

Restart in Safe Boot Mode (hold the left Shift key as soon as you restart your computer and hold it until the Apple logo appears). Once it gets to the desktop you can restart normally. Safe Mode serves a number of purposes and one of them is to delete/trim temporary files that might be causing boot problems. There's no guarantee this will improve your startup time but it will do no harm and I have seen computers restart more quickly after a Safe Boot.

MacBook Pro doesn't boot after crash.

I only had it for a few month (Novebmer 2011).
It crashed while playing an online game and wouldn't let me close the game so I forced a restart by pressing the On/Off button. Trying to start back up I get a grey screen with an Apple logo and a ton of command line text with weird looking codes.
I already tried:
Disconnecting all USB devices.
Botting in Safe Mode (by holing down shift):
Works. Repaired permissons and tried to repair disk. Both tell me it's fine now but I still can't boot normally.
I also turned off Bluetooth just in case my Apple keyboard or touchpad are interfering.
Resetting RAM (by holding down command-option-P-R):No change.
Booting from the repair partiton (by holding down command-R):
Doesn't give me and options but also a grey screen just without the error messages I get when booting normally.
(I don't have a start-up disk to use as the new MacBook Pros don't ship with one.)
Selecting the repair partition after setting up internet in the bottom part.Also just agrey screen with error text.
The MacBook was bought from a Premium Reseller and they changed the RAM for me. I have the original lieing next to me but don't quite dare to change anything myself as I'm afraid I might break something and just make it worse. Given it's from a Premium Reseller I assume it should be apple approved or whatever though.
My second problem is that I'm in France and don't speak French so going to the Apple store is kind of a last resort. (And probably not a good experience.)
I'd be more than grateful for any tips on what else I could try.

What I think has happened is in the process of doing a Force Shut Down you have totally corrupted the hard drive.
Destroying even the Recovery partition.
Now this could be because of a hardware failure, like for some reason the hard drive just crapped out (it can happen at any time).
You can try to boot the computer from the internet, Apples web server. You do that by holding down the Command+R key combo as soon as you hit the power button.
If that does not take you to the internet boot system then you will more then likely have to wait for your Bar appointment.
Good luck.

Macbook pro doesn't boot after iOS upgrade

Hi all,
I've upgraded my macbook pro (was requested automatically the upgrade) and after reboot to finish the installation, my macbook doesn't boot up.
Is there any way to boot it up? A kind of boot in safe mode?
I'm trying to power it up but nothing. It doesn't boot at all.
Please, can you help me with this.
Thanks
Álvaro

iOS is for iPhone, iPad not for Mac. So what upgrade are you referring to?

MacBook Pro won't boot with new hard drive, but a different MacBook Pro will

So here are the details. My friend and I both have 13-inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pro's. Same processor and specs since they were purchased at the same time, but originally had 250 GB hard drives. His hard drive failed and needed a new one. Put a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 in his computer, and tried using a flash drive with "Install OS X Mavericks" on it to install Mavericks on his new hard drive. No matter what, it wouldn't install. I finally was able to install OS X 10.9.4 on it by connecting the new hard drive to my computer with a USB hard drive enclosure. I put the hard drive back inside his computer and it wouldn't boot (stuck on the gray screen with apple logo and a spinning wheel). I then attached to the hard drive to his computer externally with the USB enclosure, and then it booted and worked perfectly.
So, it seemed like the problem was with something inside his computer, but then I switched our drives, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I put my original hard drive into his computer, and his new hard drive into my computer, and they both booted and worked perfectly, so I have no idea why his computer will not boot with the new hard drive internally.
To summarize, his computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally (won't work if it's internal), and 2) my hard drive internally
but my computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally AND internally, and 2) my hard drive internally.
Both hard drives have OS X 10.9.4 installed
If anyone has any idea what's causing this and how to make his computer work with the new hard drive internally that would be greatly appreciated.

So after switching the internal SATA cables from each computer, now we have
His computer, with my SATA cable:
1) Worked with every hard drive!
My computer, with his SATA cable:
1) Works with 1 TB Toshiba hard drive
2) Works with 500 GB Seagate hard drive
3) Works with my original hard drive
4) Flashing folder with question mark with his old hard drive
So it turns out you were right! Definitely had something to do with the SATA cables. But it's still strange that mine was able to boot with all the hard drives except the one that was originally in his. So it seems like it was some combination of his SATA cable and something else, since when his SATA cable was in his computer only 1 hard drive (my original) worked, and when it was in my computer, 3 hard drives worked. But at least its working, and I'm just gonna keep our SATA cables switched since that seems to work out fine

MacBook Pro will not boot - have replaced hard drive and problem persists

Macbook Pro Mid 2010
4gb ram, 2.4 GHz Intel core 2 duo
Originally when I received a folder with a flashing question mark upon startup, I assumed I had a failed hard drive. I went ahead and installed a new 500GB hard drive in my machine and installed OS X Snow Leopard. I upgraded to OS X Mavericks, and I had everything running properly. The next day, I went to startup and my Mac would not boot again. The dreaded folder and question mark were back.
I'm wondering what else could be causing this problem? Is it something I can diagnose and repair myself or will I be better off taking it into someone at this point?
Thank you!

You can try replacing the hard drive cable...
Have you tried resetting the PRAM and SMC?
Does the hard drive boot when connected externally?

Z61t Doesn't boot after upgrading hard drive

I'm upgrading the hard drive on my girlfriend's Lenovo Z61t laptop and am running in to a strange problem.
The computer will not boot anymore! I cloned the old disk to the new one using acronis true image and when I insert the new disk into the laptop and boot it, after the system prompt there's a blinking dash at the top left corner of the screen.
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Z_Series_Thinkpads&message.id=469&query.id=23938...
This user seemed to have experienced the same issue as me. Unfortunately, no reply to his post
Drive is detected in the BIOS, PC doctor reports no problem on both the short and extended test... And to top it off, if I insert the driver into my HP laptop windows will start loading as expected
Are lenovo laptop cursed?
Any help is appreciated!

I fixed the issue. I researched many many forums and found no help on any of them, and sorry-no help on this one either.
What solved the issue - and I hope this helps someone else who has the same problem:
1). Install new hard drive (with or without osx pre installed)
2). Remove all ram
3). Power on and wait 1 minute
4). Hold power button until it turns off
5). Install ram
6). Power back on
7). BOOM! It works again.

Failure to boot after new hard drive install

trying to resurrect old graphite 466mh firewire clamshell.
It was running tiger fine, had a problem charging it so sat in basement for a year. Turns out it was powercord,replaced, and now working again. Decided to replace the 10G hard drive, using the fixit site manual. Installed a Toshiba 80G drive, am now unable to boot from tiger cd's (not dvd) while holding down c-key. Any suggestions? By the way, have access to other firewire iBook running tiger but don't know how to boot from that. Any help much appreciated!

The reason for not being able to start
via 'C' on you new drive may be because it is
assigned (jumpered) incorrectly as the 'Slave' rather
than the 'Master'.
Of course! it seems so obvious now
you've said it.
Actually it's almost
certainly best that this gets done sooner rather than
later or it is complicate any future trouble
shooting
kind regards
mrtotes
OK gentlemen (thanks for responding). So I hook up the 2 iBooks, put the tiger cd in my wife's iBook and start them up. On the screen of the ibook I'm trying to resurrect my wife's desktop appears. I go into disk utility, it scans the systems and the only icons that appear are my wife's hard drive and the new (untitled) hard drive. No sign of the tiger installation cd. I can restore my wife's hard disk onto the untitled drive and end up with a working system. I know little about slaves and masters (I don't get out much)- how do I assign the new drive?
thanks again,
marc

My Macbook Pro doesn't recognize my external hard drive

I had my external HD attached to my MBpro when I attempted to empty trash. The trash window showed it emptying thousand upon thousands of files (way more than was in the bin) and had a negative sign in front of the number of items being deleted. I canceled the emptying, but now the computer won't recognize the HD. It appears in Disk utility but not in desktop or sidebar. What happened and how do I fix it?

In Disk Utility, try using the Mount button in the top menu.
Disconnect the external drive, turn it off, wait about 1 minute, reconnect, and turn it back on. While waiting, restart the computer.
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

Can I purchase Mountain Lion and make a flash drive bootable? I do not want to install it on my Macbook Pro. I have Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro now, and due to my hard drive needing repair I need to boot off of another source, like my flash drive.

Can I purchase Mountain Lion and make a flash drive bootable? I do not want to install it on my Macbook Pro. I have Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro now, and due to my hard drive needing repair, I need to boot off of another source, like my flash drive. I am in Paris and my Snow Leopard DVD is in Texas.

Mac OS X has a built-in disk diagnostic and repair program called fsck or file system consistency check. Here’s how to verify and repair your startup disk with fsck. As soon as you hear the startup tone, press and hold Command-S on the keyboard. Keep holding down those keys until you see a black screen with white lettering. This is called “booting into Single User Mode.” As the Mac boots in this mode, the screen reports each step of the process. The line should end in root#. Right after the root# prompt, enter the following: /sbin/fsck -fy
If repairing the disk in single user mode fails, it means one of two things. Either your hard drive itself is failing (a hardware failure), or the directory damage on your hard drive is beyond the capability of the built-in repair procedures in OS X.

MacBook Pro won't boot after trying to install 10.7.3 update. Start up stalls at Apple logo and spinning gear.

MacBook Pro won't boot after trying to install 10.7.3 update. Start up stalls at Apple logo and spinning gear. Computer won't even start in safe mode.

My daughter's MacBook Pro was doing exactly the same thing. I don't know if it had anything to do with the latest update. She called me about a week ago saying that her MacBook began running slower by the day . She then called me Friday and told me that it wouldn't get past the gray screen and the gear just kept on spinning. I did everything I could over the phone including Safe mode which it wouldn't go into and thought maybe it was the hard drive. She took it to the Apple store. Originally, they also thought it was the hard drive. It ended up being a corrupted operating system (Lion). Apple genius simply re-installed Lion and she's back up and running. Good thing she backed up right before it crapped out. She'll be restoring everything tonight. Don't know if re-installing Lion will help your situation, but it did the trick for my daughter.

MacBook Pro will not boot after software update

MacBook Pro will not boot after doing an Apple Software Update (of course they will not help you). MONEY, MONEY, MONEY is the name of the game. They can cause your computer to crash and still charge you!
Does anyone have an answer to why my computer is showing a little gear spinning for hours? I have tried several things with NO luck.
Thanks-

Run through the list of fixes here
Step by Step to fix your Mac

Macbook pro won't boot after installing update 10.9.3

macbook pro won't boot after installing update 10.9.3

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

How do I get my MacBook Pro to recognize my Toshiba external hard drive?

How do I get my MacBook Pro to recognize my Toshiba external hard drive? I'm working on transferring my music from our home computer to my new laptop and I already got all my music onto the hard drive but now, when I plug it into my MacBook Pro, it doesn't recognize it. There isn't an icon that pops up and nothing happens at all. The blue light on the hard drive that indicates that it knows it is plugged into something comes up but that's about it. Someone told me I might have to "format" it but I don't know what that means and I don't know how to do it. I just want to get my music from the hard drive to my laptop so please help!

natgray17 wrote:
I don't know about your first question... I went to finder, preferences, then general but I didn't see anything for the hard drive.
Huh, in the Finder menu, Preferences, you will see this:
Nope, disk utility cannot see it. I've tried unplugging it and plugging it back in but it still won't recognize it.puter that's a Mac...
If DU cannot see it then the preferences is just an academic exercise.
If this is a USB drive then as mentioned above you may need a powered USB hub since there may not be enough power from the USB to run the drive. What else do you have plugged into the USB ports? If there's some stuff you can unplug it then do it and see if your drive mounts.
What do you mean from a Windows machine? It's a Toshiba hard drive and I put my music on it from my home computer that's a Mac...
Which is all I wanted to know, i.e., whether the drive came from a Winows machine. So it's been formatted and created on a mac. Therefore it should mount on this other mac machine. So it most likely is a power problem.

MacBook Pro doesn't boot after attempting hard drive install

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for