Macbook pro won't boot from any disk

I have a Macbook Pro 17" with 10.6.8 installed but won't bootup. It stays on the logo and spinning gear screen and won't proceed from there. I have tried to reboot from a Snow Leopard install disk but it won't recognize it and haven't been able to startup from another computer using firewire connection. I am so puzzled?

Sounds like a hardware issue.
Run through this list of fixes and checks.
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Macbook Pro won't boot from any partition, at all

I tried updating an Early 2008 Intel-based Macbook pro to a clean install of Mavericks with a bootable USB drive, once in the startup manager, it would show the USB as an "EFI BOOT". and trying to access the EFI BOOT just gives me a prohibited sign
The boot copy of Mavericks was installed with Disk Utility, so it shouldn't have had any problems.
So I thought, "I'll completely erase the HD and try again". Did that, and still, "EFI BOOT".
Next thing I did was ditch the USB method, and go for brute force, booted the Mac in Target Disk Mode, and through firewire I was able to install Mavericks into the HD of that Mac, using my brother's Early 2008 intel-based Macbook pro. The clean install worked, it made the recovery partition with no problem. Next thing I know, upon booting the laptop, after restarting it from Target Disk Mode, the darn computer decides to give me the "no boot device found" dreaded Question-Mark-on-a-folder sign. So I restarted the thing to the Startup Manager, and both partitions showed up, I tried both partitions, and no luck, same Question Mark Sign-Thing, not even the recovery booted.
So on target disk mode again, I made 2 partitions, one with a bootable mavericks EDM, and the other one, free space, Mac OS Journaled, ready for the OS installation. So that it would install it by itself, to itself. Upon restarting and accessing the Startup Manager, the bootable partition I had created, was seen, but clicking on it would just give me the question mark.
I shrank the partition on the other macbook to make a bootable firewire device on the other mac, and that partition also said "EFI BOOT" when clicked on.
I burned a recovery DVD to boot from it, and it won't boot from it. Every time I try to boot from something, all I get is the question-mark-on-a-folder-sign.
I disassembled the laptop, got the HD out, tried installing straight into it via USB, and was not able to access it using an external HD case, the power light comes on, and right back off.
PRAM and SMC have been Reset.
any ideas?

When I removed it, it was to install mavericks into it, via usb, with the other macbook, through disk utility, but disk utility was unable to read it then.
And yes, I am able to boot from that HD, on the other macbook, either through firewire or USB... I've verified that it is working fine, no sounds, no clicks, no scratching noises.

My Macbook Pro won´t boot from any source/device

Im having trouble by booting my Macbook Pro from any device. I can reach any BIOS screen were i am able to choose the startupdisk, and whatever I choose (Hard drive / Install OS X DVD disc / Other Hard disks / USB Flash with OSx running) the machine stays in the grey screen forever.
I also tried to install again the OS on the internal Hard Drive of my machine, from another working macbook in the firewire transfer mode on, and it resulted to be succesfull and i can run the OS on the injured macbook pro, from the other computer.
Any ideas what this could be?
Thanks in advance.
Pelu.

Pelu,
which model MacBook Pro do you have? Do you have Mac OS X 10.6.0 installed on it? If not, which version of OS X is installed? Do you also have the grey DVD for it that holds its Apple Hardware Test?

MacBook Pro won't boot from Superdrive

I have a MacBook Pro which is around 7 Months old, I wanted to run Disk Warrior on it but the Macbook Pro wouldn't boot from the disk, tried the MAC install disk same issue.
Holding down the C key at boot time causes the drive to spin up it gets as far as the grey screen with the apple logo then the drive stops. Tried also holding down the alt key, I can see the hard disk and DVD icons but selecting the DVD same thing happens as above.
The superdrive seams to work fine when the machine is running just refuses to boot from it.
Any help would be much appreciated
rgs
Colin

Colin: Are you trying to boot from the Install/Restore DVD that was shipped with your MacBook Pro? If not, do. Your DiskWarrior DVD may not be able to boot your MBP model, and an older Snow Leopard installer DVD can't either.
The best setup for using DiskWarrior or any other Disk utility on your MBP's internal drive is to have a bootable clone of that drive as a backup, with all your utility software installed on it just as it is on the internal drive. Then whenever you have a problem, you can boot from the other drive to repair the troubled one. No need then to boot or run the utilities from a DVD, which is tediously slow at best, even when it works perfectly.

G5 gets grey screen with logo then goes black, won't boot from any disk

Won't boot from any disk, already changed VRAM battery, no success. tried hardware disk once and ran a full scan, said error with Video, but now won't boot at all with any disk. Screen is choppy also(have pic). Thinking video graphics card? Not sure. Need help!

Hi bribiel, and a warm welcome to the forums!
It certainly sounds like the Video card from the little info we have, & that can certainly cause it to fail to bootup.

Mid 2006 Macbook Pro won't boot (from HD or optical)

My mid 2006 Macbook Pro will not boot from the hard disk, or from the internal DVD. I am currently running the latest version of Lion (10.7).
I tried searching the forums and found a similar issue here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1687899?start=0&tstart=0
But that was with a Mac Mini. And it doesn't look like the OP issue was ever resolved. I am having the exact same problem.
When attempting a normal boot from the internal HD of the Macbook Pro. It will make the happy chime of a successful POST. It will display the Apple logo. And that's as far as she gets.
No spinning wheel, no error image, no nothing. Eventually the system will start spinning up the fans as if it were under load (this was after about a half hour of just letting it sit there).
Doing a verbose boot, it never went past this:
com.apple.driver.Apple.IntelCPUPowerManagement
Photo of verbose boot:
Here's what I've tried.
1. Bought a brand new battery (as the current one was at death's door)
2. Zapped PRAM (Apple + Option + P + R)
3. Reset SMC according to these directions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US
4. Attempted to boot to my original Tiger (10.4) install DVD, only to stop at this point during a verbose boot (Apple V):
Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpi components; use only one style
Photos:
5. I am able to put her in Target Disk Mode (hold T at boot). Then with a firewire cable I can connect it to my wife's Macbook 13" and I am able to run disk utility on it! Disk Utility did find and repair errors, however, it still refuses to boot.
6. I attempted to boot from my wife's Macbook 13" in Target Disk Mode. I put her machine in Target disk mode. Connected the firewire cable. Powered on my 15" MBP while holding the option key. Then I selected her drive as the boot disk... however it still refuses to boot even from a known working HD.
7. Finally, I swapped around RAM DIMMs with no change in behavior.
Help! I know she's an older gal (Laptop is 6 years old now) but I'm not exactly flush with cash and would rather not give up on her just yet.

My Mac started freezing (colored pinwheel) every time I tried using any application (i.e. Safari, iPhoto). After restarting for the 2nd time, it would no longer boot - makes start up sound but gets stuck on gray screen w/ apple icon. I tried resetting PRAM also - did nothing. I decided to reinstall OS; problem now is my HD is nowhere to be found! I am a tech dummy so this is way beyond my comprehension...I'm not seeing my HD from the Disk Utility either???
Side question...I backed up my files (mostly pics JPEG and videos) on DVD (had to compress to save). Why can't I open files on PC?

MacBook Pro won't boot from HD or Install CD

I have a 15" MacBook Pro running Lion. It won't boot from the HD or Install CD.
1. When I try to boot it from the HD, it makes the boot sound and displays the Apple logo. The small "working" wheel spins for about 20 seconds, and then gets stuck mid-spin.
2. When I try to boot from the Install CD, I eventually get a gray screen with a large power button image and the text "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button."
I have tried resetting the PRAM and SMC per another post, but nothing changed. I have also tried to boot it from an Ubuntu 11.10 CD, which also got stuck.
Any idea what the problem could be and next steps I should take?

My Mac started freezing (colored pinwheel) every time I tried using any application (i.e. Safari, iPhoto). After restarting for the 2nd time, it would no longer boot - makes start up sound but gets stuck on gray screen w/ apple icon. I tried resetting PRAM also - did nothing. I decided to reinstall OS; problem now is my HD is nowhere to be found! I am a tech dummy so this is way beyond my comprehension...I'm not seeing my HD from the Disk Utility either???
Side question...I backed up my files (mostly pics JPEG and videos) on DVD (had to compress to save). Why can't I open files on PC?

128gb ssd on macbook pro can't boot from any win dvd

Like in title, installed 128gb ssd on macbook pro and can't boot from any windows based dvd.
I’m try just everything... First I was put new ssd disk in laptop, boot and than choose windows boot cd disk for startup device. CD/DVD working 10-20 sec and after that nothing happened for 3-4 min… I can just turn off computer. I was try to boot with win7, vista, xp and other boot dvd-s for partition management… Every attemp simply freeze machine.
Then I was try to install mac os (snow leopard) from install dvd and installation was done smooth without any problem… Really don’t know why I can install osx and can’t install or boot any type of windows cd/dvd.
After installing snow leopard I was try to make new partition and install windows trough apple bootcamp 3.0 but again same problem. When machine reset and try to boot from cd it simply freeze.
Falcon 128gb SSD attached over USB workin fine eaven osx booting from external ssd. SO, next what I wish to try is to clone old 320gb with two partitions to new 120gb ssd. I'm just try eaven this and when ssd attach to laptop it says that there is no bootable device... so, they don't see ssd like bootable...
Configuration:
Macbook pro 15 (late 2008 i think)model 3.1
128gb gskill falcon ssd
Mac firmware 1.3 (i think, how I can make upgrade and check fw ver under windows)
hdd firmware (1571)
Regards,
Benis

p.s. any sugestion for some other ssd that will work on this machine?

MacBook Pro Won't Boot from Leopard DVD

My brother's MacBook Pro (2009 13") won't boot from the Leopard install DVD. Here is what happened:
- I tried to do Bootcamp on it. I installed Windows 7 but realized that there were no Bootcamp drivers for that.
- Deleted Widnows 7 and put the XP install disc in. Somehow, it formatted my Mac partition instead of my Windows partition.
- Now that the MBP was only running Windows XP, I connected it to my iMac in target disk mode and wiped it (GUID, one Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition).
- I tried to put the Leopard (10.5.0) install DVD in there so I can restore from the Time Machine backup, and it sees it when I hold option at bootup but refuses to boot from it.
- I reset the PRAM and tried again, no luck.
What is going on here? Does it have to do with the fact that it was doing Bootcamp? I either want to boot from the disc or somehow restore from Time Machine some other way. I can use another computer (my iMac) if I need to.

Haha yeah, I posted right before. The thing I'm wondering now: Does this mean that a Mac that came with Lion cannot be downgraded to Snow Leopard? Well, I'll save it for another question if I ever cross that bridge.
Limnos wrote:
Just so we know, this is the original OS disc that came with this computer? Even if you're trying to use a retail installer disc I am not sure those came out the the sufficient sub-version required to boot the computer (I think it needs at least 10.5.7 but don't have the specifics of your model).
Edit: I guess I'm a slow typist.

Macbook Pro won't boot from Restore CD

I followed the instructions in order to restore my MBP to it's factory settings, but upon attempting to restore, the Macbook won't boot from the CD drive. It get's stuck on the gray screen with the apple logo, but no spinning wheel shows up. It's just the gray screen with the apple logo. Is there any solution?

1 Insert the Mac OS X installation disc that came with your computer, and then double-click the Install Max OS X icon.
2. In the Installer, click Utilities, and then click Restart.
3. When the Language Chooser appears, select your language, and then click the Continue button.
4 Choose Utilities > Desk Utility
5...
6...
7...
I can only get past step two. When the computer restarts it goes the the grey screen with the apple logo and freezes there. The spinning wheel that shows that it is booting doesn't appear. So, I attempted to just do a regular restart and hold down the 'c' button so that it would boot from the restore disc, but the same thing happens. It goes to the gray screen with the apple logo and freezes there with no spinning wheel to indicate that it is trying to boot. For about five or ten seconds when this screen is on I can hear the CD drive spinning, but it shortly stops spinning. (I've tried two discs -- the original disc that came with it and a replacement disc that they sent me).

2008 MacBook Pro won't boot from Leopard DVD or Target Disk

Yesterday I was working on my MacBook Pro. I use FontExplorer to manage fonts. I ran the conflicts diagnostic looking for missing font files, which returned about 200 results (I was expecting this). I've moved the fonts installed by Adobe/Microsoft out of my fonts folder in my user library (user library, not system). For some reason the computer started to become very slow, to the point of beachballing. The freezing seemed to start and stop. I was able to close FontExplorer and Illustrator without force-quitting. I tried to shut it down gracefully at that point but it froze up again, so I hit the power button to force a restart. It started up but now it hangs on the gray screen right before the Apple logo. The logo doesn't come up, I can hear the drive spinning as normal but it doesn't do anything.
I've tried booting from a retail copy of the Snow Leopard, but it doesn't work. I can hear the disc spin up in the DVD drive as though the computer is about to read it, but nothing happens. It just stays on that same blue screen. I've tried booting my MBP in Target Disk mode from my iMac. The target disk icon appears, however it just sits in the middle of the screen and my drive doesn't mount on the iMac. I've noticed now that the white status light on the front of the MBP (on the latch) doesn't come on, and if I cover the speakers the backlight doesn't turn off.
What do I do now? I have an enclosure I could use to try and boot the MBP's drive from, but I'm running out of options. I'm really starting to worry about my data. I have a major school project that's already late which is on there, and I don't have a recent backup. If I don't hand it in... let's not go there. I don't understand how this could happen; I take very good care of my computer, I turn it off when it's not in use, and I run Cocktail on it once a day which does a SMART status check.
Help?

sig,
The first thing I tried was booting from the install disk. The 2008/2009 MBP's aren't able to boot from a retail DVD of Snow Leopard, which is why I ended up using the original hardware-specific install disk that shipped with my computer. That didn't boot either. I was able to view the drive in Disk Utility when it was in the enclosure, but the partition with my data on it would not mount. I attempted a repair disk on the drive but that failed. It wouldn't mount in Terminal either. I considered trying to rebuild the volume catalog using TechTool Pro but there's the possibility that could actually make things worse. So I've taken it to the repair shop. They're running it through DiskWarrior overnight, last I heard there were 60-something thread errors. Yesterday my SMART status was fine, today my drive is dead. What happened? Hoping for the best (but expecting the worst).

Mac Pro Won't Boot from any HDD

My system:
2008 8-core Mac Pro running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard
4 HDDs installed, 2 of them are a striped RAID 0 that is the bootup volume, a couble of external hard drives (1 of them a bootable clone), a DVI display
backed up with Time Machine; thanks for the concern.
Problem:
I came home one day, and my computer was acting funny. It was fine earlier in the day. Time Machine had failed a backup, an AFP mount had unmounted with an error, Dropbox was trying to sync but couldn't because of bad access permissions for a file, and Terminal wouldn't open, giving me a message about an invalid shell. I restarted, and it failed to restart, so I turned it off. I thought it was a corrupt filesystem (and striping is unstable, so it would make sense), but no, no other bootable disks worked.
Boot chime plays, grey screen comes up with Apple logo, wheel spins forever.
ATI graphics card fan runs pretty fast after a minute or so.
Light is solid, not blinking to indicate a RAM problem.
What I've tried:
Googled the problem. Got results about MacBook Pros. Did "-MacBook" in the search. Got similar questions but no solutions for my Mac.
Tried booting from an install DVD and the clone. Same thing happened.
Reset the PRAM (twice). No effect.
Reset the SMC (twice). No effect.
Unplugged the monitor. Graphics card fan wasn't loud, but the computer still wouldn't boot.
Unplugged all USB and FireWire devices. No effect.
Left the computer unplugged for an hour, which also resets the SMC. Who knows, this sometimes works! It didn't.
Any ideas?

Booting in Safe Mode did not help, but it did show a grey circle with a cross through it instead of an Apple logo like before.
I remembered that there's an Apple Hardware Test (a bit hard to figure out how to do on your specific machine ), and I booted into it. Before I even ran the test, it told me that there is an error. The error message was just the name of one of my RAM slots. So... a piece of RAM might be dead. I ran the extended test, and it was halfway through after 30 minutes, but I stopped it because I don't have enough time. I have to continue this tomorrow.
As for the GPU, its fans might just be running because the system runs them at a high level by default when it's in certain states. I know older Macs did this in Target Disk Mode with every fan, and the GPU fan was running during the AHT too. At least I hope this is the case. Right now, it seems beyond a hard drive problem. Maybe booting from a DVD works because it only uses 1 RAM slot or something. I'd much rather have a piece of inexpensive RAM be dead than my GPU, and besides, I've kinda wanted to upgrade the RAM anyway.

MacBook Pro won't boot from recovery disc

Hi, I've got an early 1998 15" MacBook Pro that came with Leopard I think, but I've upgraded along the way and was running Mountain Lion when trouble started. A few months ago it started randomly crashing and restarting, then progressed to not starting up but sitting on the grey screen.
After reading some of the discussions on this and following the suggestions there, such as verifying and repairing the disk and the disk permissions, clearing the nvram etc, I took it in for a service and had the hardware checked - no problems found but the battery was replaced as it was pretty dead. A few days later the laptop started doing the same thing again.
I backed up, downloaded a recovery disc to USB (on a Linux computer as mine was not compliant) although there was already a recovery disk on the laptop, and then erased the hard drive. This was pretty difficult as by this time all it could do was sit on the grey screen for a a bit and then restart, never actually booting up, but finally it worked.
Now it won't boot to the recovery disc, either on the laptop or on the USB drive.
Startup pressing Command R does not get me anywhere but the grey screen. Startup pressing Option usually shows me a picture of the Recovery disc but clicking on it gets nothing but the grey screen. With both, there's either a freeze or a continuous spontaneous restart. I also tried telling it I'd install Linux if it didn't want to let me reinstall Mountain Lion, but it did not respond to that either.
If anyone has any ideas I'd be really grateful. The hard drive showed no problems in the test the service guys did and when I run verify disk it also shows not problems.

Edward Durrant wrote:
My question is, do I need the harddrive in for the laptop to function relatively normally?
This is where you would install OS X, so yes, you need a hard drive.

Macbook Pro doesn't boot from hard disk

I recently applied an open firmware password to our Macbook Pro.
A co-worker tried to boot via the t-funtion which obviously doesn't work when the open firmware password is active. He forget to contact me so he tried to get it to work using some startup shortcuts. The folowing he had done:
* starting up while holding shift;
* starting up while holding command + option + P + R;
* having the accu out for a while
* starting up while holding shift and let the Mac on for a night
It seems that starting up from the Macintosh HD seems somehow blocked. THe system hangs on the Apple grey splashscreen with the loading icon turning.
I tried the following:
* Tried resetting PRAM using Option + Command + P + R (didn't hear any chimes);
* Trying to reset Open Firmware Password using Option + Command + O + F (nothing happens)
The most promising solution came when holding down the Option key: I got the lock and entered my Open Firmware Password. I was able to boot from the install disc. In the disc utility I verified the hard disk and repaired some permissions. I didn't get error messages. THen I used the startup utility and selected the hard drive as startup disk.
But when I restart the computer, it still hangs on the splash screen. So for now i've run out of ideas.
Message was edited by: StefSOFT
Message was edited by: StefSOFT

With intel Mac they changed to EFI firmware so a lot has changed. From reading this I think if you can get to install disk utilities then why not uncheck +Require password to change Open Firmware settings+ on Firmware Password Utility and that should free up the troubleshooting steps you list above that are blocked. Reinstall of OSX seems logical to attempt. Sadly without further testing could be hardware issue too, need to contact apple authorized service provider in this eventuality. One thing to bear in mind was whether your co-worker altered the firmware in any way, this might invalidate Apple One-Year Limited Warranty, AppleCare Protection Plan, or other AppleCare agreement.

My Macbook Pro won't boot from External HD

Could anyone out there, maybe Ned or Peter who helped me last time tell me why it wont boot from an image i have loaded onto the HD?
I managed to restore the image onto the HD using disk utility but when i press the power button and hold down 'Alt' i get a blank screen and a repeat of my start up chime and then all the fans activiate
any ideas?
Thanks
Danny

Hey...
I dont know if its the same problem im experiencing... But a couple of day ago i got a brand new macbook pro.. and wanted to restore my os to the state that it was in when i last backed up using superduper... i then plugged in my lacie firewire drive and rebooted pressing down the alt key.. then i was given the choice of booting my backup and i chose that.. but then nothing happened, it just hung at the gray screenn... I later tried to boot it on my girlfriends macbook and it worked fine there.. So i dont know if something is wrong with the macbook pros firewire port..
Hope this helps in some way..

Macbook pro won't boot from any disk

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