MacBook Pro HD issues; won't boot to any drive; need to recover data

*Apologies in advance for the lengthy post. I just want to be sure I include as much detail as possible. Thanks in advance for reading all of this and offering any thoughts and suggestions.
I have a 13-inch late 2011 MacBook Pro running OS 10.7.
The computer recently began booting slower and slower until finally one day it did nothing but show the gray boot screen with the apple and a spinning circle and/or progress bar at the bottom. It won't do anything else. I assume it's the HD; no surprise there. What's killing me is that no matter what I do, I can't boot to any disk, internal or external, can't mount it in target disk mode, and can't repair it or recover data, which is a first for me with any HD. However, the computer still clearly sees the drive, and the drive sounds and runs normally (meaning no clicks; appropriate amount of whirs and such).
What I've done so far:
Reset PRAM — no help
Reset SMC — no help
Boot in Safe Mode — same result as regular boot: gray logo screen with spinning wheel
Disk Utility message:
Verify Disk — "Error: This disk nees to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
Repair Disk — gets as far as "Checking catalog file" then shows "Keys out of order". Next is "Rebuilding catalog B-tree." Then "The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired."
fsck — same as Disk Utility: "Keys out of order (4, 22016)", "Rebuilding catalog B-tree", then "The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired." FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED." ...over and over again
If I hold Option while starting the computer, it gives me only two drives to boot from, regardless of any other external HDs or flash drives I have attached: Macintosh HD (internal), and Recovery HD (internal partition). If I choose Macintosh HD, it's hit or miss whether it prompts the Disk Utility screen or just gray-screens forever. If I choose Recovery HD, it successfully runs Disk Utility every time. Here's the thing, though — if I attach an external HD, it doesn't see it during the initial Option-startup. However, from Disk Utility I'm able to select a startup disk from the menu to restart into. It sees the externals in there every time and lets me select them as startup disks, but upon restart it returns to the gray Apple logo screen with spinning wheel and/or progress bar at bottom. Sometimes it also sees the internal Macintosh HD here, but selecting that is useless. I can't actually boot from any disk, internal or external, running full OS or even just recovery software.
I've tried using TechTool Pro 8's edisk and ProToGo bootable drives, but again, the MacBook only sees them from Disk Utility only (not on Option-start), and I can select them, but it doesn't actually boot to them; it reverts back to gray screen.
I've installed a full version of OS 10.10.2 on an external hard drive, complete with DiskWarrior 4 on it, but same problem as above — it sees it in the "Select Startup Disk" menu, but not in the initial Option-start or successful reboot.
I've tried booting from a DiskWarrior 4 DVD using C-startup. It recognizes and spins the DVD from the get-go. Eventually it boots to it (after about 20 minutes or so of reading the DVD). I'm able to launch DiskWarrior 4 and start a rebuild. However, it goes all the way through "Step 6: Constructing optimized replacement directory... Overlapped files detected: 7 ...Step 7: Finishing construction ...Step 8: Reading from disc, one moment please..." and then the computer kernel panicked. This happened several times. I reset the PRAM again, then retried DiskWarrior DVD boot, this avoided a kernel panic and it got as far as "Comparing directories... Step 9: Recording any file or folder differences; 3,449,089,956 tests..." and then DiskWarrior and the computer both freeze and I have to force shutdown.
The drive will not mount to another laptop in Target Disk Mode.
Disk Arbitrator immediately sees the the faulty laptop HD, but won't let me mount or unmount it. It's just there, grayed out.
Data Rescue 4 is able to see the faulty laptop HD through Target Disk Mode, even though the drive itself will not mount to my desktop. I am able to scan the drive using DR4, and start a data recovery process. However, DR4 is dumping all recovered data into "User Defined" ai (Adobe Illustrator) files, which makes absolutely no sense at all. What's more, the files aren't able to be opened by any program. Even files that it hasn't recovered into ai files, like txt and mpegs, cannot be opened. I've tried recovering from both the drive itself and from a clone of the drive (made through DR4), with the same result each time.
So, all of that said, I guess my first question is what the **** is going on? The drive mechanically is functioning fine, but there seems to be an issue with its readability (and the directory/files?).
What's more, why won't this laptop mount ANY drive? I should be able to Option-boot into any drive, especially if the USB ports, drives, and OS's are all fully functional, right? Is there any workaround I'm missing? Even if the internal drive and data are just screwed, what's causing a total lack of mounting or booting of any drive, internal or external?

Holy crap, I got it to work.
Essentially, I just waited until DiskWarrior reached Step 9 and told it to skip the step before it had a chance to freeze. It skipped successfully, moved on, rebuilt and replaced the faulty directory files.
So far the computer is booting like normal, I can log in, and I'm currently copying all of the data to an external as I type this.
I still have no idea why the computer wouldn't mount or boot to any drive, but I guess I'll deal with that later.

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sspott wrote:
** The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired.
Looks to me like a fatal error on the hard disk. IMHO, the only solution is to boot from an external device, reformat the hard drive, and restore from backup. If you don't have a backup, you're in trouble. Boot from the external device, try to mount the int'l drive, and, if successful, back up as much as possible. Also, try running Disk Utility—it may be possible to fix it while booted from a different device, thought I wouldn't bank on it. At any rate, make sure to run an AHT afterwards, to check for possible hardware issues with the drive.
If the machine is still covered by AppleCare, take it to the store by all means. But they won't try to recover anything from the int'l drive, just check it, erase it if they don't find hardware issues, and re-install a fresh copy of the OS.
That's why you should always have at least 1 up-to-date backup (2, with one kept off-site, is better).

My Macbook Pro (early 2008) won't boot, then booted, now won't boot again.

Hey all,
Summary:
My GF's Macbook Pro (Early 2008, non-unibody I believe) "died" earlier this year without notice or a cause for why, then it worked months later, then it didn't again.
Symptoms:
It stopped booting, with the only signs of life are:
The annoying boot sound that you hear right-away, like a winding sound. "Weeeeah woooo"
A fan turns on immediately after the sound.
The front light (on the open button) is solid.
The battery will light up and show how much juice is left.
The only thing to do from here is to hold down the power for 10 seconds.
Don't worry, my story gets more interesting...
Now, I had another computer and my GF didn't need her macbook seriously for a while, so I didn't research the problem or how to fix it, until last week. Perusing the various help forums and communities, I came across the reset SMC suggestion, so I decided to try a few things on Apple's SMC reset page.
I tried a couple things, including taking the battery out, and LOW AND BEHOLD: IT CAME ON, like nothing happened! The screen was fine, the performance was fine, it updated (to the new Safari and iTunes, as an example) fine, and it restarted fine multiple times. One of the main reasons I wanted to get it working was to save some family pictures we had saved, so I started uploading the images to an image cloud site. I'm sending them at full-res so it takes a while and I go to sleep around 2 am so I'm not too late into the office in the morn. When I wake up, I go to check the image upload progress and the laptop is Off. I figure it just went into standby after finishing, so I hit the power button...
And it doesn't boot again. It's back to the same issue as before. I try doing what I did last time, then resetting the SMC, but nothing has worked this time.
Any ideas? It's out of warranty of course, which is why I'm here.
Thanks in advance!

Since no one else is answering, I’ll jump in.
Your story is interesting indeed. I’m not sure I can help you fix the Mac but it sounds like there is a reasonable chance of recovering the data.
I assume it came with installation disks. Will it boot from them? If so run Disk Utility from there and try to repair the system disk.
For the hardware problems on your Mac it is time to take it to Genius Bar at an Apple store for a free diagnosis and estimate of repairs.
Genius reservation http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/ .
It could be your disk failing but it sounds more like flakey electronics in the system. Let’s assume is is the system board until a Genius tells you otherwise. If so, you can simply put the working system disk in an external enclosure, mount that on your other Mac and copy the data. Here is a source for the inexpensive hardware you would need:
Toolkit: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TOOLKITMHD/
SATA enclosure: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ES2.5BPU2W/
There are multiple directions to go from here. Let me know what happens when you try theses first options.

2007 macbook pro keeps restarting won't boot up

Hello,
I have a fairly old MAcbook Pro (2007). Recently, after rrsinsatlling and erasing the hard drive, my MBP will not Boot up. Ive tried Resetting PRAM, SMC, etc. The symptoms are as follows.
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Aple had a repair extension program for this but it expired in December 2012.
I called around a lot, finally calling Cupertino to be told the 2007 MBP not longer qualifes for a flat-rate repair due to a lack of parts.
My point is you may not be able to get the flat-rate repair. I replaced mine with a refurb entry-level 13-inch MBP that nearly twice as fast, has over 4X the hard drive space, and cost half of what the old MBP did. That was after getting several estimates for a new logic board from third-party service centers that where in the US$500-900 range. I paid US$1020 for the refurb 13-incher.

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Your options are:
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Thanks!!!

Did you prepare the new SSD?
Drive Partition and Format
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Now try installing Snow Leopard.

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System info:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1900+
Motherboard Model: K7N420 Pro
Memory: (Varying, this is the problem, explained in post: but to begin with the system had 2 modules of 256MB PC2100 266mHz. Brand name unknown, some generic manufacturer. For reference's sake, the motherboard has THREE memory slots)
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(Doesn't this sound like like one of those old logic problems where you have to sort out who owns which house?)
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*deep breath* I know that was long, thanks to anybody who read this far. Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing these problems and/or how to fix it? I've reached the end of all the knowledge I can put to work on this problem.
If I haven't been clear on anything, please let me know, I'll try to answer.

Hello,
Are you 100% sure that slot 3 is clean/dust free?
Memtest is a program that writes patterns to the memory.
The program then tries to recall the pattern(data) stored in the memory location.
If the memory is faulty the pattern(data) may have altered (goes corrupt) and the program will report an error.
Use just 1 stick at a time in slot 1.
Patriot Bill, let memtest run for say 3 hours.
If everything is ok you will not see any errors on the screen.
Then turn off and remove patriot Bill.
Insert patriot Ted into slot 1.
Run memtest again for 3 hours.
Again if everything is ok after the 3 hours it means that both Bill and Ted are ok.

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Sorry - missed that part about having used both USB ports...
Since you've verified that the USB thumb drive works on another Mac, and that it won't boot whilst holding down the option key, I would advise taking your machine to an Apple Store or an AASP to have them diagnose your machine (which will be free). They, too, should have USB sticks that they can use to test the machine.
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I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
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When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
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PT880 New system won't boot to any drive

I am putting together a new system:
Case: Aspire X-Superalien
Power Supply: 500w (came w/case) which says:
AC INPUT: 115V/230V~ 10/5A 50-60HZ
DC OUTPUT: +3.3V +5V +12V -5V -12V +5VSB
28A 30A 34A 0.3A 0.8A 2.0A
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(no idea what all that means, but you guys seem to)
The PS also has 2 blue 80 mm lighted fans
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Video Card: GeForce 2 MX400
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Mitsumi 3.5 in. floppy drive
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I can get to my BIOS. All my drives appear in BIOS and show up as the correct slave, master settings. I have disabled all the SATA RAID stuff. When I try to boot up, it does a memory test, lists all my drives and stuff...then freezes. I have tried changing the boot up order of my drives into all possible orders. The four lights on the back give me different messages each time. Nothing consistent there. What could be keeping me from booting to my drives?

Your PSU looks to be quite capable of handling a Prescott, so as Raidahs said, all you need is the BIOS flash. I asked you for your rail by rail currents in another post, but as I see them here, never mind. Unfortunately, since Intel kept making changes to the Prescott, the earliest BIOS that will run the Prescott for this board is v1.4. The boards are shipped with v1.1, which is rather aggravating. If you don't have access to a Northwood chip (P4 with 'C' after it's speed, ie. 2.8C), I would suggest contacting either MSI or whoever you purchased your board from, and ask them to update your BIOS. Do not let them talk you into paying for this service, as the board's packaging plainly states that it is designed for the Prescott, despite the fact that it does not support it out of the box.
If you have any problems, just let us know. Heck, keep us posted no matter what happens

MacBook Pro 2011 15" won't boot - ML

Hi,
Over the past few weeks I've bene experiencing problems with my 2011 15" MBP.
Initially, I though they were s/w related, but am no longer certain ... and was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience?? Here's what's been happening:
* about a month ago my machine started to run really slowly. It didn't freeze, but would run incredibly slowly. After reading the forums, I found some info RE apple mail and vacuuming the mail file and a few other housecleaning suggestions which claimed to help. I did these and it seemed that things went back to normal, particularly after deleting the index file in mail.
* Alas, the problem crept back after about a week. This time my machine came close to unresponsive, so I decided to reboot. Upon doing this, I couldn't get into the OS ... the grey apple logo appeared on start-up, then a white indicator bar, then it would just shut down. I tried booting into the recovery mode and using disk utility to check permissions. There were heaps of errors. I realised that fixing permissions can sometimes do harm, but had a complete TM backup so I wasn't too stressed. The repaair perimissions failed. I then did a verify disk and this too failed. Hmm.
* Now I thought that the HDD may be bad, or that the OS had become corrupted, so I decided to do a clean install of ML. This worked ... and all was well ... I made sure to check permissions and the disk in disk utility a few times and it said all was perfect.
* I managed to load my apps and data/files from TM backup. But, the day that I did a restore of my iphoto library (220Gb), the machine started running slow again. I noticed that a few times it seemd to be stuck indexing the HDD. Odd. It never got passed 'calculating the time'. I rebooted a couple of times, then was back to the unable to start scenario.
* Once again, I went into recovery mode, disk utilities and found heaps of disk permission errors. This time the option to fix was avail, so I 'fixed them'. After rebooting back into recovery mode and trying this again, more permission errors were found, but the option to fix them was now greyed out. I also tried to verify the disk and this failed - indicating HDD issues.
* My second last step was to go into terminal and try /sbin/fsck -yf to check the HDD. The HDD passed all tests and reported back that it was fine. Hmm?
* Finally I tried booting into my Windows 7 partition and that worked fine. I was also able to see the data in the OS X partition - but have't tried doing anything with it (yet).
Before I run off ad replace the HDD, or freak out that maybe something more sinister is damaged ... I hope someone out there could offer further troubleshooting suggestions or help? Does thid sound s/w or h/w related?
BTW, My HDD is a Toshiba MK 7559GSXF 750 Gb.
PS - My machine exhibited the exact same symptoms last year when I was running Snow Leopard. The Apple store recommended I do a clean install - which I did - and at the same time switched to ML. Since then, all was running fine for about a year!
PS - I don't have Disk Warrior ... but have had a quick look at it ... not so simple to use and wasn't sure what verison to run on Moutain Lion.
Thanks in advance ...

Hi ds store,
Thanks heaps for your help. In your suggestion, you mentioned two things:
1) Reformat the drive with a secure erase. When I did my previous (non secure) format of the drive, I made sure to check with DU that the drive was OK. After the format, it reported 'no errors' at all. I'm just wondering how the secure format will provide any additional benefit? Assuming that once that's done it will again report no errors. I guess what I am asking is, does the secure format do a more thorough scan or check as part of the process?
2) Find and replace 'corrupted' files. Yikes ... how does one do this? I've got about 700Gb of data (pics, files, work, research, etc). How could I identify possible issues?
As an aside, I have not yet performed the format b/c I reaslised that I have a few photos in my iPhoto library that didn't backup before this issue. There are about 100 recent pics that didn't make it to the TM iPhoto backup. As mentioend before, I can boot in my Win7 partition and 'see' the Mac HD, and know I can copythe files in the Master directory across (if I knew which ones they were) ... but ...
Think it would be easier to connect my iMac (running SL) to my MBP and open the iPhoto library directly on my iMac. This way I could identify the relevant pics quickly and copy them to my iMac temporarily.
However, for some reason, even though I've turned on sharing for the MacHD/...users/XX/Photos directory (while in Win7), my iMac doesn't recognise or allow me to open the iPhoto directory - is this a permission thing ... or is it b/c I am trying to look at a Mac partition 'through' the Win7 o/s?
Any advice would be great ..
Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro (early 2011) won't boot, sleep light comes on and fans come on high.

Just had a stick of RAM and the CPU replaced by Apple for an unrelated issue, but now this has cropped up. A little searching indicated that the GPU became unsoldered, but I'm curios if anyone can shed some light on this issue.
Thanks.

Did you do anything in particular to get it to boot up? If I could get mine to boot then I could work with it. I've got an external monitor that might connect, but if not, I should be able to share the screen from my Mac Mini. But I can't get it to boot.
Also, what time zone are you in? Since the same problem happened to us both on the same day, I wonder if something in the date is causing a failure in sleep/wake. I've had my fingers crossed that when tomorrow rolls around it will boot up again. Crazy, perhaps, we'll see. You give me hope.

What's wrong with my 2008 MacBook pro? It won't boot up, but I can hear it running!

i can't get my computer to turn on. I can hear a sound when I press the power button but nothing on the screen. The sound is not the boot up sound. I can also hear a fan running.

What is the sound?
Is it a sequence of beeps?
How about when you shine torch (Flashlight) on or behind the screen, can you see anything? Sometimes the backlight fails, but the computer is still running.

MacBook Pro HD issues; won't boot to any drive; need to recover data

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