doriano

Q: MacBook 13 inch 2006 NO start up but 3 sounds

Recently i'm trying to give help to a friend with an old "white" MacBook from 2006 (2nd half) with OS X 10.6.x installed. The problem is that it DOES NOT START, there is NO WAY to start-up..!!. All what i get from the pc is a "triple-short-sound" ( like: tip-bip-bip ) who repeats every few seconds.There's NO WAY to hear the usual starting "BOING" al i get are those 3 tips every "few" seconds…!!.

I tried to start from the install DVD as I tried to start pressing the letter T to connect the macbook as a FIREWIRE disc to view it on the desk of my own iMac 2013 with OS X 10.7.5 installed.

In BOTH cases i got NO RESULTS…. Then i tried removing the RAM, to start the MacBook. ALL I GOT is been a single sound who repeats.

I tried resetting the PRAM (NOT WORKING)… i TRIED a startup pushing shift+control+alt (AGAIN NO RESULT)…

After this i got a little good result because, after insserting again its RAM, i got a normal start up. But everything is gone slooow for just a couple of minutes

then i got that transparent message in the center of the desktop who say that there is a problem and the MacBook needs a reinstall.

Now i'm here asking for a friendly help from someone much more expert than I am…!!  I apologize for my terrible english writing ( I'm from northern Italy )...

My question is simple:

"Can i do something to save some files (documents only and not many) and then REINSTALL after a DUE initialize of the entire hard drive?

Any help is really welcome. Thanks and best from Italy, Romano

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iMac White 2nd half 2006

Posted on Feb 25, 2016 4:31 PM

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Q: MacBook 13 inch 2006 NO start up but 3 sounds

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  • by Mike Sombrio,

    Mike Sombrio Mike Sombrio Feb 26, 2016 3:36 AM in response to doriano
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    Feb 26, 2016 3:36 AM in response to doriano

    The three tones indicate failed, loose or incompatible ram. The single tone you heard indicates no installed ram. When you removed and reinstalled the ram you may have corrected one of the modules being a little loose and thus the startup. The hard drive in that Mac is now 10 years old and may be failing. Try starting in Target Disk mode again to recover the files and see if you can. If that works try restarting using the install DVD and running Disk Utility to repair the hard disk.