MacBook Won't Boot

jamieh

Hi all,

My MacBook gets to the apple logo and after a few minutes a circle with a diagonal line through it appeas.

Have searched everywhere but can't find the installation disc.

Do I have any options??

mathepac

It sounds like the internal disk is snookered.

Do you have an external bootable disk?

Have you tried rebooting with the <SHIFT> key held down (safe boot mode)?

jamieh

mathepac wrote: »

It sounds like the internal disk is snookered.

Do you have an external bootable disk?

Have you tried rebooting with the <SHIFT> key held down (safe boot mode)?

I tried holding down - Ctrl, Option, P & R ...rebooted alright but didn't make any difference.

I've pressed shift on boot up but there was no sign of safe mode.

I'll try getting an installation disc to see if I can do an archive and reinstall.

Hope its not the disk!! Machine is prob only a year old

Sad Professor

I'd say it's the hard disk alright. They are terribly unreliable and can fail anytime. Roll on cheaper flash storage. Did you have a backup?

Wibbs

I wouldn't be so pessimistic that your data is gone. The fact it boots at all to the apple symbol, suggests the disk is still working to some degree. If the disk had failed in the usual macbook way, you'd get the folder with flashing question mark and a quiet rythmic clock like tick tick tick from the left palm rest where the drive lives. Sounds like the system is shot, directory error, that sort of thing. Try the boot up disk or if you know someone with another mac try booting yours up in target disk mode to see if it boots on the other mac. If it does(and if you dont have a backup) then suck all your personal data off it.

As SP said the disks in the macbooks are notoriously flaky. It seems it's not the disks themselves so much but the macbook enclosure, as the same disks in the pro series have far fewer issues(over heating?). I know a chap who's replaced 3 disks in his macbook since new.

Sad Professor

Wibbs wrote: »

As SP said the disks in the macbooks are notoriously flaky. It seems it's not the disks themselves so much but the macbook enclosure, as the same disks in the pro series have far fewer issues(over heating?). I know a chap who's replaced 3 disks in his macbook since new.

Well, I meant hard disks are prone to failure in general. But notebook drives sometimes have to take a lot of extra abuse. I'm not aware of any problem with the Macbook's enclosure. In the case of the Pro, the aluminium is actually superior to the plastic for dissipating heat. Hard drives just aren't reliable in any machine imo.

However, one issue with the Macbook that I do think contributes to hard drive failure is the length of time it takes to go to sleep. Apple's hibernation mode takes too long, and I suspect a lot of people don't wait for the light to start pulsing before moving the machine. I don't have any evidence to back it up, but I reckon a lot of Macbook's users inadvertently knock their hard drives to death as a result.

Wibbs

Sad Professor wrote: »

I'm not aware of any problem with the Macbook's enclosure.

It's all over a few forums out there about the macbook hard drive issues(and dealers have noted it in the trade as well). Apple did admit a small batch of a particular drive manufacturer had problems and ran an extended warranty programme on the back of it, but as people have pointed out the same serial number range was found in the pros with no reports of problems.

In the case of the Pro, the aluminium is actually superior to the plastic for dissipating heat.

Well yep that's my take as one reason, if not the main one that causes the failure. The original Air had similar heat buildup problems and HD failures.

Hard drives just aren't reliable in any machine imo.

I dunno, the vast majority live out the life of the machine pretty well. They've been real world tested for a very long time in computing terms. I would certainly not call them "unreliable in any machine". Not by a long shot. I've a couple of old macs going back up to 15 years plus and the drives still work. Some hadn't been powered up in near ten years. Then again my old eMate from the late 90's hadnt any power nor had been started up and after throwing in new batteries the damn thing had the last stuff I had written on it.

I would agree SSD's look like a far better bet as they come down in cost and go up in capacity(and reliability). That said they're not "in the wild" for long enough(as drives running OS's) in the larger capacities to make the call just yet. They may bring problems of their own. Indeed the first gen Air SSD's had far more drive issues than the Airs with the old stylee HD's At a ratio of 10 + to 1. http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/18/consumers-returning-ssd-laptops-in-droves/ IMHO the jury is still out at least in the long term with the current crop. MacOS Lion will hopefully come with TRIM support(which win 7 already has) which will help with inherent SSD degradation issues over time(maybe it already has in an update?). They're bound to be more physically robust though.

However, one issue with the Macbook that I do think contributes to hard drive failure is the length of time it takes to go to sleep. Apple's hibernation mode takes too long, and I suspect a lot of people don't wait for the light to start pulsing before moving the machine. I don't have any evidence to back it up, but I reckon a lot of Macbook's users inadvertently knock their hard drives to death as a result.

Oh I would agree, but again the difference in reported failure rates between the macbook and the pro line is noticeable. Indeed while I would not run any PC, mac or windoze without a backup system I would treble that with the old style white/black macbook.

jamieh

Hi all,

I can get my hands on an installation disc, but it's for an iMac?

Will that work with a Macbook or are the installation discs machine specific?

Wibbs

It depends. Some will some won't. You should be able to boot from it(if its for an intel imac) and run disk utility on the hard drive though. Which should tell you if its still alive. Try "verify disk" first and see what comes up. If it passes that, or the issues are minor see if it gives you the option to repair permissions. If it doesnt see the system enough to boot up it probably won't.

If it does allow you to install the system, do an archive and install not a straight install. Chances are it'll tell you to do this anyway as you're likely to have run OS upgrades on it already.