Macbook pro will not boot after snow leopard upgrade

My GF has had a macbook pro since mid 2008. It's been running like a champ since I've known her for the past 3 years with no issues. It has/had OSX 10.5.8 installed. We tried to consolidate all our pictures from all our apple devices and realized she didn't have an icloud on the old 10.5.8 OSX. So I called apple and they told me to order and install the snow leopard OSX 10.6 first and then upgrade to lion etc after that, Well we got the disk yesterday popped it in to install and it's been a disaster.... the computer shutdown for what looked like a normal restart during the installation process and never booted back up. Attempts to manually reboot leave us locked on a grey apple logo screen with spinning gear indefinately whith the Snow Leopard disk installed during boot up. With the disk removed I get the flashing file folder with a question mark. I called apple support we tried all the PRAM and SMC resets and then decided that we should go to the Genius Bar once all those failed. After an hour and a half drive to the nearest genius bar we were told that the we suddenly had a hardware issue which just happened to coincide with the new OS installation.... I'm not buying it and am looking for some help. The macbook was running like a champ until we inserted a disk recommended by apple... Any takers?

You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
Reinstall OS X 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.

Similar Messages

OS will not boot after Snow Leopard Upgrade

I have a MacPro (Intel). I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and everything appeared fine. However, after restarting my computer the OS will not load. A circle with a hash through it replaces the Apple logo and the apple's spinning wheel continues but all drive activity. I have tried to run the install again by forcing the computer to open the dvd drive then booting for the OS DVD but this has not worked. Has anyone experienced this and successfully resolved?

You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
Reinstall OS X 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.

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

Mac Pro will not boot with Snow Leopard - need help!

I have had a lot of issues with Snow Leopard since I upgraded from 10.5.8. Most of my problems started after installing Office 2007. I finally wiped the hard drive and reinstalled everything. No problems until last week. Start up was taking longer and had to reboot a couple of times because of grey screen. So I would just put computer to sleep. Yesterday the computer was frozen on screen saver with scrambled rows of pixels on screen two and the main monitor had a frozen image.
I initially pulled all peripherals out and pulled the power plug for 5 minutes. I have left the peripherals out and pulled the second monitor as well. I tried pulling the power plug during a few more starts but nothing gets me to a complete start up screen.
I have tried resetting PRAM and VRAM and tried a safe boot. I tried booting from Snow Leopard and my Leopard disk stayed on either a blue or gray screen with spinning beach ball (on gray screen).
Put original install disk in and booted from using D to check the hardware. Good news is that the hardware test was OK. I did the extended test.
All different kind of start up problems.
- Some start with start up sound goes to Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with beachball
- Some start ups with no initial sound then Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with no cursor or beachball
- Some start ups with no sound to gray screen to blue screen to grey screen.
I have no problem wiping the HD1 again but I can't even get the OS disk to be recognized with holding the C key during start up. This last time it went to a blue screen (holding the C key) and a cursor.
I don't know what else to do - Please help!!!

There are lists (MacIntouch and MacFixit) of hardware / software support issues with 10.6. Accelerateyourmac is another place to watch.
There were some really long threads back in Sept about printer driver support.
The 7300 firmware was more about Windows support; those cards are failing and dropping like flies (how DO they know 3 yrs has expired anyway?) and they don't support SL features like OpenCL etc so I'd invest in ATI 4870, best graphic card and works in all models Mac Pro.
Lots and lots of bootable clones for backup. Never need to wipe and install again.

Macbook Pro Will Not Boot After Full Timemachine Restore

Hope someone can help. I upgraded my HD and attempted to restore from time machine. Everything appears to have worked well and the restoration was a success according to what the computer says. However, when I go to reboot I hear the startup sound then the apple pops up on the screen followed by a kernal panic error and the black box telling me that I need to hold down the start button and restart. I've tried resetting the pram, reinstalling from TM again and a couple of other things but it won't start up. I tried doing a clean install and it worked fine then I migrated files from my TM backup and that worked fine as well. However, that's not what I'm looking for, I wanted to get the machine exactly the way it looked before the upgrade and I thought TM was supposed to do that. I've read other forums were people have done it with no problems and am completely stumped at why it is not working. If anyone can shed some light I'd appreciate it.

I booted with the CD and after selecting the language, went to the utilities pane and used the partition feature.
Last night in desperation, I booted back to the CD and once again told it to do a full restore from TM. This was the third time that I had done it so far. The previous two times I had gone into the partition feature and partitioned the drive first. This time I skipped that step and just told it to restore from TM. It said if it did this it would erase everything on the drive. I agreed and let it do its work. This morning it once again, as in both previous times, said it had restored from TM successfully. I told it to restart and lo and behold, it booted and everything is just as I had it on the other drive.
Needless to say, I'm confused but happy. I just wish I knew why it would not boot after restoring the previous two times? Maybe it just wanted me to spend more money:) I tried booting today only after I had gone to frys electronics and bought a SATA to USB cable and cloning software.
Anyway, thanks for your help and if anyone knows why it wouldn't boot, let me know. It would be good to know for the future just in case. For anyone else having this trouble, keep trying. Third time was a charm for me.

MacBook Pro will not boot after switching graphics cards

Dear All,
I have a late-2008 unibody MacBook Pro. I have had it since April 2009, and I have not encountered any real problems with it.
Yesterday, I switched to the 9600 graphics card for the first time since purchasing the machine. It logged me out as expected, but then proceeded to flash a blank blue screen at me for 20 minutes. Assuming that this was not normal, I powered down the computer by holding the power button. I powered it on again, and it will not get past the Apple symbol screen with the loading whirligig. I left it on for seven hours (overnight), and no change.
I booted it from the install disc and ran the Disk Utility verify and repair. It either gives me no problem or a block count error, which goes away when I run repair. I tried running verify on permissions, but this gives me a "failed to exit" or some such error, same with repair permissions. Restarting gives me the same apple logo screen until forever.
I've tried resetting PRAM, doing the battery removal and holding power button for 5 seconds, I've tried booting in safe mode (it won't), and doing an archive and install (which it can't do either, as it can't access my HDD or something). I've run the disk utility verify and repair several times.
I unfortunately don't have a recent backup (slapping myself), so I'm open to suggestions before going into despair over my $2600 paperweight before doing an erase and install...
Thanks in advance!
PS: is there a way to open the computer in target disk mode via the install cd so that I CAN back it up?
Message was edited by: Kaklz

Thanks, Joe. That may be an option if all else fails. I don't currently own an enclosure, so I am looking for an alternative before spending any money (I know, "frugal Apple user" is unheard of, but...).
I do have an old G3 tower, which I am using in the meantime, so if I can use this to open my MBP in target disk mode (or some other way of making a backup), I'd be overjoyed!

Macbook Pro will not boot after full time machine restore

I have a 15-inch Macbook Pro, current model with the i7 processor, which I purchased in August 2010. Last week, when I tried to turn it on, it would not boot (just got to the gray screen with the Apple logo and spinning wheel). I took it in for repair and was told that it had a bad hard drive. The hard drive was replaced and I got the computer back yesterday.
Everything looked good, it turned on, so I did a complete restore from my Time Machine backup on my Time Capsule, following the instructions on this page: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15638.html
The restore was successful and the computer prompted me to restart. I clicked the button to allow the restart and now I am back to the gray screen with the Apple logo and spinning wheel. It won't boot again.
I also looked at this discussion (http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10924233) and it sounds like the person here was able to get his computer to work after doing the Time Machine restore in the same process I used, so I don't know what else to do.
I don't live near an Apple store, so it would be great if I could figure this out myself. Thanks for any help!

skylaneval wrote:
I have a 15-inch Macbook Pro, current model with the i7 processor, which I purchased in August 2010. Last week, when I tried to turn it on, it would not boot (just got to the gray screen with the Apple logo and spinning wheel). I took it in for repair and was told that it had a bad hard drive. The hard drive was replaced and I got the computer back yesterday.
Everything looked good, it turned on, so I did a complete restore from my Time Machine backup on my Time Capsule, following the instructions on this page: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15638.html
See #E8 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).

Mac will not boot after Snow Leopard install

I recently had a HD crash. Replaced the HD and installed Snow Leopard from a image file on an external HD. Install went great. I copied over data files and things seems just fine. My first reboot after the install and the Mini won't boot. I am stuck with the Apple Logo and a spinning wheel. I ran disk utility and the new HD checks out fine. When I boot with the external HD, it still sees my Mini HD. I tried restarting with Command/Option/P/R but that didn't do anything. Any advice?

I'm in a slightly similar spot- no crashes, but-- What I want to hopefully do is run my Tiger ppc apps (3) for CAD on my New- 5 weeks old) Lion Factory Installed machine. The ( November) First Aid Issue of Mac Life mentions a way
way to get external boots, UNLESS they are the Factory installed ( Lions). In the meantime----
Johnny

AE CS4 Will not open after Snow Leopard Upgrade

Ok, i posted this earlier but I don't think I was clear enough to get an answer. I recently did a clean install of Snow Leopard and a fresh install of my Production Studio CS4. Upon getting it all installed, I realized that After Effects will NOT open at all. It just bounces on the Dock a few times and then stops. Then after that, when you click on it, it bounces once, then stops. Every other program works great, only after effects is not working. Why is this? Is there something I need to do? I reeinstalled just the AE and downloaded the newest update, still, the same thing. I would appreciate any suggestions to get it running.

I experienced this when upgrading to Snow Leopard myself.
After Effects is one of many, many applications which require Rosetta to be installed. In Snow Leopard, Rosetta is an optional install on the disk. So just make sure you install it.
Now, the thing also is that once Rosetta is installed, the OS still seems to have AE flagged as an app which requires a missing component to launch. This was fixed after a couple of restarts, in my case.

Macbook pro will not boot after entering password

password sensitive to open home page. enter password bar goes to 1/3 and shuts computer off

Startup Issues - Resolve
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How do I uninstall Yosemite please ? Since I upgraded my 2011 MacBook Pro will not boot up

My 2011 MacBook Pro will not boot up following my upgrade to Yosemite. How do I uninstall or downgrade back to the previous version of OS please ?

You can't downgrade or uninstall unless you first erase the drive. Try the following:
Reinstalling OS X 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 OS X: Select Reinstall OS X 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.
Also see:
Reinstall OS X Without Erasing the Drive
Choose the version you have installed now:
OS X Yosemite- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard.

Good Morning,
I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
I also rebooted holding down the shift key and still no Snow Leopard
Could you please tell me what I can do, what keys do I press on restart any advice to get Snow leopard back.
thank you.

Have you restarted holding down the Opt key? That procedure should give you a gray screen with all of the partitions that exist. Then select the SL partition for boot. Also go to System Preferences and Startup Disk, unlock the lock and select the SL partition as the default boot partition, then relock.

My iMac will not boot through Snow Leopard but will boot through Windows OS

My 2010 iMac will not boot in Snow Leopard, only Windows. Have tried reinstalling Snow leopard a few times and works only for a couple of minutes before freezing and doesnt reboot. Windows works perfect. Snow leopard just doesnt want to boot up past the Apple Logo. It was working fine one day and the next day it froze up and was able to reboot back into Snow Leopard but kept freezing. Now it doesnt load at all into Mac OS.
Brian

Possible scenarios:
1: The 10.6.3 SL retail disk is bad, it happens.
2: Your not using the 10.6.3 SL retail disk but one from another machine which doesn't have the drivers for that machine.
3: Your optical drive is funky or some other hardware issues.
4: Your trying to install 10.6 onto a PowerPC based Mac, no can do.
5: Your not using a wired keyboard for boot key commands, have some other hardware conflicts.
Possible solutions.
1: Copy the SL 10.6.3 disk using Disk Utility to another DVD, the error checking may resolve the original disk's issue.
http://www.brokenhomeboy.co.uk/pierow/blog/2011/10/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-l eopard-install-disc/
2: Make a SL bootable USB
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
3: Call Apple for a new 10.6.3 disk (and make copies for backup before Apple discontinues selling it)
If your upgrading to 10.6 to get to 10.6.8 to upgrade to 10.7, be warned of this:
1: Your 10.5 software will not work in 10.7, no more Rosetta or PPC based code.
2: Your hardware will not qualify if it's a 32 bit Intel Core Duo, also you may experience slowdowns in performance over 10.6 (10.6 is the fastest OS X version for Intel Macs) in older Intel hardware (I suggest Early 2011 Mac's and later only for Lion)
3: Mountain Lion 10.8 is reportingly coming out this summer and will not run on a lot of older Intel based Mac's because of heftier graphics requirements.
4: 10.6 has the widest range of current avaialble software and drivers for third party hardware.
My advice, stick with 10.6.8 and stay there, buy a new Mountain Lion machine after this summer. Skip Lion completely.

HT4718 I recently upgrade my OS and now my MacBook Pro will not boot up

I recently upgrade my OS and now my MacBook Pro will not boot up

Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing 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
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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

HT203254 MacBook pro will not boot up?

My 2007 MacBook pro will not boot up. Sometimes just stops booting before password screen, but other times after that. If I get to put in my password it goes on, but I either get a blank screen or partial jumbled screen. When using boot disc and run hardware test it gives a video controller error 4VDC/1/40000003. Would that make it hang up and not fully boot? I can understand it giving blank and jumbled screens.

Means you need a new logic board. Make an appointment at an Apple store to confirm.

Macbook pro will not boot after snow leopard upgrade

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