wombcorps

Q: Hard drive or ribbon failure? Or something else? Detailed breakdown inside...please help!

Hi all...Macbook Pro early 2011. Upgraded RAM last year to 8GB which has worked fine. No other work done on it. 500GB HDD as bought, 2.4 quad core IIRC (can't get laptop on to check). Macbook is very powerful, I've been using it for music production with no problems thusfar. I always keep a large bit of HDD empty etc etc.

 

2 days ago I was at work...laptop working fine, except it's been quite sluggish of late. Was on replacing the drive with an SSD one when I had the money spare. I turned it off fine and went home. Later that eve I turned it on to find the drive was corrupted; it wouldn't boot and got stuck on the apple/loading logo. I restarted and ran the drive through disk utility, verifying bought up errors to repair, when I tried to repair them it still wouldn't work. Tried this multiple times, tried safe mode, resetting stuff as recommended on similar threads on here. Then upon restarting again to try disk utility I got the flashing folder of death. After searching online it sounded most likely to be my hard drive, so I bought a new SSD on amazon ( Samsung SSD 850 EVO, 250GB) and replaced the drive this morning. Laptop went into disk utility fine, verified drive fine, I formatted it as per instructions from other threads on here. When I then tried installing OSX (mountain Lion as provided with laptop) using internet recovery, it would say something along the lines of 'Apple needs to verify this computer' then an error screen appears saying something like 'this cannot be completed. please start again'

 

There are lots of threads on here with the exact same problem so I followed a ew instructions that had yielded good results, but it still hasn't worked on here. For simplicity I'll list what I've tried with as much detail as possible:

 

1. I checked the drive had been formatted properly, and it had.
2. Checked ethernet cable & connection  - working fine
3. Tried restarting/plugging in/unplugged/try again to install - no change, still the same error
4. Put my old HDD in an external caddy, and tried to boot from external drive using Startup Manager - but pressing the option key just takes me to internet recovery on loading. Tried both USB sockets on laptop, using no hub etc so it's going direct into my Macbook. Tried this various times but still could not get startup manager to load at all.
5. Tried fixing the HDD in disk utility whilst connected to the Macbook Pro in the USB caddy - had to verify it first and it would start scanning, then the screen would go dark grey and an error like this comes up - ' You need to turn off your computer. Please hold down the power button until it turns off'

 

At this point I'm at a loss - I thought it might be the ribbon, but that doesn't explain (to my knowledge) why the SSD won't verify with apple and begin installation of OSX. I am currently at the start of a 1 week long shift (I live at work when working) and they use antiquated HP laptops, and my drives are obv formatted to Mac, so I can't even plug my HDD into a work computer to see if its working or not as windoze can't recognise it (if it is working - it's most likely the ribbon.)

 

When I bought my macbook it came with the OSX on the drive, so I have no DVD/install file to put on a USB stick. I have a time machine drive but that's at home over 120 miles and 7 days away, and I could do with getting my laptop fixed before then. I don't mind doing a clean install from scratch of OSX and any software/files of mine as most of it is backed up or easy to get working again, I just want the laptop working. I don't want to format my old HDD if i can avoid it as there were a few things not backed up (nothing major, but still a pain to lose them)

 

As I'm stuck around windoze computers for the next week, I can't really put the SSD in a caddy and install OSX on it externally then put it in the macbook. I'm a bit loathe to order a ribbon and replace it if it's not broken, money is tight atm. But I can afford it if it deffo needs fixing

 

Hope there's enough explanation/detail in here. Have tried so many things and am at wits end now. Only thing I can do that I haven't tried yet is find a download link for Mountain Lion and put it on a USB stick and try that. But if startup manager isn't working for some reason then I'm not sure it will work for a pen drive. I could take it to the mac store next week but I really could do with it working sooner than that, and I can't afford to pay them to repair it anyway as its well out of warranty.

 

Note - I want to keep Mountain Lion as driver support for my soundcard and various other audio equiptment is not offered for Yosemite and above.

 

Any advice/guidance is most welcome. I'm pretty savvy with opening up laptops and doing basic-medium repairs on them so can root around and replace things if someone things it will help. Thanks in advance,

 

Sarah.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 22, 2015 5:44 AM

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Q: Hard drive or ribbon failure? Or something else? Detailed breakdown inside...please help!

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  • Helpful answers

  • by wombcorps,

    wombcorps wombcorps Oct 22, 2015 6:12 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2015 6:12 AM in response to wombcorps

    Just also done more reading on here, with some people saying the Samsung evo 850 is sometimes incompatible with macbook pros, but not always? Is there a way to diagnose for sure if it's my original HDD and/or ribbon that's failed, and if so, if it's the incompatibilities of the Samsung evo 850 that are causing the OSX to not install?

  • by wombcorps,

    wombcorps wombcorps Oct 22, 2015 6:56 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2015 6:56 AM in response to wombcorps

    OK more to add to the conversation:Just plugged my presumably broken HDD into the Macbook and powered up disc utility to try that again. Instead of crashing/telling me turn the computer off halfway though verification/fixing, it now scans through both real quick before saying 'storage system verify or repair failed' so I'm guessing the HD is dead. Also this was in the info bar for the HDD:

     

    Write status - read/write
    smart status - not supported (is this perhaps a caddy issue as it said something else entirely when it was mounted inside the macbook)
    Partition map scheme - guid partition table

     

     

    Still doesn't explain why the SDD i have put in the HDD place in the macbook itself won't let me install osx using internet recovery? Tres confused.

  • by wombcorps,

    wombcorps wombcorps Oct 23, 2015 1:53 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2015 1:53 AM in response to wombcorps

    Anyone got any ideas...I've trawled through this whole site and tried everything possible and it still doesn't answer any questions.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Oct 23, 2015 4:15 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 9 (52,101 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 23, 2015 4:15 AM in response to wombcorps

    You need to use the original Snow Leopard installation disks that came with your MBP.  The Samsung SSD may be problematic based on my observations on these forums.

     

    You might try a trip to an Apple store genius bar or an AASP for a 'quick fix'.

     

    Ciao.

  • by Cunnla,Solvedanswer

    Cunnla Cunnla Oct 23, 2015 4:44 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 4 (1,980 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 23, 2015 4:44 AM in response to wombcorps

    I suggest you start over again with the SSD install and follow the advice given in this article by clintonfrombirmingham, which is very comprehensive. The part about Trim enabler is out of date for El Capitan, however.

    Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive

  • by dwb,Helpful

    dwb dwb Oct 23, 2015 6:59 AM in response to wombcorps
    Level 7 (24,053 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 23, 2015 6:59 AM in response to wombcorps

    I personally experienced a Samsung 850 failure after using it for a couple months. After the crash I attempted to reformat/install the OS on the same computer, on a different Mac, on a Mac with a different OS version, internally and in a USB 3 caddy. During this process I found I wasn’t the only person experiencing this and as others had discovered, I found I could format it successfully using NTFS and install Windows on it. This was early after the release of the 850 series and the tech on the Samsung site told me to request an RMA for a replacement. I couldn’t install the  Mac OS on the replacement but I could install Windows on it. So back it went. The computer on which the original drive first failed has run flawlessly with a Crucial Tech SSD installed.


    I could find no pattern involving OS version or Mac model nor does there seem to be any rhyme or reason to the kind of failure: wont format vs will format but wont complete the OS install, vs works for a while and then fails. Late this summer people began posting that they’d heard back from Samsung techs that the 850 isn’t compatible with the Mac OS and Samsung’s Web site only mentions Windows compatibility.

  • by wombcorps,

    wombcorps wombcorps Oct 23, 2015 7:21 AM in response to dwb
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2015 7:21 AM in response to dwb

    Thanks for this post - I'd seen a few people post suspicions of this but also some ssting it worked fine.

     

    turns out my mate has a legit dmg of mountain lion and is dropping it off to me on a drive tomorrow as I was struggling to find one I could trust as well as

    Compatibility issues of trying to make a bootable drive on a windows system. Will try get it booted from that tomorrow so I can at least see if the HD ribbon is broke, unless there's any steps I've taken that you think confirms its fine and it was just the HDD?

     

    If it doesn't work or I'm not confident it will stay working I'll get a diff SDD - how's your crucial running?

     

    THanks again for your reply - it's given me confidence it's this issue rather than something worse/expensive to fix.