My MBP won't boot from my Expresscard SSD after I took it out during sleep!

Before this happened I booted my Macbook Pro from an Expresscard SSD. Oddly enough you can take it out while the computer is sleeping. This time though I took it out and inserted it in another computer to transfer files. I put it back in and woke the computer, and I started getting weird messages (ex. Evernote didn't work because it couldn't read its database,) and other things. Now it simply hangs on the Apple logo during startup.
Does anyone that knows what exactly happens to a drive during sleep, and while being read by another computer? What I can do to avoid reinstalling OSX on the drive?

+Oddly enough you can take it out while the computer is sleeping.+
What makes you think that? From your description, it's obvious that you corrupted the contents of the drive. You can try "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility, but most likely you'll have to reinstall. I wouldn't trust any of the data on it now.

Similar Messages

  • New Unibody MBP won't boot from DVD or external drive, just loops

    Hey
    We bought a new Unibody MBP on Monday, and loaned it to our CTO for a presentation. Having got it back from him now I wanted to nuke the installation and put a fresh copy of leopard on it, so I dropped the DVD in the drive, powered down, and booted holding the "C" key.
    I get the chime, screen lights up, thinks for a bit, and if you use your imagination you can almost hear the DVD spin up. Then the screen goes black, lights up, chime, thinks a bit, goes black, lights up, chime and so on
    I've tried booting from an external bootable clone I created with CCC (firewire external HDD), and same symptoms.
    I even tried swapping in a hard drive that I know has a working bootable copy of Leopard on it, and then all I get is the eternal cycle, without pressing any keys on startup.
    I also tried holding down the Option (Alt) key on boot to get the boot device selector. This correctly identifies the various boot devices - the DVD, on-board HDD and external firewire drive (if connected), and lets you select them, tries to boot, thinks, black screen, screen lights up, chime, repeat cycle endlessly until extremely frustrated.
    Is there a known cure for this or am I doomed to take the thing back to the Apple store on Monday?
    Thanks
    Konrad

    Raj wrote:
    That is not the reason it didn't work. Here is the actual clarity:
    *A retail Leopard DVD should be able to boot a new Macbook Pro unibody.*
    So you are saying even if the driver for the controller on which the DVD drive sits is not available in the Leopard DVD you are using because the hardware was not manufactured at the time the Leopard release on the DVD was made, the OS should magically just boot? How is that possible? Unibody MacBook Pros have entirely NEW AHCI chipset - for which there won't be any drivers on the older Leopard DVD and as such the DVD wont be detected once the OS on the DVD loads. In cases where the chipset used is same (as in previous generations of MBP) it will boot.
    The key difference here is that if you used an older version, some new hardware may not be supported - however, the computer *should still boot from the DVD*, which is the subject of this discussion.
    The OP said that his computer boots from the DVD that came with the computer - just not with the old retail Leopard DVD. Also - what should happen if the new hardware happens to be the controller on which the DVD drive is sitting? How will it be able to read the DVD? What about the graphics card? If the drivers on the old leopard disk do not recognize the new graphics card - how is the OS going to display on screen?
    On my way home, I stopped at a Mac store and asked them to test this. They successfully booted a new Macbook Pro unibody from an older Leopard DVD. And this is why Apple is replacing my computer, because it is a hardware issue, not a software one.
    Again - you fail to understand that whether or not the old DVD boots on a new machine all depends on how much hardware has changed and what hardware has changed. It may boot on some generation of machine because the basic chipset and graphics did not change or were handled generically by the drivers on the older DVD but it may totally refuse to boot on new gen machine which has totally different / incompatible hardware.
    So your claim that any old Leopard DVD must continue to boot on any new machine is not really technically explainable.

  • MBP Won't boot from DVD

    Onyx has informed me that my drive needs to be repaired. So I tried to boot from the Snow Leopard install DVD and just get the grey screen with the apple. I let it run all night and it didn't go any further. I tried to boot from a bootable TechTool Pro DVD. Same result. Then I booted in single user mode and ran fsck. It said it made some repairs but still couldn't boot from a DVD after that and still get the message in Onyx that the drive needs to be repaired. Haven't tried to boot from an external drive yet, but I am just concerned that booting from a DVD doesn't work.

    You say that you can't boot using the Snow Leopard Install DVD. Have you tried the Install DVD that came with your Mac?
    It is possible that the operating system on the DVDs you are attempting to boot from is to old to boot your Mac.
    Allan

  • MBP won't boot from anything!

    Hi I've got a Macbook Pro that was working fine until it froze up yesterday. When I turned it back on, I was greeted with the flashing folder with the question mark. After zapping the PRAM and all that mojo, there was no difference. If I try booting off an external drive, it shows up but doesn't actually start booting. I also can't get it to boot off any of my Leopard discs. Of course, that goes without saying the internal drive doesn't show up as a boot option either. Any ideas? I've troubleshooted a number of Macs but haven't seen one unable to boot anything before...

    Hi Chris Jansen;
    It sounds like you lost your hard drive. It is possible with the lose of the hard drive for a Mac to not be able to boot from the DVD either. My suggestion is to take it back to the Apple Store and have them check it out. Hopefully you have backups of your data.
    Allan

  • Macbook Pro won't boot from DVD with SSD

    Here's the timeline of events.
    Had a running MBP 17 Early 2011 Thunderbolt with OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 115GB drive.
    Installed Windows 7 via bootcamp. I have done this multiple times before and every time I need to format the bootcamp partition before installing. I think this time I actually deleted the partition and then selected the freespace to install. This worked fine for the most part but I wasn't able to boot the boot camp partition using vmware fusion.
    I gave up and used the boot camp assistant to revert back to one mac partition. I was getting some odd behavior so I rebooted the machine. It then came up with a message saying no bootable partiton. This made me think (and still does) that the windows install using the free space versus the boot camp partition caused the windows MBR boot loader to get installed incorrectly and mucked up the OS X installation. Ok, fine, I can just reinstall.
    I can't seem to boot from the original MBP installation DVD. I hold down c on boot but I never get past the all grey screen. I hear the DVD drive spin up but it eventually stops. I put the original HD back in it and everything works fine but when I put the SSD in, I can't boot from the DVD drive.
    I have already set up an RMA with OWC to send back the drive but considering the order of events, I feel as though it isn't a hardware issue but can't seem to figure out how to fix it. I can always send it back in but figured I would check this community forum and see if anyone could offer some guideance/assistence before doing so.
    Thanks in advance for your help.

    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.

  • Won't boot from battery or AC after left unplugged for a month

    I left my PowerBook 17" 1.5GHz unplugged for a few weeks, and now it won't boot, whether it's plugged in or not, battery in or out. The band around the AC plug glows orange.
    I've tried resetting the Power Manager by holding down shift, control, option, and hitting power to no avail.
    I've tried holding down the power button for 10 seconds.
    No sound, no screen, nothing. Just seems dead. Any ideas?
    Is there a hardware reset button?
    Could the internal battery be dead?
    What else can I try?
    Amit

    One thing to try, and hopefully it is this simple, would be to remove the battery and plug it in over night and give the internal battery a night of charging. Then, try to start it up in the morning.
    I don't know exactly what the Apple Store told you, but maybe the easiest fix is the answer.
    I don't have a 17" G4, but I've had other laptops that would not start when both the external and internal batteries are dead.
    Shane

  • MBP won't boot from HD or disk drive

    After using my MBP daily since I got it in Feb, this morning it refused to boot. It got as far as the gray screen with the logo and the spinning cog. The cog would spin for a while then stop. Then nothing. This has happened a time or two when I'd installed a program that the computer didn't like, and I'd always been able to use the install disk.
    This time it didn't work! I tried starting while holding the "C" --didn't work. Same thing..cog stuck.
    Next I tried holding down the Option key while booting. This gave me a choice of HD or Disk drive. HD booted and immediately froze before I could do anything.
    Rebooted and tried chosing the disk drive...nothing.
    This has gone on all day with intermittent breaks to scream and punch pillows.
    Next, I found a TechTools disk in my Warranty pack. I somehow managed to eject the install disk and put in the TechTools disk according to direction on the front of the disk, with C key depressed...nothing. I took out the battery and reset the power settings. No help. I've tried every key combination that is physically possible with only 10 fingers and nothing has helped.
    I'm embarassed to say that I'm typing this on my husband's Fujitsu Lifebook. I'll never hear the end of this.
    Please help!
    MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   2gig

    The genius is wrong. As long as you have the latest version of OS X on a PowerPC Mac it will work fine.
    Here is a document from Apple that discusses the issue: Intel-based Macs: "You have inserted a disk containing no volumes that Mac OS X can read" alert message
    You can't format a disk in an Intel-based Mac from a PowerPC Mac and have it boot successfully but you can access the disk or repair it.

  • Early 2008 MBP won't boot from internal disk

    Hello Apple Community,
    This is my first post here I hope somone can help me.  I have a MBP from 2008 I upgraded to Lion about a month ago and had some minor issues right away, but now I can't get past the boot screen without a kernel panic.  I did a time machine restore to one of my external drives and it boots up fine.  I figured my internal drive was going bad so I installed a new one yesterday and the exact same Kernel Panic happens.  I don't live in a city with an apple store so that isn't an option for me.  I am contemplating going all the way back to leopard because the was the last os I can remember that was completely stable for me. Any suggestions?
    Thank you

    Check the format of your replacement drive. Verify that is was formatted as GUID. Often times the drives are formatted to the older scheme. It must be a GUID partition scheme to be bootable with an Intel Mac.

  • 2011 MBP won't boot from main bay

    I have an early 2011 13" MBP. I removed the SuperDrive and replaced it with an SSD. I also placed another SSD in the main bay. Everything worked fine and suddenly the SSD in the main bay would not be recognized. I switched the main bay SSD with original HDD and everything worked fine for a week, then that stopped being recognized. Now my main bay will not recognize any drive. It is not the SSD or the HDD. I have tested them in the hard drive caddy I replaced the SuperDrive with and as external hard drives plugged into USB. Anyone ever had this issue?

    That is what I hear about apple. The replacement part from iFixit is $50. I wonder what would be cheaper.
    http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Early-2011-Late- 2011-Hard-Drive-Cable/IF163-026

  • Early 2008 mac pro won't boot from hdd when ssd is installed

    I have Mountain Lion 10.8.3 installed on my 1TB HDD in my early 2008 mac pro.  That is the only OS install on my mac.  I have an OWC SSD formatted but left as an empty drive that I am trying to use but when it's installed my mac hangs on the blank gray screen.
    My mac cold boots fine and runs fine when the SSD is *not* installed.  When I shut down and put the SSD into a drive bay the mac does seem to boot ok the first time, but when the computer is off for a while it will not boot.  It just hangs on the blank gray screen (no apple logo).    As soon as I pull out the SSD, the computer boots fine and runs fine again.  I am not trying to boot off the SSD, I am booting off the HDD.  The correct drive (1tb hdd) is selected in startup disk.
    OWC has been helping me and I have tested 3 SSD's.  So it does not appear to be a problem with their drive.
    The mac will boot into safe mode with the SSD installed.  It will boot if I choose the boot drive with the option key at startup.
    Mountain Lion was clean installed.
    Could it be some sort of library pref or cache issue?
    Any recommendations on what to try?

    A HT does not find a lot of errors.
    It doesn't look for bad sectors or directory or file problems.
    Clone your SSD now that you have a clean OS and has the Apple updates on it. Before you make changes.
    Install TRIM Enabler 2.2+ on it and any boot volume, to enable TRIM and so that Disk Utility's Repair Disk will trim cells. Mountain Lion Recovery won't  which is a shame, so...
    Clone and keep bootable backup clone of your system to use for maintenance.
    A really bad directory on a system drive will cause interference from booting.
    SSDs really need extra care, and even with TRIM, to be repaired from time to time and couple times a year, to do an erase and restore from a current image.
    Of course Mac OS system even iwth apps is small and doesn't need to have any data or media and fits on 120GB usually just fine and still have a good enough amount free so TRIM and Garbage Collection can work properly and not get low on free pages. But 20GB free should be the minimum free, and better to have more, at least whatever total amount is written out in a month.

  • Macbook Pro 15" won't boot from ANYTHING :( Can't mount internal drive

    Hi there,
    I'm new to these forums so please bear with me if I make a faux pas.
    A few days ago while watching a movie on my MBP Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 the beach ball of death appeared and the computer became unresponsive. I restarted to the flashing folder with a question mark.
    Tried to boot from the install disk - No joy : Occasionally gets to the language selection screen (after a good 5-8 minute wait) and then instantly and completely freezes. Cursor won't move, caps lock light is unresponsive etc..
    Tried to boot from Diskwarrior - Similar to the above. Long wait, boots to the Diskwarrior 'setting up' screen, unresponsive cursor - despite, Diskwarrior seemingly going through the motions (status in text changes, menu bar appears) and then it reports an unexpected error with code 60, 2105 and completely freezes.
    Can't boot from a USB flash drive with a clean version of OS X made from my install disk.
    Disk won't mount when in target disk mode. However the DVD drive mounts it's contents onto the host machine when it target mode.
    I removed the drive last night and placed it in an external enclosure and OS X reports "The disk you've inserted is not recognised et.. "Initialise" "Ignore" "Eject". The drive appears in Disk Utility but all options are greyed out, SMART status says 'not supported' and it's capacity is shown as 0 bytes. The drive registers in the Hardware pane of Diskwarrior but no-where else.
    I'm fine with the fact that the drive has failed but could these problems indicate something more serious? I'm concerned that the machine won't boot from any device or media. Is this a symptom of a failed hard drive or could this be a logic board issue?
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
    Thanks all and Happy new Year.
    XOXO

    You might try a PRAM reset and see if this does any good.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US
    It sounds like the hard drive itself is toast based on how it looks in an enclosure. So you won't be able to boot from it. Possibly after a PRAM reset you could option boot to a disc or to your external drive.
    I had the experience of a failed hard drive totally messing up my PowerMacG4, and it took some doing to get it going again. I finally got it going again, and it has been working ever since without issue.
    The MBP is a different machine, but having experienced first hand what a dying hard drive could do, I think it's well worth doing any resets you can.
    If no joy, make an appointment at the genius bar and ask them if they can run a hardware test from their store feed. If you do have other issues, they should show up then.
    If you end up being able to boot to the optical drive, you could try running the extended version of the Apple Hardware test yourself.
    Good luck!

  • Xserve G4 Won't boot from Anything

    Everyone:
    I have a G4 Xserve (slot load) with 2 GB of RAM installed. It was running X.3.9 just as happy as a lark. I migrated all users from the server to use it as a test environment. My first test was to upgrade it to Tiger, which so far has not gone very smoothly.
    The Xserve has all 4 bays populated. Bays 1&2 are mirrored using Apple's RAID software, this is the system drive. Bays 3&4 are set as a RAID 0.
    My Upgrade goes like this: I inserted the Tiger Server CD (no DVD drive), double-clicked the installer and the server rebooted. The installed seemed to go smooth, but I did have to walk away from it towards the end. When I came back, the server was stuck at a blue screen and a moveable mouse pointer. Couldn't do anything else.
    This forced a hard reset, of which the same thing happened. So I thought, no big deal, let's just redo the installation. Insert Tiger CD again, hold down C key....server boots from hard drive and gets stuck.
    Weird.
    Ok, let's try booting from the Panther CD. Reboot server, hold down mouse button, eject Tiger CD, insert Panther CD, reboot, hold C key....server boots from hard drive and gets stuck.
    Dang. This was supposed to be an easy upgrade.
    Just so things aren't confused, I pull out the drives with the Raid 0 (Bays 3 & 4). Same process.
    OK, maybe it's the Raid on the system drive, so I pull out one of the drives. Same boot process.
    Reset the PRAM, just for grins, no change.
    Alright, let's see if I can force it to recognize the CD, pull out all the drives and put in a spare, brand new drive from the shelf.
    Same thing, won't boot from CD. Neither Panther or Tiger. At least I get the blinking icon that there's no OS installed.
    Put the #1 system drive back in, connect an external firewire CD Drive, still won't boot from CD. I still get to a blank blue screen, though.
    Try booting in Single User Mode, I still get the same thing, boots from disk to blue screen.
    Now I've spent an afternoon of my time and another techs time and we're both scratching our heads. I recalled that I could also issue boot commands via the Sys ID button. Dig out manual, find the combination, same story. Boots from hard drive to the blue screen and stops.
    Seems like any input at boot time is being ignored, although it will eject the CD if the mouse is held down. I've verified that the machine is not locked (the light is off). I also opened it up to make sure that the lock switch wasn't partially stuck. Not sure if there's anything else to check.
    Thoughts?

    does that mean I have to send it to Apple to fix
    No. Apple changes the bootROMs from model to model so you can't use the same install disc on different models. It could their way of dealing with piracy.
    Example; Say I bought a new MacBook Pro and I had an iMac that was still running Leopard. I couldn't use the Snow Leopard install disc from the new MBP to install SL on the iMac.
    Check out the new remodeled MacOSG website! 24-hour Apple-related news & support.
     MacOSG: An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast  Follow us on Twitter: MacOSG

  • 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).

  • GX630 boot from esata expresscard adapter

    Hi,
    i have GX630 with non functional sata ports (sata working for 5min and after that not).
    Now i booting from USB, but this is little slowly.
    I read many topics about booting ssd card from expresscard slot, and it works, but its much expensive for me.
    Can i boot from esata expresscard adapter (adapter supports booting)?
    Can bios in GX630 recognize this sata adapter?
    Thanks for reply

    Hi and welcome to Discussions,
    the EFI and SMC updates are specific for each Mac model.
    Therefor trying to apply an EFI update made for the newer MBP to an older one would either not work (because the Installer checks the model) or, if it installs, surely crash your MBP.
    Don't try it !!
    Since the newer MBPs uses a different (newer) Intel-chipset on the logic board, it is most likely that the ability to boot from eSATA Express Card is not implemented on the chipset that is in your 'older' MBP.
    Sorry
    Stefan

Maybe you are looking for