MacBook Pro Help needed!

[Boiled Owl]

2008? MacBook Pro. Using it on Tuesday and the drop down menus across the top would highlight but not open. Wanted to restart but my only option was the power button.

When I went to restart, it doesn't want to boot up.

It's intel based, tried the "smc" reset which didn't help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[KEHO]

If you have a Leopard or Snow Leopard disk, pop it in the drive and then restart while holding down the 'C' key. This will force start from the CD. You can then run Disk Utility to check on the status of your hard drive. That might give you a little more info.

Also, when you say it doesn't want to boot up, how far does it get. Do you get the normal chime? A flashing '?' (meaning it can't find an operating system)? Other sounds?

 

[printcraft]

OS 10.0 - Basic OS X/Mac Troubleshooting - Mac-Forums.com


Basic info at the above.

Put in your install CD or DVD and hold "C" when you hit the power button
and do a disk repair. Something is corrupted and needs work.

 

[Boiled Owl]

I get a quick tone when I press the power button, but not the "I'm getting ready to boot" sound like normal.

Will try to did up the disks and give it a check tonight.

 

[KEHO]

Hmmmm.... if you're not getting the normal startup chime, it may not be the drive which could be good or very bad. You might pop the battery out and remove and reseat the RAM. Perhaps they got bumped. You could also try replacing it if you have access to another computer that uses that same RAM. Let me see if I can find my repair manual for that computer...

 

[Boiled Owl]

I just booted it from the start up disk that came with it. But I got nothing on the screen just black.
To review the failure:
Drop down menus fail/ can't get option to restart/ hit power button to restart /no boot and no screen.

It's kinda weird...

 

[Boiled Owl]

I'm not really computer savvy. I bought this one with extra RAM and have never opened it up. I did put RAM in the previous ibook.

I gotta run, will check back in this eve. Thanks!

 

[iChokePeople]

RAM issues will cause boot failures...

 

[Boiled Owl]

I pulled the ram and reinserted it. No difference. Tried the boot from the cd, drive spins but again black screen. I ll do some checking maybe the wife's ram from her MacBook will work to swap.
Mobile now will fiddle with it tonight

 

[printcraft]

I pulled the ram and reinserted it. No difference. Tried the boot from the cd, drive spins but again black screen. I ll do some checking maybe the wife's ram from her MacBook will work to swap.
Mobile now will fiddle with it tonight

If you have a firewire port and cable you can try to start your mac in
target disk mode and use your wifes as the host computer.
Basically turning your mac into a harddrive.
See if you can at least pull off your info from your hard drive to your wifes mac.

You should be able to run the disk utility from her computer as well.

Target Disk Mode - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Boiled Owl]

Used target disk when I merged old data to new computer. Thanks for the tip I'll check it out tonight

 

[Boiled Owl]

I still have the cd/dvd install disk in the optic drive as I can't eject it.

Tried the firewire target mode and that didn't work, but it does spin the optic drive.

Tried the scm, pram resets and again nothing. No sounds, black screen.

Going to see if the memory will swap next.

 

[Mad Macs]

Hold down the trackpad button when powering on the machine, that should eject the disc.

Or just hold down the eject button, that might do it as well.

If it's not a memory swap it could be anything else like logicboard.

If I was with my old company I'd say to bring it in, but they fired me. And then I put them out of business.

 

[Boiled Owl]

I'm guessing this is beyond my scope to fix.

Can't get the disk to eject with the button or holding the trackpad.

Unfortunately I keep my farm business records on it. I do have time machine backups but not for the last 1/2 year.

But the data should be there if I could get it to budge.

 

[Boiled Owl]

SWEET! Swapped the memory and I'm up and running!!

There's two 1 gig boards. Should I just replace them both?

 

[KEHO]

Cool!! Performance Upgrades; FireWire USB SATA Storage; Memory, more at OWC is the place to get replacement ram. Get as much ram as the computer can handle and/or you can afford - it's worth it!!

 

[mrjarrell]

SWEET! Swapped the memory and I'm up and running!!

There's two 1 gig boards. Should I just replace them both?

Yep. Unless you have a memory tester there's no telling which one it was. Also no way to tell what might have damaged it. If it was a power surge, both could be damaged. If there's a shop nearby you could take the memory in and have it tested to weed out the bad one. Might save a buck or two. Then again, might be a good time to upgrade the amount of RAM you have in it. Two 2 gig boards would be a nice upgrade.

 

[Boiled Owl]

Yep. Unless you have a memory tester there's no telling which one it was. Also no way to tell what might have damaged it. If it was a power surge, both could be damaged. If there's a shop nearby you could take the memory in and have it tested to weed out the bad one. Might save a buck or two. Then again, might be a good time to upgrade the amount of RAM you have in it. Two 2 gig boards would be a nice upgrade.

As good as time as any to upgrade.

Hopefully it's just the ram and not some greater problem.

 

[printcraft]

SWEET! Swapped the memory and I'm up and running!!

 

[mrjarrell]

As good as time as any to upgrade.

Hopefully it's just the ram and not some greater problem.

Just make sure to back everything up now, while it's still working. No sense letting good luck go to waste!