Macbook won't boot from Hard Drive of Disc Drive!

So I bought a Macbook (Mid-2010) from a friend recently and I can't seem to get it to boot from the hard drive or optical drive. At first I tried booting from the HD it already had and when I didn't have any luck, I went out and bought a new one. It still won't boot. I'll turn it on, it'll chime and will try to load, and then I'll get the "You need to restart your." message. I've tried booting from disc (Leopard & Snow Leopard) and will still get the same message. I have also tried all possible startup key combinations and haven't had any luck. I don't have the original DVD it came with. So was wondering if any of you guys out there have experienced this. I would like to hear your tips before I go to an Apple Store and see if they can get it fixed for me.

"You need to restart your." message
That is referred to as a "kernel panic"...
Try here >  Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics | MacFixIt - CNETReviews
I don't have the original DVD it came with
You will need those discs.   Replacement disc(s) from Apple:   You can get replacement System Install & Restore CD/DVDs from Apple's Customer Support - in the US, (800) 767-2775 - for a nominal S&H fee. You'll need to have the model and/or serial number of your Mac available.
You can check the startup disk using the Disk Utility application located in /Applications/Utilities if you can boot in Safe Mode, but you cannot make repairs without the install disc.

Similar Messages

  • MacBook won't boot from hard drive or CD

    My MacBook will not turn on. When the power button is pressed the chime sounds as normal and the grey screen appears but it will not go any further. It also refuses to boot from a CD when c is held down. The CD spins up but it does not load. The computer was water damaged in December and this killed the hard drive but I replaced it and it worked fine again for about a month. Does anyone have any suggestions?

    Thanks for the advice, doesn't seem to have worked though.

  • MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

    I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
    By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

    I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

  • S10-2 Won't boot from hard drive

    I have an S10-2 2957 that won't boot from the internal hard drive. The one key function doesn’t work either. After the splash comes up and the BIOS runs all that is displayed is a flashing cursor. If I boot from an external source (USB CD) I can see the hard drive and all files are intact. I have tried removing the battery and power supply, holding the power key for 30 seconds before powering the unit back up to no avail. I’m thinking that either the boot sector is corrupt or the first partition is not active. Any ideas?
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    press f8 to load when you see lenovo logo at start-up, and select safe mode. post back the results.

  • 27" iMac won't boot from anything BUT the main drive

    Hi all,
    My lovely 27" iMac is in perfect working condition, but I thought I'd try to install a OS on a large SD card to see if I would gain any speed.
    In the process of doing that (cause I never got that far) I discover that the iMac won't boot from the original install DVD. It simply spits out the DVD when I try to insert into the drive. I'v managed to make an image of the DVD (in a different mac) onto the SD card in order to try an boot from that. No luck. I've tried to insert a original install DVD from my Mac Pro into the iMac, which it reads fine and well, and when I tap the restart button it restarts, but stop with a white screen doing boot up.
    If I try to hold down the option key during startup, the iMac WILL let me choose which OS to boot from, but if I choose anything else than the OS already installed it freezes.
    I've even tried to boot my Mac Pro from the iMac install DVD - no problems.
    I've even run a hardware test on the iMac - no problems.
    I am running out of options fast! Please help a devoted Mac-friend.
    Take care.
    Peter

    I WAS using the DVD that came with the machine, but I fear Apple may have sent me the wrong one?
    In trying to solve the issues I'd tried other OS disc's (A Mac Pro install DVD and a OS X Leopard DVD) - but none of them would even boot, nor install of my iMac. I always end up with a white screen during boot up.
    As I described, the original iMac install DVD would indeed boot my Mac Pro, do the disc seems ok?

  • MacBook Won't Boot From Install Disc

    I was getting the "No Airport Card INstalled" error notice, so I replaced the airport card.  Very easy operation really.  With a new card in, I still get the same error notice.  Mind you the Bluetooth works, and it's on the same card.
    If I unplug the battery, and reconnect it, the airport will usually then come up, but disappear as soon as the machine wakes from sleep.
    I was thinking software corruption, but now I find that I cannot boot from the Apple install disc.  Using the "C" key or the "Option" key.
    I have also now found that I can't reset the PRAM using the Option-Command-P-R key combionation either.
    It's NOT the keyboard, as it works in every other way.
    So still thinking software corruption somewhere, but unable to boot from the install disc to do a wipe and reload of the OS.
    Need ideas before I bite the bullet and take to the shop.

    Try smc reset.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

  • IMac won't boot from OS X install disc!

    I'm needing to do some internal hard drive repairs but the system won't boot from the install disc! I've restarted it tons of times while holding down "C" and it just bypasses it and boots right into OS X. It restarts as normal with the chime (I am holding down "C") then the Apple logo comes up, then the spinning circle thing, but it just goes right into OS X. Help!

    Let's be sure you are doing it properly.
    First, you must use the OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. Carefully check both surfaces for scratches, dirt, fingerprints and if so clean it carefully with a very soft cleaning cloth that won't scratch the disc.
    Second, insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when the spinning gear appears below the dark gray Apple logo.

  • Powerbook won't boot from hard drive or restore disk

    I've looked through some of the older posts here and none of them exactly matches my problem, and I've tried just about any possible solution I can think of.
    I recently noticed that my PowerBook was acting a bit strange. It was making more fan noises than usual, and sometimes the computer would make the very last noise it makes as it shuts down (which is the hard drive coming to rest, I suppose?), though the computer would still be running. Then, yesterday the computer froze and I hit command-control-power, and when the computer restarted it gave me a folder icon blinking between a question mark and the Mac logo.
    I tried restarting again, but I had no luck. Now when I try to start up I get the start-up chime, then I get one of three things:
    1) If I restart it without a CD in the drive, I get the blinking folder.
    2) If I restart it with the Software Restore and Install DVD in (but without holding down the C key), it gets to the Apple logo and shows the spinning pinwheel or whatever you want to call it, then freezes and some nasty horizontal bars pop across the screen.
    3) If I restart it with the Restore & Install DVD in and I hold down the C key, it gives me the Apple logo, then the "Your computer has encountered a problem and needs to be restarted" box pops up.
    I tried zapping the PRAM--no luck. I tried Open Firmware; the screen pops up, then I type in "mac-boot" and I get the same thing as in #2 above.
    I used the Hardware Test CD; it told me that there was a Mass Storage error with the error code 2STF/1/4. That doesn't sound too pleasant.
    I'm not sure what caused it; perhaps it was a heat thing, but I moved it too a different surface. All the hardware is original except for the Airport card, which has worked fine since Christmas. The only recent software changes I've made were updating to the newest versions of iTunes and Firefox. It doesn't seem like a hard drive problem, since the boot CD won't work.
    Am I doomed to sending Apple a couple hundred bucks to fix this? The laptop is right at three years old, so even if I'd had AppleCare it would be expiring right about now. Or is it time to buy one of those MacBooks? Or just buy a couple PC's and use each one till it breaks, then throw it out?
    Thanks,
    Kevin

    I finally got to another Mac. I installed Mac OS X onto my Firewire drive, then hooked up the drive to my Powerbook and used the Startup Manager. The drive showed up on Startup Manager and I chose to boot from it. When I did, the startup process continued briefly, then froze just like it does when I try to boot from the CD.
    I know my Powerbook's hard drive is shot, and to be honest, I'm fine with that--there isn't any critical, essential data on there. I tried starting the Powerbook up in Target Disk mode, but that doesn't work either--I hear the chime, press T, but the screen stays black.
    Now my question is: can I rip the hard drive out? Or do I have not only a bad hard drive, but also something else gone wrong? I'm not opposed to buying a new internal hard drive and installing it myself if that will fix the problem; what I don't want to do is spend a few hundred bucks to take it to someone who's only going to tell me that my omputer is now a paperweight.
    Also, my Powerbook isn't one of the ones with a recalled battery. The computer can get pretty hot, even when sitting on a desk, but I just figured that was normal.
    Thanks,
    Kevin

  • IMac turned off suddenly, won't boot from hard drive/CD drive

    Hi guys.
    Here is what I have:
    27" iMac with:
    Core i5 2.7
    4GB RAM
    Mountain Lion
    Win7 on Bootcamp
    Lion is installed, but I have the Snow Leopard install disc.
    The system had just been recently reformatted so there wasn't really much on the computer itself other than an update to Mountain Lion and a Win7 install via Bootcamp. Other than that, nothing was recentlly installed.
    What happenes is I was browsing and all of a sudden it completely shut down. No warning, nothing. Completely shuts down.
    Okay.. weird... but when I try to load Mac back up, the Apple logo appears and then after a while of supposedly loading, the screen goes to a plain white screen until I force the computer off. Something similar happens when tryin gto boot into Windows: I get to the "Starting Windows" screen but after that everything goes black and I have to shut down manually.
    Great. Now I'll just go into recovery and fix all of this right? Wrong. Can't boot into recovery either. Similar end result: white screen.
    Last thing I tried is reinstall OS X Snow Leopard. After loading for about 1-2 minutes, the usual white screen appears after trying to boot from the disc.
    I am at a loss. I don't think its the hard drive, because the problem occurs even when trying to boot from the disc. My suspicion is the RAM has gone bad. But, before I go the hardware route, is there any suggestions or recommendations anyone could make first?
    In advance, I really appreciate anyone who replies and tries to help.
    Thanks.

    Xmotox,
    I had the EXACT problem today. EXACT. Discs wouldn't boot, I did get the application disc to run the AHT but it said all was fine.
    I called my buddy who said something about unplugging for a minute then holding power button while plugging the power supply back in. I thought it would be futile since we already did all the SMC reset procedures to no avail, PRAM reset didn't do anything, etc, etc... But what do you know, up pops the disc utility and my iMac is now restoring from time machine. It's not done yet, so I can't say it worked... BUT it's the farthest we got tonight. Could not get disc utility up via CMD-R or OPTION keys... but powering down, unplugging for a minute or so, then holding power button while plugging the power supply back in did the trick. Hope this helps!

  • Kernal panic/ won't boot from hard drive or installation disc/ error type 1

    Friends PowerBook seems to be dying or is possibly dead.
    PowerBook G4 model A1138 or M9969LL/A:
    15 inch/ 1.67 ... http://support.apple.com/specs/powerbook/PowerBookG4_15-inch_Double-LayerSD.html
    K, so my friend's powerbook is in my possession... and not booting.
    A week ago, upon booting the laptop, he'd get the old OS9 looking folder flashing with THE happy face and then a question mark. Then, usually, it'd boot. It started taking longer and longer to boot, so he backed up all his stuff. It eventually stopped booting OSx (10.4.10) and came to me asking about how to reinstall Tiger.
    As of right now his machine will NOT boot from the hard drive, regularly or in safe mode.
    When we try the install CD, we get a kernal panic. It hangs, then tells us to restart. Every time.
    Holding down "alt" I tried the hardware diagnostic/ repair thingy from the install disc. It mentions a quick issue with finding Gineva fonts or something and then gives the following errors:
    type 1346978644 error 1
    type 1346978644 error 1
    Invalid memory access at %SRR0:00000000 %SRR1:00083030
    Thats about all we got. We are looking for a screw driver to try and remove a stick of ram and see if thats the problem. Any ideas? Hoping for a bad stick of ram or hard drive. Anyone know if for sure the logic board is dead or if there is a way to fix it? Appreciate any feedback. Happy to give more information if you need it!
    ~joel

    When you did the boot off the original system disk was anything non-Apple externally connected? If not, then you clearly have a hardware problem, and your idea of examining the RAM is not half a bad idea. The only thing you might want to do before that is zapping the PRAM. Sometimes that clears issues such as you describe:
    1. First determine if your machine is under 4 years old. If it is, then go ahead
    and do step 2. Otherwise do step 3.
    2. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
    3. Take it to an authorized service center to have the clock battery replaced. That may cause the very issues you described.

  • My Macbook Won't boot from USB drives

    Alright. Seems that ever since I've upgraded to Mountain Lion, I keep having one problem after the next. It's probably my fault, but I've been doing nothing I would think to be wrong...
    Anyway. Here's a breif history. I have a Macbook pro. Before I installed Mountain Lion, I had Snow Leopard installed with Windows 7 on BootCamp. I installed Mountain Lion and made a startup USB for it as well. I used that USB as a startup drive so I could shrink my OS X installation partition on my HD so I could make a third partition since I am running out of room on my Windows Partition for games. It suceeded, I partitioned the remaining space on the drive as an ExFAT, and restarted. I tried to load up Windows, nothing would boot. I then loaded up my OS X partition just fine. No issues there. Figured something with the partition messedup the Windows install. So I decided to reinstall Windows. Nope, the Windows install USB won't boot. Okay... Maybe if I delete that extra partition I made, things will work. Nope, won't boot the Mountain Lion start up USB now. And for some stupid reason I cannot resize the partitions using the Mountain Lion startup partition on the HD.
    So, what did I break that made it so only OS X will start up and no other bootable drives?

    Week 2, this problem still occuring. Would be nice if this support forum actually offered support...

  • K8M Neo-V won't boot from hard drive after BIOS flash

    But it boots just fine from CD or floppy.
    I bought the combo (MB, AMD64 processor, 1G memory) to replace a
    motherboard which had died in a previously working system.  At the
    same time I replaced the power supply and the video card. When I first
    fired it up, it brought up the boot manager from the previous incarnation
    of the system, which had been an Athlon-XP.
    I never actually let it reboot, since I wanted to redo the OS optimized
    for the AMD64 (and the new video card.)  I flashed the motherboard to the
    most current version of the BIOS (AMI version 3.5), booted from CD and
    installed the OS.  Once I got to the point of being able to boot from the
    new system, I removed the CD and proceeded to reboot.
    It displayed all the possible boot devices (note that the floppy and CD
    were empty):
      Searching for Boot Record from floppy..not found
      Searching for Boot Record from CD/DVD..not found
      Searching for Boot Record from IDE-0..not found
    No matter what I did, I couldn't get the system to boot from the hard
    drive.  I reflashed the BIOS back to 3.2, still didn't work.  Since then I
    have installed four different operating systems:  Win2k, WinXP, Gentoo
    Linux and Debian Linux.  All boot from CD, install perfectly until you get
    to the part where the system has to boot on its own, and then nothing.
    Has anyone seen this?  Is it possible that there is a problem with how
    I've set the BIOS up?  Or a hardware conflict with something else?  Or
    just a bad MB?
    Thanks for any advice.
    Steve

    Notihng special in the BIOS drive setup.  Everything is auto-detected and I've pretty much left those settings alone.  At the time of the first flash I probably *did* have SMART enabled.  Once I started having trouble I turned that off, and have never turned it back on.
    Boot order has been changed multiple times.  Right now it is floppy -> cd -> ide-0.  I've turned the network boot option off and on again (not that there's a boot server handy...)  I've tried hitting F11 to choose my boot device and specifically selected the HD.  Hasn't made any difference.
    I generally turn virus protection off the moment I get a new motherboard.  I'm pretty sure it came disbaled by default, if not I'm sure I disabled it.  Even had it been on, though, any boot block corruption would have to be permanent damage to act like it has, since four subsequent OS installs should have overwritten the boot block four times over.
    It might be worth my time to drop a different HD in the primary master slot and see if it can boot from that.  I'll be real unhappy if I've toasted a perfectly good drive.

  • Bondi iMac 233 won't boot from hard drive,

    I have a Bondi iMac 233, 192MB running OSX 10.3 which was being throw out at work, the hard drive (40GB IBM Deathstar) was failing but it would still boot up. I installed an original 6GB iMac Hard Drive, low level formated the drive and installed OS9.2. Now the iMac refuses to boot from this hard drive or even another 4GB Hard Drive.
    The iMac will boot from CD and I can see and install a new OS onto the Hard Drive, OS9 or OSX, I can choose the drive under the Startup Control Panel but the computer refuses to boot from the Hard Drive.
    I have zapped the PRAM,
    Reset the NVRAM
    Reset the CUDA chip.
    Reset the Logic Board
    Reseated Cables
    Reseated Processor and memory modules
    All to no avail.
    Does anyone have any other ideas?
    thanks
    Bondi iMac   Mac OS 9.2.x  

    I've been doing this with about 14 iMacs slot/tray that I'm prepping for inner city kindergartens in Chicago. I have had that problem where in moving from 10.3.9 to 9.2.2 the iMacs wouldn't recognize the HDs. Booting from an original iMac OS 9 install disc and selecting the HD as start up has always solved the problem for me.
    However, and maybe this is related,
    I've had the problem with a couple of tray loaders where in moving from 10 to 9 it wouldn't recognize the CD-ROM drive. I went through a bunch of drives before I figured out that booting from an iMac OS 8.6 CD made the iMac rerecognize the drive. I was able to reset?? all the drives that wouldn't previously work using this method. Weird but maybe there's a chip in the drive board that needed to be reset. Dunnno about the HDs tho' but it could be related.
    Richard

  • MacBook won't boot from disc

    On Sunday my ten-month-old MacBook froze up and made some nasty clicking noises. I forced a restart, but now it just boots to a white screen and, after a good five minutes or more, eventually displays the blinking, question-mark folder.
    I'm quite certain the drive is toast, but what I find more interesting (and in some ways more irritating) is that I can't for the life of me get it to boot from a DVD. I've tried my Leopard disc and the install disc that came with my computer. I hold C while booting, the drive spins for a bit, and eventually it just spits the disc back out. I've also tried holding D with the original install disc to boot the Apple Hardware Test and get the same result. I've tried holding Option to get a list of boot volumes and just get a white screen with a mouse cursor. I've tried resetting the power management unit and zapping the PRAM, as suggested in the "What to do if your Mac won't boot" list, and have noticed no change.
    Thoughts? There must be something else I can do.

    You may have a bigger problem than just the Hard Drive. Call Apple support or go by an Apple store if your near one and talk to them. You've done everything you can do. It will be up to them now. Be thankful it's still under warranty.

  • New MacBook won't boot from external disk

    I have a new MacBook that I am trying to boot from an external disk that had the system from my first gen MacBook Pro. When I restart holding the Option key, and select my external disk, the system restarts again and won't let me boot from that disk. Is there something different with the OS (10.5.6) that is installed on a newer MacBook that won't allow it to boot from the same OS from an older MacBook Pro?
    Thanks

    Ian Patterson wrote:
    golferx,
    Will any other Intel Mac boot from the drive? If not, it's possibly because the drive uses an Apple Partition Map (bootable for PowerPC Macs) instead of a GUID Partition Table (bootable for Intel Macs).
    To check: open to Disk Utility, select the hard drive on the left, select the Partition tab and look at the text at the bottom right corner of the window under Partition Map Scheme. If it says anything other than GUID Partition Table, you will need to erase and repartition it as such before it will be bootable.
    Just a thought. Hope this helps. Good luck!
    -i-
    I can boot an prev gen MacBook and also my iMac (current gen). I took it to the Genius Bar and he could not get it to boot a new MacBook either and didn't have a solution.

Maybe you are looking for

  • HELP!!! GRAPHIC Help NEEDED!!!!!

    I need to do two things: 1) control the image resolution (dpi) 2) save as windows bitmap (bmp) Does any-body know how to do this? Or does anybody know of a allready writen class that has methods for these two things?

  • Spamtrainer & sa-learn

    I was just going through a recent test server (10.4.7), which had previously not had spamassassin enabled, in order to get a clearer idea of spamassassin and its learning process. I fixed the .spamassassin link, added the 2 junkmail users, installed

  • How to update S Tables (like S812) ?

    Hi I need to update some FI tables like S812 in a Z program. I see some Z programs wich update directly the S812 table but it supose it's not correct because these tables are like stantard SAP tables wich can only be updated by standard SAP functions

  • How to see planned expenditure/conditional value in PO along with Item rate

    Hi If I need to see a report similar to ME2L, ME2N which will give PO price & value along with planned expenditure/conditional value from purchase order, which transaction to be seen. ME2L will not give planned expenditure seperately. Regards Raghu S

  • 1 Copy/Computer

    I notice that Final Cut Express won't install on my second iMac on my home network. I wouldn't really use that computer, but the principle of this thing sort of bugs me. These are the same sort of tactics that Microsoft uses. Apple has dropped the pr