MacBook won't boot up power light on

My MacBook won't boot up without the system disk, has Lion with 4 Gb Ram all updates, has a DVD stuck n the drive any suggestions

Have you tried booting into Lion recovery mode? Boot holding the command and R keys down.

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MAC PRO won't boot up power light constantly flashes

So here is the situation. I left for vacation a week ago my mac pro was turned off and plugged into a UPS. When I came back and tried to power on the computer it turns on but there is no "Chime" but the power light does come on like normal (at first) and then just blinks constantly. The monitor stays completely black.
Here is what an apple tech had me do:
Unplug all devices and try powering on with the plug in a wall socket. Unplugging everything from the computer for 15 seconds (SMC reboot?)
No luck. He wants me to take it to a store... I hate taking my computer to a store and handing it over for an unspecified amount of time...
Could opening up the comp and manually resetting the SMC or clearing the PRAM work? I asked the tech what more someone at a store could do and he said they would just test the voltage. Do you need a special tool for that because I have a volt meter and I would much rather not take it to a store. If it is the power supply I would rather they send it to me to install.
Jeremiah

I wasn't aware PRAM batteries did any charging
Apple has used rechargeable batteries for volatile storage for some time.
and just 'held' information in NVRAM and PRAM when needed and there was no power coming in
I can't see data held in NVRAM/PRAM doing something like keeping time without some power. One can't assume a permanent Internet connection to update it when the system is turned on now can we?
I assume it is on a 1000VA UPS that has good battery and fully charged too, and didn't discharge during the vacation
If the UPS was turned off it's as good as being totally unplugged so it may well have still been at 100% upon return. There's no power delivery when the UPS is off remember.

Macbook won't boot past gray/light blue screen- Help!

Hello,
I've had my Macbook for two years (no problems until now). I was using Safari, and suddenly, my screen froze and strange whirring noises were emitted from the laptop. I manually shut down the computer, then tried restarting a minute or so later. However, the only screen that comes up is gray/light blue- there are no icons present at all. No programs load, even after a few minutes.
So far, I have removed the HD and connected it to another computer via external enclosure. Everything seems to be fine from that end- the HD mounted and all of my files were present. I tried insert the OS X install disk, but the disk does not appear to be recognized. I have also tried using safe mode, but nothing. Now I can't even eject the disk from the laptop.
Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance...

The boot sector of the drive is fine or you'd never get to the gray/blue screen.
fligex is correct in the fact that a sector or two may be corrupted. Most of the time you can run "repair permissions" and "Repair Disk" with disk utility and it will fix the problem. Unless the drive is just dieing then the problem will come back or it just will not boot again.
This is why you need to boot from install DVD, another Mac or and external drive with OSX installed.
You cannot seem to get the install DVD to boot. Unless you take it to an Authorized Apple repair you are just going to be in limbo until you can get one of the above listed to work.
Did you ever get the DVD out of the drive?
I can only offer the same suggestions from before, I'll give them again just for grins.
1. The install DVD (a gray dvd) has to be the same DVD that was shipped with that Mac. Unless you have a retail DVD (a black DVD) in which can see OSX on that disk cannot be older than the OSX that shipped with the Mac. If these are not followed then the Mac may not boot from the DVD.
2.Sometime you PRAM and or SMC can get into a state that needs to be reset. They can cause many sporadic problems and the Mac not booting is one of them, and the Mac not ejecting the DVD is another. This is why it is important to make sure that they get reset, and properly.
Pram:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
3. You can boot from an external drive that has OSX install, by the following.
Plug the external drive into the Mac, then power on the Mac and immediately press and hold the "option" key until the Startup Manager appears. Select the external drive from the GUI interface and press the right arrow button on the lower right bottom of the screen. This will force the Mac to boot from that drive. At this point you can run disk utilities from the external firewire drive against the internal Mac drive.
4. You can also put your Mac (with the disk install) into Target Disk Mode. Then plug the TDM Mac into another Mac with a firewire cable. Then TDM will populate on the desktop of the other Mac as an external firewire drive at which point you can run the disk utilities against the external (TDM Mac).
5. Since you had the drive out you could easily put it into an external enclosure and plug it into another Mac to run the disk utilities against it.
Good luck...

My macbook won't start, only power light are flashing about two seconds

My Macbook Pro don't start anymore. The powerlight is flashing about 2 seconds.
The DVD-drive is starting and the disk turns on and is running.
I have resetted all RAMS as described in the apple support.
Before the actual situation, the computer hang up in iPoto with a flickering screen.
The crash-report mentiond somewhat about a read-error in a ?-RAM.
I could create a second partition and I wanted to install OSX-Lion, when the message came that the computer restarted, it didn't start and nothing could help.
Do sombody know what I can do to solove the problem?
Sincerely macsmbw

I'm having precisely this problem myself. For what it's worth, my macbook suffered a pretty devastating crash immediately before this happened. (I was playing a game and it completely crashed during play and shut down.)

MacBook Won't Boot just on AC.

My recent issues are power related.
Won't boot. Reason: Dead battery at 0 mAh.
Won't boot with dead battery even on charge...
When I take out the battery, it won't boot anyways.
I got lucky since I plugged it in when I left it off charge for the night, and went away about 10 minutes, and it boots. Now that won't boot it up... I take out the battery and tried to boot it since I know it's dead. Nothing.
I have 2 MagSafe adapters (One is OEM and is spliced (Charges and fine), and another is not OEM (stupid eBay lied) ) and when I remove the battery to boot just on AC power, nothing. Tried both chargers, both plugs, 2 tips and extension cable, Nothing.
I noticed the light is a dim green when I plug in my OEM charger to my MacBook.
So how can I get it to boot on just AC power? Noone I know has any type of Mac...

If your MacBook won't boot on just the AC adapter, and you are certain the AC adapter is not damaged, then there is a hardware issue with your computer that needs to be repaired.
~Lyssa

Macbook won't boot up - grey screen only

Hi,
I have a core duo MacBook from summer 2007.
All of a sudden the MacBook won't boot up. The battery is fully charged and AC adapter plugged in (same symptoms if not plugged in). The following occurs upon pressing the power button:
1) Start-up chime sounds
2) Can hear hard drive and fans start up
3) Screen turns grey
4) Nothing happens (screen still grey)
Thoughts? I tried resetting PRAM and PMU with no changes.

I have the same problem, just the grey screen and tried
- resetting PRAM (second chime, so this should be OK)
- Safe Mode (just the same)
and pressing Option (or C) to choose the Mac OS X Install Disc gives me the wonderful cursor which can be moved by moving the mouse. No harddisk and even no Install DVD are displayed on the screen.
Also The Apple Hardware Test (by pressing D) doesn't get further than the, now familiar, grey screen.
I pressed the keys with different keyboards, with the original white keyboard and with the aluminium keyboard.
As I've tried everything, I think there's something seriously wrong. Does anybody have some last tips that I can try?

Macbook won't boot, black screen, no chime

My macbook won't boot at all. It is a white non unibody one. When you press the power button the screen breifly blinks and a clicking sound is heard but no other sounds or chime or anything. I'm suspecting the worst but thought i'd submit it on here first. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply but it isn't a hard drive issue. I have tested the hard drive in an external enclosure and it's working fine. I even put in another hard drive i have and it wont boot that either. I'm thinking its a logic board issue. Any one know best place to get logic board replacement near london for cheap

Mdworker deny mach-lookup. But macbook won't boot in safe mode

I have a common problem, I get theese messages every now and then in console:
2/8/13 6:38:24.000 PM kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(793) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
2/8/13 6:38:24.534 PM sandboxd[793]: ([791]) mdworker(791) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd
2/8/13 6:38:24.556 PM sandboxd[793]: ([792]) mdworker(792) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd
There is a solution, which should resolve it, like here https://discussions.apple.com/message/19750564?searchText=mach-lookup%20com.appl e.ls.boxd#19750564
I have just boot in safe mode. (holding Shift during boot)
but my macbook won't boot in Safe mode. It just freeses with a grey screen for hours and wont boot.
I tried to leave it overnight to boot, but it didn't.
Please help me make my macbook to boot in SafeMode.
my configuration is the following:
MacBookPro8,1
OSX 10.8.2

There is a bug in fsck_hfs that is affecting a bunch of people. Basically as your comptuer starts in safe mode, it runs a file system check (fsck) against your hard drive, it gets to a certain point and... just sits there. No one knows why outside of apple.
Lots of info here, including a way to get around it by tricking the system to think fsck had been run, though the fsck will not be complete so it is not a good solution.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21389737?ac_cid=tw123456#21389737

MacBook won't boot when iPod is connected

I have the same problem as described here :
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4112865
My MacBook won't boot if my iPod 5G is connected to the USB port.
If I unplug it, it will boot normally.
Does anyone know what could cause that ?

<When iPod is plugged in at startup, the MacBook does not startup; unplugging iPod lets it startup.
yes, it seems that the kernel is not loading
<After resetting the iPod and BEFORE synching it, there is no problem. Any type of synching seems <to make this problem recur.
only syncing music make the problem occur.
the other syncing works ok
<Even if iPod is connected directly to Mac and it is the only USB device connected, the problem still <occurs.
yes
<The iPod and MacBook work fine if iPod is connected after startup.
Yes
<If the iPod is set to NOT mount to the desktop, the problem with startup does not occur.
Yes, but there are some problems in the boot/halt process.
something like "killing all" fails and unmounting /home fails (45) blabla...
and the stopping process takes very very long, about 2 minutes.
thx robert

My Macbook won't boot up because there isn't enough free space for my start up disk. It's now stuck on a blue screen. How am I meant to delete files to free up space if I can't access the computer?

My Macbook won't boot up because there sin't enough free space to run the startup disk. My Macbook now won't go past the blue screen so exactly how am I meant to be able to delete files if I can't access the computer?

Do you have a bootable backup?
What operating system are you running? If OS X 10.6 or lower, boot from your original OS X DVD or a retail OS X DVD and then delete files as needed. Your goal should be to get to 10% of your disk capacity free.
If you have OS X 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion, you don't have many choices in recovery mode (boot holding the command and r keys down).
If you have a FireWire or Thunderbolt connection, you can try target disk mode with another mac.
If none of those work, perhaps your local Apple store can help with a bootable external drive.

Mac won't boot after power chord became unplugged accidently.

Mac won't boot after power chord became unplugged accidently.
I have a Mac Mini running very latest version of OSX. I was making a recording with QuickTime; when I needed to plug in a USB recording device into the back of the Mac Mini, as I pulled the Mac off my shelf to do this, the power cable came out and the Mac lost power.
I plugged it back in and powered up the Mac. I get the grey screen with Apple logo and the spinning grey wheel; then it goes to a blue screen (as usual) and I get the "starting OSX..." progress bar. When the progress bar finishes, I'm left with a blue screen only, no dock, no apple icon at top left, nothing across the top, no nothing.
So far, I've booted from the original disc and repaired the permissions as well as the disc, then re-booted, but same old blue screen.
I have another iMac G5 machine, so is there any way I can at least retrieve the important HD files from the Mac Mini to my G5, before throwing the broken Mac Mini away?
Can anyone advise please?

Hi, Nigel.
Not to differ with my colleagues here, but there's an important question that wasn't asked.
1. You wrote: "So far, I've booted from the original disc and repaired the permissions as well as the disc, then re-booted, but same old blue screen."Did Disk Utility report any errors it could not fix when you ran Repair Disk? I suggest you run the procedure specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ. Perform the steps therein in the order specified.
2. You may also want to run the Apple Hardware Test that came with your Mini to be sure nothing shorted when the power cable was removed from the computer. I've seen it happen, hence I usually recommend removing the power cable at the wall before disconnecting the power cable from the computer. See my "Apple Hardware Test" FAQ.
3. Repair Disk gives your Mini a clean bill of health, the blue screen may be the result of some Startup or Login item that was corrupted due to the sudden power outage. My "Troubleshooting Startup and Login Items" FAQ can help you pin that down if such an item is causing the problem and may help you avoid and Archive and Install.
4. If you elect to go the Archive and Install route, see my "General advice on performing an Archive and Install" FAQ for some important tips on this process.
5. As FYI, this is the kind of problem that makes one glad they've implemented a comprehensive backup and recovery solution. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ. Computing without a comprehensive backup and recovery solution is like driving without auto insurance.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Macbook won't boot up anymore after trying to reformat

So my White Macbook won't boot up anymore after trying to reformat. While trying to install a fresh copy of Snow Leopard, the Macbook just froze and I had to reset. Now, while trying to boot it up, it hangs at a white screen with a folder with a question mark.
My install disk is still in there, so when I try to boot up while holding C, nothing happens. It either goes to the folder with a question mark or the screen stays white. So after that I tried holding option to go to the drives nothing happens. I just see a white screen and a cursor.
I tried resetting PRAM and tried booting in safe mode and everything but to no avail. Everything results in just a white screen or just a folder with a question mark.
Can I do anything before I have to bring it to the Apple Store? The optical drive should work because before I reformatted it, I could see that the disk was in the drive because the icon was in the upper right.

it hangs at a white screen with a folder with a question mark
Startup your Mac while holding down the Option key. That should prompt the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac

Oh, shoot! My MacBook won't boot! Silver screen is all I see!

Oh, shoot! My MacBook won't boot! Silver screen is all I see

Try a PRAM reset:
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Any unusual noises coming from it?

Macbook won't boot properly.

Macbook won't boot. When turned on, it starts clicking; after a while, I get a gray screen with a blinking folder in the middle that has a question mark on it. After a minute or two, it shuts off.

That folder with the question mark icon means that the MacBook can't find the boot directory. That can either mean it can't find the hard drive or the Operating System data on the hard drive is somehow corrupted.
Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
Or if you are running 10.7 Lion, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7 partition.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. When it comes up is your Hard Drive in the list on the left?
If it is, then click on the Mac OS partition of your hard drive in the left hand list. Then select the First Aid Tab and run Repair Disk. The Repair Disk button won't be available until you've clicked on the Mac OS partition on your hard drive. If that repairs any problems run it again until the green OK appears and then run Repair Permissions. After repairing use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for restarting from your hard drive.
If your hard drive isn’t recognized in Disk Utility then your hard drive is probably dead.

Macbook Pro won't boot up, dim light. Apple still repairing for free?

My Macbook Pro (Intel, 4GB Ram, 500GB Hard Drive) died last night. We turned it off, shut the lid, and next time we came to power-up there was no chime and a blank screen. The power light on the front stays dim (goes brighter if the lid is shut), and no combination of starting it with/without the battery, holding on to the power button, or depressing Ctrl, Option Apple will work.
From reading around this sounds like the faulty NIVDIA card issue whick Apple keeps extending people's warranties to replace. But what are users' experiences of getting this repair done for free? It looks about 50/50 on other communities.
Also, some users have found that taking and re-installing the RAM seems to work. Should I explore this route before taking it to the Geniuses?

This is a user forum so the best anyone here can offer is to take it to an Apple store or AASP.

MacBook won't boot up power light on

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