ethereality

Q: How can I start the Apple Hardware Test when holding D doesn't work and I don't have the installation disc?

How can I start the Apple Hardware Test when holding D doesn't work and I don't have the installation disc?

 

  1. The directions say, "Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears." This does not work.
  2. The "Apple Hardware Test Read Me.rtf" file says, "If your computer does not restart to Apple Hardware Test: Restart your computer with the DVD containing Apple Hardware Test." I do not have such a DVD, and my installation disc -- assuming it is with the packaging from when I bought this laptop -- is about 11,000 km away.


I am preparing to send in my August 2010 Macbook Pro to be refurbished, because it is randomly ceasing to function (e.g. randomly taking minutes to complete a given task) but I was hoping to diagnose and solve any problems myself before it came to that. Apple Support recommends this diagnostic test as a first step, and so I am trying to do it. Please help me.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), 2.4GHzIntelCore2Duo;4GB 1067MHzDDR3

Posted on Jan 22, 2015 6:07 PM

Close

Q: How can I start the Apple Hardware Test when holding D doesn't work and I don't have the installation disc?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Previous Page 2
  • by ethereality,

    ethereality ethereality Mar 2, 2015 5:59 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (38 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 2, 2015 5:59 PM in response to Drew Reece

    I successfully ran the Apple Hardware Test. First the simple test, then the extended test. Both reported, "No trouble found."

     

    Is it really okay that under Power (a section under one of the tabs) it says "Capacity: 98%"? Does that mean the battery has degraded only 2% after 4.5 years? But I'm using the Power Adapter, as it also mentioned ("Power source: Adapter"), so it's not clear to me that this capacity is referring to the battery.

     

    The latest showed "Pass Number: 2, Total Time Testing: 59 mins 27 secs". I think this reflects being the second test I ran and includes the 3 min 49 sec of the first test.

     

    I used "Version 3.3.1-3A192 / Copyright 2000-2010 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved."

     

    Thank you for your help in getting this test working. I am not sure how to proceed, however, because it takes my computer 2.5 minutes to boot up, the longest amount of time I can recall, and it periodically freezes when trying to open an application. It also took about two minutes to open Safari, LimeChat (IRC client) and Google Chrome after booting -- Google Chrome in particular seems to slow it down, though previously I had thought it was better than Safari ... The user 'Branes' in freenode's mac or apple channel recommended I send it in to the Apple Store for cleaning and a fresh application of thermal paste, since it is five years old. He said that it was periodically freezing was to regulate the temperature to avoid overheating, and was consequently a warning sign to repair the cooling system (i.e. thermal paste + cleaning). Do you agree with this recommendation? How likely is the Tokyo Apple Store to erase the hard drive's contents? I have software on it that I will not be able to reinstall, since I am in Japan and my software installation discs are thousands of miles away. Is there a way to backup software such that it can simply be copied rather than reinstalled if my laptop is returned with a fresh OS install? I have been backing up files in preparation of mailing it off, but first thought to clear 10% hard drive space* and run this test to try resolving the matter myself.

     

    I can of course create a new thread for this new discussion, which I suppose is proper forum etiquette.

     

     

    * currently at 16.03 free of 249.2 GB, i.e. 6% free hard drive space -- but I don't understand why I must keep 10% free, rather than a few GB free for swap memory. I'm actually not sure what's using up so much space ...

  • by Drew Reece,Helpful

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 2, 2015 7:37 PM in response to ethereality
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 2, 2015 7:37 PM in response to ethereality

    Since this issue is resolved you would be better off making a new thread with all the new issues (or visiting an Apple store).

     

    Capacity in AHT refers to how full the battery is (I think), you would have a much lower maximum capacity after 5 years of use, just run it for a few minutes on battery, if it changes you know it is the current level.

     

    I don't see anything to indicate you should be replacing thermal paste on this Mac. It would only be a good idea if you were capable of doing intensive repairs & had an idea of where a specific fault would be. Opening up & removing heat sinks on a hunch is not advisable IMO - there are too many small screws to lose & delicate parts to break. On a 10 year old Mac that may be a different story.

     

    If the Apple store feels you have a software issue they will erase the HD if you have a backup. Simply copying will not resolve many issues.

     

    It sounds like you have crammed the boot disk too full.

    Many figures for free disk space are thrown around, personally I consider 20GB free at all times to be a minimum…

    Swap is not the only usage that changes over time, caches & other temporary files will also need space that alters with the tasks you are doing.

    If you run too close to no free space you will soon find that basic operations like deleting files fails to work.

    Spinning hard disks also read & write slower as they store more data, so I avoid filling spinning boot disks beyond about 50% if possible.

    http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-WhyYouNeedMoreThanYouNeed.html

  • by PVLivin,

    PVLivin PVLivin May 22, 2015 6:28 PM in response to dot.com
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 22, 2015 6:28 PM in response to dot.com

    Hey,

     

    I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), which uses the same hardware test image that you used for your example. I followed you exact steps, which gave me the following:

     

    Last login: Fri May 22 19:09:22 on ttys000

    [computer name]:~ [account name]  cd  /Volumes/AHTCTwo/System/Library/CoreServices

    [computer name]:CoreServices [account name] sudo ditto .diagnostics /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

    Password:

    [computer name]:CoreServices [account name] cd /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

    [computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine CommonAHTResources/

    [computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine Mac-F22586C8/

    [computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine diags.efi

    [computer name]:.diagnostics [account name]


     

    This was my second attempt, therefore there was no need to create the .diagnostics folder. After doing this, I rebooted several times holding D and I could not get it to work.

     

    I would greatly appreciate your help.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece May 23, 2015 6:20 AM in response to PVLivin
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    May 23, 2015 6:20 AM in response to PVLivin

    I found that getting the AHT to boot from the internal disk was a pain. It never seems to work despite following various online guides, checking permissions, execute bits & several attempts to bless the diagnostics loader.

     

    Eventually I gave up & made a script to copy the diagnostics onto a USB stick…

    https://gist.github.com/drewreece/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929

     

    If you can handle shell scripts that may get you into AHT.

    It needs a HFS formatted disk as a destination it will set that as bootable via bless, so the next reboot should use that to startup from.

     

    It doesn't help with your question, but it is the only workaround I know of.

  • by kneethan,

    kneethan kneethan Oct 8, 2015 12:41 PM in response to dot.com
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 12:41 PM in response to dot.com

    I have replaced original hard drive to samsung SSD and upgraded memory too.

    I have now installed El Capitan and want to run Apple Hardware Test.

    I have already tried 'D' , Option + 'D' both didn't do anything.

    I have checked under "/System/Library/CoreServices" and no ".diagnostics" folder.

    So I followed your steps and tried to create ".diagnostics" folder but got no permission msg.


    Mac:CoreServices kneethan$ sudo mkdir /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

    Password:

    mkdir: /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics: Operation not permitted


  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 8, 2015 12:58 PM in response to kneethan
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 8, 2015 12:58 PM in response to kneethan

    I don't think OS X 10.11 allows you to edit /System even as root. More info can be found if you search around…

    http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the-rootless-feature-in- el-capitan-really

    System Integrity Protection or 'rootless' will stop you doing anything in /System.

     

    Personally I have never had great success installing Apple hardware test onto the OS disk, hence my script to make USB stick version (above).

    Newer models have Apple diagnostics Using Apple Diagnostics - Apple Support, make sure you have the right tool for your Mac.

  • by kneethan,

    kneethan kneethan Oct 8, 2015 1:06 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 1:06 PM in response to Drew Reece

    I agree, instead of messing around with OS X system files I prefer your USB method. please help me follow your method.

    to copy AHT to usb, what should I do (should I format )? how to run your script please?

    then what I have to do use it after I copied to USB key.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 8, 2015 1:40 PM in response to kneethan
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 8, 2015 1:40 PM in response to kneethan

    Grab the AHT disk image from Apple.com, github has a list be sure you have the correct model.

    https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

    In Terminal view the output of these two lines…

    sysctl hw.model | awk '{ print $2 }'

    ioreg -l | grep board-id | awk -F\" '{ print $4 }'

    … and compare to the github list

     

    Inside an admin account (it needs to use sudo for 'blessing' the system).

    Grab my script, open the ZIP file. In the folder that is created (probably called 2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c460e0ed540 !) drag that script onto Terminal. Then drag the AHT disk image onto Terminal & finally drag the destination disk (a USB disk formatted to Macintosh OS Extended).

     

    It should look a bit like…

     

    [~/]$ /Users/USERNAME/Downloads/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c460e0ed540/AHT-my- disk.sh /Users/USERNAME/Downloads/AHTdiskimage.dmg /Volumes/path-to-USB

     

    NB: The bold parts will be specific to your system, there are spaces between the file paths.

    If you are unsure paste the command here & we can try to confirm it is correct, Terminal correctly escapes spaces & other special characters in file paths if you use drag & drop, so it should complete them correctly for you.

     

    Hit return & it should ask for confirmation and then copy over the AHT disk & offer to bless the tool for use on next boot.

     

    I haven't tested this on 10.11 & I cannot do so at present, sorry. If it fails it is possible to copy over by hand, but that takes a lot of describing. The script just uses the cp command to copy the relevant files over after mounting the disk image. The USB destination is not erased, but avoid copying it to a disk that has valuable data (just in case, have a backup).

     

    It may also appear as a bootable disk in the 'boot picker' (hold alt at startup), this seems to vary on some models.

  • by kneethan,

    kneethan kneethan Oct 8, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Drew Reece

    I followed your instructions and got this message :

     

     

    iMac:Library kneethan$ /Users/kneethan/Downloads/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c46 0e0ed540/AHT-my-disk.sh /Users/kneethan/Downloads/018-2845-A.dmg /Volumes/Apple\ Hardware\ Test/

    Will copy content from /Users/kneethan/Downloads/018-2845-A.dmg into /Volumes/Apple Hardware Test/...

    Do you want to continue? [ Y or N ]

    Y

    --> Will use sudo for bless stage - enter admin password at prompt

    --> Mounting disk image...

    --> Copying system...

    --> Bless system...

    Enter admin password:

    Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc

     

    looks like in El Capitan they did the following :

    To safeguard against disabling System Integrity Protection by modifying security configuration from another OS, the startup disk can no longer be set programmatically, such as by invoking the bless(8) command.

    https://github.com/kainjow/BootChamp/issues/19

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 8, 2015 2:38 PM in response to kneethan
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 8, 2015 2:38 PM in response to kneethan

    I think you are right. bless looks like it isn't allowed by SIP.

     

    You can try selecting the disk in System Preferences > Startup Disks if it shows as bootable in that list. Reboot to see if AHT starts. If not try holding alt at startup with the disk connected, it may appear as an option.

  • by kneethan,

    kneethan kneethan Oct 8, 2015 2:59 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 2:59 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Thanks Drew Reece, im now running extended AHT test , I was able to launch with restart and option key press.

    THanks a lot for your simple elegant solution. I'm going to keep that USB for just AHT .

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 8, 2015 3:03 PM in response to kneethan
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 8, 2015 3:03 PM in response to kneethan

     

    Great, I'm glad it helped.

     

    Good luck with your AHT, try loop mode to run it for a few hours (hit cmd+L to toggle it). I use normal & extended when trying to get any error messages but they can be cryptic & not always accurate.

  • by kneethan,

    kneethan kneethan Oct 8, 2015 3:12 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 3:12 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Thanks for the tip for loop test. Others having similar problem in running AHT , I encourage you to follow Drew Reece non invasive solution. I wasted my most of the day today  for running AHT until I found his solution.

    my system info : mid 2007 iMac , upgraded hard drive to Samsung SSD.

  • by Chaddycop,

    Chaddycop Chaddycop Mar 19, 2016 7:25 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 7:25 PM in response to Drew Reece

    HI Drew, I followed your instructions after intermittent freezes and slow downs when using my mid 2011 27" iMac. It's been upgraded to 20G of RAM and the issue literally appeared overnight. Thank you for the script and making life easier!

     

    My question is would there be any chance this error is being caused because I put AHT onto an external drive connected via USB? Error: 4hdd/11/40000000 SATA (0,0)

     

    Everything seems to point to this being HDD failure which makes sense, even though I also had the HDD replaced when Apple sent out notices of known issues with them early on after I bought the machine.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 19, 2016 8:46 PM in response to Chaddycop
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 19, 2016 8:46 PM in response to Chaddycop

    I don't know if the error is related to running AHT of a USB drive but I seriously doubt it. Apple doesn't publicly document these error codes but you can usually find a few sites that explain the meaning. I assume your issues happens without the USB drive - if so it's not connected as far as I can tell (try another USB disk with AHT if you want, but it probably won't change the error).

     

    You may want to replace the HD, SATA connector or consider running from an external disk as a test - that will show if your iMac can run without the internal HD. I would unmount the internal disk when testing to try to remove it from use. Hardware errors may require you to replace parts before they are resolved, contact Apple if you think they can help, they may give you a price for fitting a replacement disk. Apple may take your case history into account, but 5 years is beyond any normal or extended warranties.

Previous Page 2