Macbook Pro - Won't boot
Discussion
Hi
I don't normally deal with MACS but a clients wife has photos of their children (not backed up...) on a dodgy macbook pro.
It was giving the 3 beeps. I moved the RAM around and got it booting but then it quickly stopped. We thought maybe bad ram so take opportunity at relatively low cost to upgrade from 4gb to 8gb. Booted up fine once or twice and now loads to a white screen, gets half way through progress and shuts down.
I hate macs....
Any ideas guys???
This is a favour to a client rather than a job as such but given the nature of the data I would like to help them out if I can.
Thanks Jon
I don't normally deal with MACS but a clients wife has photos of their children (not backed up...) on a dodgy macbook pro.
It was giving the 3 beeps. I moved the RAM around and got it booting but then it quickly stopped. We thought maybe bad ram so take opportunity at relatively low cost to upgrade from 4gb to 8gb. Booted up fine once or twice and now loads to a white screen, gets half way through progress and shuts down.
I hate macs....
Any ideas guys???
This is a favour to a client rather than a job as such but given the nature of the data I would like to help them out if I can.
Thanks Jon
jonamv8 said:
its a mid 2012 so hdd not ssd - if I remove it and link it to my PC it's not going to show me the data is it?!?!
Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
Good point: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways-read-mac-forma...Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
Or plug it into another MAC of course.
jonamv8 said:
its a mid 2012 so hdd not ssd - if I remove it and link it to my PC it's not going to show me the data is it?!?!
Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
You could try target disk mode - but I think it relies on a full boot.Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
[ur]https://support.apple.com/kb/ph10725?locale=en_US[/url]
A mid 2012 drive could be removed:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+U...
And then mounted on a USB caddy for another Mac to read it.
Could be the GPU, which is on the logic board. Might be best to send it to an authorized Apple repair centre.
Do you know if they had issues playing back video before it failed to boot? (This is a symptom)
Its a known issue and Apple have extented the warranty on these till the end of this year. I've just had mine replaced FOC
Do you know if they had issues playing back video before it failed to boot? (This is a symptom)
Its a known issue and Apple have extented the warranty on these till the end of this year. I've just had mine replaced FOC
Has the OP tried the hardware diagnostics?
On power up, hold 'd' or '<Option> d' until the Apple logo appears (the latter if not the original Apple disk, replacement may not still have the hardware diagnostic installed, latter requires a network connection)
Will generally report offending hardware on the standard test (10 minutes or so), when resolved run the extended test to confirm.
Plus, funky retro 1980's Mac fonts!
On power up, hold 'd' or '<Option> d' until the Apple logo appears (the latter if not the original Apple disk, replacement may not still have the hardware diagnostic installed, latter requires a network connection)
Will generally report offending hardware on the standard test (10 minutes or so), when resolved run the extended test to confirm.
Plus, funky retro 1980's Mac fonts!
Edited by eharding on Monday 26th September 13:51
jonamv8 said:
presume a osx re installation will lose the data guys??
Booting from the DVD for OS X will allow a repair mode that will only reinstall the OS and not touch data:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 - second half of page
Or if you have access to anther Mac, you could install OS X to a USB thumb drive, then boot from that know that you are making no changes to your HDD. If that boots you will then be able to access your local drive without removing it - and copy data off to an SD card or another thumb drive....
I really don't think it is an OS issue from what you have described.
Vaud said:
jonamv8 said:
presume a osx re installation will lose the data guys??
Booting from the DVD for OS X will allow a repair mode that will only reinstall the OS and not touch data:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 - second half of page
Or if you have access to anther Mac, you could install OS X to a USB thumb drive, then boot from that know that you are making no changes to your HDD. If that boots you will then be able to access your local drive without removing it - and copy data off to an SD card or another thumb drive....
I really don't think it is an OS issue from what you have described.
Im running a hardware diag now
jonamv8 said:
simple diagnostic found nothing so running extended which can taken an hour
Could be that the RAM you've just replaced went bad and shagged the OS install, and your new RAM is innocently passing the hardware diagnostic. The extended hardware test *might* bring something to light, or that the old memory modules lying on your desk are the real culprit.At this stage, I'd just do as suggested - whip the disc out, stick it in a caddy and grab the data off it either with something like hsfsexplorer or another Mac. You could stick the old RAM back in there to test to see if the Bad Old RAM hypothesis holds true, then reinstall or repair the OS with your Shiny New Good RAM in place, and smash the old RAM sticks up with a hammer as a lesson to the new ones.
Macs have several different start up options that may help you, I would try to boot up in verbose mode (hold down CMD-V before powering on), which displays all the boot messages so you can see what is failing. Other options can be found here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201255
Second thing I would try would be to boot the system in safe mode (hold shift when you power on the system).
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201255
Second thing I would try would be to boot the system in safe mode (hold shift when you power on the system).
Perhaps also try CMD+R at boot up. Then run disk utilities and verify/repair the disk (assuming it goes to the screen that allows this).
One of my very old Mac Minis was playing up yesterday. Did the above and all is well again (for now - it's not a critical machine. If it was I'd be swapping the hdd out after ensuring a backup was taken).
One of my very old Mac Minis was playing up yesterday. Did the above and all is well again (for now - it's not a critical machine. If it was I'd be swapping the hdd out after ensuring a backup was taken).
jonamv8 said:
its a mid 2012 so hdd not ssd - if I remove it and link it to my PC it's not going to show me the data is it?!?!
Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
If you remove the HDD you can put it into an external caddy, from that point on you can either plug into another Mac or a PC using a USB cable to view the files, you should be able to copy jpg files onto another computer without any issues.Guess I'll need a utility to view the 'mac' data on PC and take a back up?
I have a slightly older 13" MacBook Pro and have changed the HDD several times over the years without any problems, is now fitted out with a 1TB HDD, I've resisted the temptation to fit a SSD drive mainly because they are too small in terms of storage capacity without paying through the nose.
There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing how to do it and it's really not that difficult, put it on a black towel, flip it over, and then take each screw out on the back panel and place on the towel in a logical order because there are a variety of lengths of screws used. Takes approx 10 mins. I bought a WD 1TB drive from PC World (or Amazon) and then format it for Mac using the MacBook Disk Utility app. Just remember to power it down and unplug it before you start.
It's a bit late now but if you buy an external drive, you could use that for Time Machine backups, each time it is plugged in the MacBook would make an automatic backup. Ask me how I know this!
Don't format your existing drive or attempt to reinstall the OS unless you have no other choice because you might/will lose the photos. Are you sure that iCloud wasn't set to auto-backup because it's normally set as default to ON.
Edited by rich888 on Tuesday 18th October 10:37
Mine's done this in the last couple of weeks. It's a mid 2010 so fairly old now, it's either the GPU or the whole logic board, I got screen errors and the Superdrive would keep turning at startup, maybe 10 times before the OS would load. Same with 2 different drives.
If Filevault was on, you may be stuffed. But you might still be able to get into it with a caddy. I'd keep trying to reboot, reset the PRAM / NVRAM and start up in the equivalent of safe mode, you only need it on long enough to get the stuff off it
If Filevault was on, you may be stuffed. But you might still be able to get into it with a caddy. I'd keep trying to reboot, reset the PRAM / NVRAM and start up in the equivalent of safe mode, you only need it on long enough to get the stuff off it
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