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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Macbook will not start with OS X 10.5.2

matkinson12 - Jul 2, 2008 - 5:05 am

My late model 2007 Macbook all of sudden will not start. It starts with a chime and the apple symbol appears. Eventually the circular working symbol appears below the apple and remains there indefinitely.

What I've done so far.

Used a friend's OS X 10.5 to run disk utility on my harddrive. Found a few small problems and fixed them. Still does not operate.

When in UNIX mode and ran a quick check of the /sbin/fsck -fy and it found a few small problems. It was fixed, computer still would not operate.

I tried Safe Mode, did not work.

I tried a hardware check, came back good. Still did not work.

I've tried the live verification in UNIX and everything came up fine. Still didn't work

The one thing I do not have access to is my original startup disk. Is there anything anybody knows about this problem or sees something that I haven't done yet. Thanks!

motsteve - Jul 2, 2008 - 6:56 am

I'm sorry you're having this problem, but many of us have had this happen and it is somewhat painful to try to recover from this, but I'll try to make it as painless as possible. It sounds, if you tried this many times and it just won't boot up completely, that one or more files for the system are messed up. This could be due to a bad disk drive (worst case) or just a drive with a corrupted root partition (less painful). If your friend has a Disk Warrior or a Tech Tool Pro disk, you can boot off of that disk and see if you can fix the files messed up on the drive. This isn't a sure thing ever so if you can't find a repair disk, don't bust a gut trying to get one as it is not the only option.

If you can get a bootable drive hooked up to your Mac, you can boot up on that and move all the files you want to keep to a DVD or to a hard drive for safekeeping. This is because the next option is to reinstall a system on a freshly formatted drive. You could try to keep your files on your old drive and install the system on the drive, but clean installs are a pretty sure thing (no guarantees though). You may succeed in reinstalling the system without a clean install and get the drive to booting several times, but whatever corrupted it initially could still be lurking in there and you're back to square zero. The choice is yours.

Once you get your files copied over, use an installation disk to reinstall the system to your old drive. Then restore all of your files onto the disk and you are good to go. Before you reformat your old drive, you may want to run the SMART utility which you can get off of Version Tracker or other sources for free. If your drive supports SMART (most drives do), the utility will inform you whether the drive is getting ready to go crash or is functioning properly. Hopefully, your drive still has some life left in it.

If you encounter any problems along the line of the back up or you are still having the same problem even after a backup and install, please let me know and we'll try to figure out what to do next. Please don't think the worst until it actually happens. In most cases the results are good, not bad.

matkinson12 - Jul 2, 2008 - 12:05 pm

Thats cool. I'll see what I can do about finding someone else with an firewire cable and a mac. I'm not exactly in great location to do this.

What I got out of that is to get another computer and move my harddrive over. After that I can use my installation dvd (which I do not have) to bring up my Mac OS X.

I understand where you are coming from and it makes sense but I'm stuck right now. Is there anyway I could be able to fix my computer without the exact installation dvd that came with it. I have access to a store bought Leopard 10.5 dvd. Will that work for my computer? I read on the apple site that it wouldn't work for my exact computer, or at least I think thats what they were explaining. I have a feeling I know the answer you'll give but I'm completely out of choices right now.

Sorry I really appreciate your help so far but I'm on the other side of the world right now without access to much. If you know anyway to fix my computer problem without an its installation dvd, I would greatly appreciate that help. If I lose whats on the computer, I can survive. I just need my computer working. Thank you for your help.

Matt

motsteve - Jul 2, 2008 - 12:23 pm

If you have a computer that will accept Leopard (a high speed G4/G5 or better CPU), then any installation disk will work except for the ones that come with new machines. A store bought Leopard install will work just fine. You can also use a Tiger or a Cheetah. All these cats should work. You can just tell it to upgrade instead of clean install if you don't mind that the disk may crash again. You stand a pretty good chance that it won't and then you will still have your files. If the Leopard disk doesn't like your Mac, it'll let you know early in the installation, it won't make you wait for long.

I kind of figured that you were out on the prairie with the nearest town being Pierre. I don't know where I get these feelings. : - ) I'll be here if you need me.

Steve

motsteve - Jul 4, 2008 - 5:34 pm

Fixed?