Macbook Pro Refuses to Book

When starting my Macbook Pro it won't boot. All I get is a folder with a question mark.  If I try and boot from the Lion DVD (I don't have a Mavericks one, which is the OS on my Macbook), I get the 'you must restart' multilingual message
Using Internet recovery I went into Disk utility, and all I see apart from the Superdrive is disk0 OS X Base System, which I can nothing with.
I have tried changing the Hard Disk for a band new one, and I get exactly the same problem as above in Disk Utility.
I cannot afford to replace my Macbook, so any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks,
TG

A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by one or more of these:
Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Note that the information I have provided is what Apple recommends, If other users suggest different solutions than found here, then be sure what they recommend does not impact on your warranty, if any, or ability to get continuing Apple service.
Please don't start removing drives or changing cables unless you know what you are doing and have exhausted other non-invasive alternatives outlined here. If you perform any work yourself that is unapproved by Apple, then you will void any warranty you may have and lose all further Apple Support.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
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. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD. Simply boot from the Recovery HD to perform the above.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
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. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

  • After a year of no use and a fully discharged battery, my MacBook Pro refuses to accept the administrator name and the password. How can I reset these?

    After a year of no use and a resulting fully discharged battery, the MacBook Pro refuses to recognize the administrator name and password (both). It has system OS X 10.6 which can not be upgraded without the information. How can I reset or reistall the administrator name and password?

    Thanks to all who responded. You are all absolutely correct. However, this Ipad was a gift to my wife who was dying of cancer in the hospital and wanted some entertainment. So I started it out with her Apple ID. After she passed away I moved from Sacramento to Austin and eventually proceeded to get the Apple ID changed from my wife's to mine. Meanwhile when she was in the hospital I opened an Itunes account in my name to buy movies for her. That was the first mistake.
    Then during the move to Austin I lost track of the IPAD and later found it and tried to use support but could not remember the proper ID. Later the folks at the Apple store helped me create a new and novel Apple ID that was unfortunately unlike any other.
    The botom line is that I am stuck with three Apple IDs and three passwords. I am told by Apple there is nothing they can do about this as IDs cannot be changed or destroyed. I can quit using them or start a new account but when I try to do that the system keeps remembering too many things from the past and resists.
    Even if I sold this Ipad and bought a new one, the system memory is still there.
    I think the real problem is that destop and laptop computers are totally owned by an individual and that individual can control logins and passwords to his liking. IPADs and similar Apple products are different in that the corporation has built in their own intrusion detection schemes because of the relation to Itunes.
    One thing I thought about is to open a new Itunes account pretendding to be a new customer with my regular Apple ID. Perhaps I could do the same with Apple Support.
    Thanks for your comments.
    RAZ

  • MacBook Pro refuses to recognize mouse

    Suddenly my MacBook Pro refuses to recognize any mouse.  Any ideas pn what can be done?  I have rebooted and installed new batteries in both an apple mouse and a Logitech mouse but no response from the MacBook.

    Have you tried other headphones just to rule out the problem is not with the connector on the headphone? Are all Apple updates applied? Try a SMC reset: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

  • Importing contacts from iPhone to MacBook Pro's address book

    Do I need to download and install iTunes onto my MacBook Pro, in order to transfer contacts from my iPhone into my MacBook Pro's address book? If I simply plug my iPhone into my MacBook Pro's USB port, is there a way to get it to sync to my address book? Or do I need to first install iTunes; as is the case for syncing to Outlook running under Windows?

    You need iTunes (it should already be on your MBP, though!).
    Also, if your goal is to transfer the contacts from the iPhone to the computer, you must have at least one new contact in the MBP's Address Book app. If it's empty, the contacts on the phone will be wiped. Create a new (dummy) contact, then sync the iPhone and you'll be prompted to Merge or Replace the data - choose the Merge option.

  • HT201295 Late 2011 Macbook Pro refuses to boot. SMC reset doesn't work

    Late 2011 Macbook Pro refuses to boot. SMC reset does nothing. Have tried bypassing SMC (nothing).
    Magsafe light glows very very faintly (barely visible in a room with lights on).
    Have tried reseating the battery connector. Battery indicator status button illuminates no LEDS (despite it being charged before failing).
    The mac didn't get wet. Was using a non apple USB cable at the time to tether/charge iphone. Computer just dead after working fine.
    Any ideas anyone. Logic board?
    Many thanks and best wishes
    Jamie

    Is it a 15" or 17" MBP? There have been logic board issues with that model.
    https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro
    For all models.
    If it's a 13" take the bottom off and disconnect the battery:
    https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Late+2011+Battery+Repla cement/7649
    So only do this through step #3!
    Wait 10 seconds. Push the power button for 5 seconds. Wait 10 seconds. Reconnect the battery. Put the bottom back on don't screw it on just yet. Tape it temporarily in place and try to start it
    Even if it's a 15" or 17" try this anyway.  Usually when graphics on the logic board fails there will have been anomalies beforehand.

  • Macbook pro refusing to turn on for longer than two seocunds

    i have a macbook pro early 2008 model that is refusing to turn on for more than two seconds. it makes the hard drive sound as if it is about to book then shuts down. if i hold the power button it stays on for maybe 5 seconds before the little led at the front flashes rapidly then it turns off. i have tried every type of reset and i have even tried heating the logic board but none of this seems to work? it was fine until it didnt want to wake up from sleep so i restarted then it started doing this to me i have never had any problems with it previously. what should i do?

    Take it to an Apple store or AASP.

  • Macbook Pro refusing to boot

    Hi There.
    My 2008 macbook pro (installed with Lion) is refusing to boot.
    It gets past the chimes and shows the apple logo, but then just sits there with the spinning icon indefinately.
    Prior to this is was very unresponsive.
    I've tried to select the recovery HD partition, but after selecting it still goes to the apple logo and spinning icon.
    Any help greatly appreciated!

    See this Apple note on booting with a gray screen. (while this note says for operating systems thru 10.6, the steps are valid up to how to reload the operating system).  You may need to use your original OS X disks to boot and use Disk Utility to repair the hard drive.

  • MacBook Pro refuses to load after installing Yosemite OS X.

    Yesterday I installed Yosemite OS X. Today, when I turned my MacBook Pro the loading bar is stuck just a little before halfway and refuses to load. I am so annoyed as I have never encountered any technical difficulties and have only had to purchase ridiculous amounts of expensive chargers after the ones I previously had broke easily - another annoyance of Apple. Apple is beginning to irritate me.
    Any advice is appreciated - thanks in advance!

    Startup – Computer Stops or Delays
    Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
    Startup - Gray Screen
    Startup Issues - Resolve
    Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

  • Macbook Pro won't book from USB flash drive

    I have a brand new Macbook Pro with the thunderbolt.  The internal hard drive works great and I can boot up from it just fine.  But we want to create an image on a USB flash drive that we can use when troubleshooting the other Macbook Pro's we have at the office.  So I got a 16 gb flash drive which should be big enough.  I ran the white Snow Leopard DVD and tried to put the OS on the USB flash drive.  When it tried to reboot on the Macbook Pro it got the error screen which some weird code and said that you computer needs to be restarted.  As long as the USB flash drive was connected it wouldn't boot.
    So I wanted to see if this was hardware specific so I tried it on an IMac.  I was able to create a OS X bootable USB Flash Drive and was able to boot the IMac with it with no trouble.  Having gotten ti to work on the IMac I tried it again on the Macbook Pro, still get the error screen when it tries to boot up.
    Is there anything special I need to do to get this to work?  It's crucial to our organization to get this to work.  Thanks.

    Hi R,
    You can always book it with you agent, don't you?
    Ok, sorry for that, getting on. Try to use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the copy.
    The issue can be related to USB devices and/or connectors, did you try other USB port? Do you have the same boot problem with other USB devices? The active USB connection preventing boot are frequently seen.
    Good luck, K.

  • MacBook Pro refusing to startup no matter what I do

    I have a MacBook Pro — as per specs below — and it has decided not to complete a startup. The way it happened was I restarted my computer to boot up into Windows then later on I used the Boot Camp system tray icon to restart into OS X, or at least that was the plan.
    On startup everything went fine but it got to the blue screen and then the little activity circle-animation began to play. It would play for a few seconds, disappear, then do it again. It should also be noted that it was doing this for at least 10 minutes.
    I have tried all of the following (though not in this order):
    1. Resetting SMC.
    2. Resetting PRAM.
    3. Repairing the disk.
    4. Repairing permissions on the disk.
    5. Starting up in Verbose Mode.
    6. Starting up in Single-User Mode.
    7. Starting up in Safe Mode.
    One thing of note is that while in Verbose Mode it kept looping while trying to get the proper date and time, which was incorrect as it always in when I restart from Windows.
    Also, after that first attempt the only time I made it as far as the blue screen was after I went back into Windows to change the time zone — one was set to the East Coast and the other to London time — but other than that I get to the Apple logo on the grey screen with the circular animation. I've let it sit for 15–20 minutes and it doesn't go anywhere.
    I thought that since it was a time issue I could reset the SMC and it would fix it but doing so seemed to have absolutely no effect, which made me wonder if I did it correctly even though I followed the documentation.
    I'm saving reinstallation as a last result as I don't have any file backed up and I don't want to lose them.
    Does anyone have any suggestions?

    I don't have my copy of DiskWarrior with me but a friend had a copy of Drive Genius which allowed me to build the directory. I got back to the blue screen but after seeing the mouse for a second in the top-left corner it went back into the loop of showing then not showing the circular animation.

  • MacBook Pro refuses to read OS X discs included with the system

    Hey there,
    First post, go easy on me.
    I got a MacBook Pro last Thursday. Performance has been great, and none of the problems present on other systems appear to be present on it.
    After several days of use, I had experienced a number of errors where the screen greys out, and a window pops up telling you that you must restart the system, upon doing which an error report is fired off. This, along with a little AirPort problem (it says it connects to my network on startup, but I always have to wriggle airport on and off to get it to really connect), have convinced me to reinstall the OS in case one of the firmware updates hit a wrong bit or something.
    So I put my install disk in for the first time. It sits in the drive, no spinning or noise at all, and then it gets spit out a minute later. Oddly enough, the disc from my iMac is read fine on the MacBook Pro (although I am informed at startup that I can't use that particular disc to install). For the record, the MacBook Pro disc works fine in the iMac.
    So does anyone have any idea what's going on with any of my problems? I'm going to call support tomorrow, but I was wondering if anyone was familiar with this very odd disc behaviour. Data CDs and DVDs are read fine by the MBP, it is literally just the OS X discs that cannot be read.
    Any help, comments, or things I should mention to support are greatly, greatly appreciated. I hate thinking I paid nearly 4k for a lemon.

    That thread fixed my AirPort problem.
    Also, I remembered that I did use my MacBook Pro OS X disc to install X11, and the only thing of consequence that I did afterwards was installing the firmware update.
    Is there any way to roll back the firmware update so I can see if that caused this problem. It's the only thing with system-wide repurcussions that I can recall performing on the system.
    The Firmware Restoration CDs from Apple's site only work if your firmware updater crashed or was interrupted in the process of update. . .is there any other way I can restore my factory original firmware?
    Thanks in advance. For the record, I have experienced no kernel panics in 3 days. I'm wondering if maybe they were being caused by software issues (I've had a few while seeing how Rosetta handles things on the MBP).

  • Macbook pro refuses to boot.

    2011 Macbook Pro shuts down after 1 minute of loading (grey screen with apple logo). I have tried basic fixes like smc memory clearing, but without result. I can access HD through another mac booting the broken mac in T mode so I have managed to transfer the files from the hard drive. HD could not be repaired using diagnostics/repair so something strange has happened here. Any ideas what the problem could be caused by? Originally the computer stopped responding and was shut down with the power button. After that it did not start anymore.
    I have also a few mails that I would need to access that are stored only on my broken computer. I have tried finding them but without success. How can I find my mail if I start the computer in T and access the HD via another mac computer?

    Have you tried to repair the disk when booted into your Recovery partition?
    How do I do this?

  • Macbook pro or mac book

    I was wondering if i just bought a macbook and maxxed it out would pro logic 8 run good on it or should i just invest in a macbook pro? I guess my question is what is the difference in the 2 as pertaining to running pro logic studio? I would also be installing battey and the komplete synth line from native instruments as well..just to verify my usage.....thanx

    The specs to evaluate the MacBook Pro VS. the MacBook are:
    1. bigger display;
    2. backlit keyboard;
    3. aluminum body;
    4. more powerful graphic card;
    5. a Firewire 800 port;
    6. standard DVI video out;
    7. Express Card 34 slot.
    If you don't need all these then you will be ok with the MacBook.
    cheers
    rob

  • MacBook Pro won't book after Time Machine restore

    I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro that had 4 bad blocks on the hard drive.  I reformatted and zeroed out the drive and then restored from a Time Machine backup which was Mac OS 10.6.6.  Now the MBP won't boot.  I get the Apple logo and the spinning gear, and that's it.  I gave it as long as 20 minutes but no boot.  Starting from the DVD shows I have that system on the drive in Startup Disk. I've run myriad utilities including Disk Utility and Disk Warrior and everything is fine.
    Before I reinstall 10.6, I thought I'd poke my head in here and tap the collective wisdom.

    Your situation sounds a bit similar to mine except you had the gray screen before you did anything, which to me means you had a problem that already surfaced, where I did not.  I don't know if the Windoze partition has anything to do with it, but if you are running SN 10.6 you can try the same solution I did.  Boot from the SN DVD and install a new version of SN over you old.  Don't worry, all your files will be there.  The installer is intelligent enough to realize you already have SN and will do the install over your old system files only.  This is the 'new' Archive and Install scenario that existed on previous versions of Mac OS X install DVDs.
    You will then have to run updates to get the system back to whatever version you were running previously.
    This is what I did and it worked fine, altho it was more time consuming than I wanted.
    J D Thomas
    ThomaStudios

  • Macbook Pro or Air Book please help

    im a small business owner and and new to apple, im not techno expert and am trying to work out what is best for me. The Macbook pro or the airbook. So many differences in opinions i would love some feedback form other small business owners on the topic. I use my laptop for lots of interment work, emails, accessing online programs and i do require the storage for photos will in the field. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks )

    Personally, it seems strange to be considering both of these machines.  I don't consider them to be in the same class.  A MacBook Air makes a lot of sacrifices to get the weight and thickness down, and you have to pay a premium for a less capable machine.  The MBA is, in my opinion, only for extreme portability if you can do without the things it is lacking.  If you'll need to store lots of photos, the smaller SSD will be less desirable than the larger traditional hard drive in a MacBook Pro, and if you need to process those photos, the slower processor in the MBA would be a problem.
    Sounds like you do some work in the field, though what that means is unclear.  If you do a lot of photographic work and have to hike to locations, and you need your laptop at those locations, you probably need an ultra-light computer since you're already weighed down with a bunch of camera gear.  In that case, the MBA would be good.  However, if you want the most capable machine possible and are not overly concerned with weight, go with the MBP.

Maybe you are looking for