chevrolet67

Q: Persistent prohibitory sign even after clean install

So I have been having a very persistent prohibitory sign error this past week. I own a mid 2012 macbook pro and have upgraded my drive to a samsung 850 evo about 4 months ago. Haven't had any issues until now. One day my macbook wouldn't wake up from sleep so I did a long press power off and when I went to reboot I was faced with the prohibitory sign. First I tried entering safe mode (holding shift) - no luck. I was only able to enter internet recovery (CMD+R). I first tried disk utility repair and still no luck. I have no time to continue to mess around so I left my macbook and the next day when I went to turn it on it booted right up. Worked fine all day. Day after that it crashed again upon opening the lid. Power off and prohibitory sign. I do have a time machine backup but it's up at school which I won't have access to for another week and I didn't want to be down my laptop for a week so I decided to reformat my drive and do a clean install from the internet recovery. From that it installed OS X Lion, and on the reboot prohibitory sign... Did another format, reinstall, this time it booted up but got an error: OS X cannot be installed because a recovery partition could not be created. Followed instructions on apples website for the error: Installer reports "OS X could not be installed on your computer" or "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer"…

 

So once again, reformat, follow partition instructions, install Lion, same error again... I restarted it and it worked. Finally back on my laptop. Installed El Capitan, and on the reboot prohibitory sign. Turned it off, let it sit for an hour, powered back on and it booted up. Worked fine all day. Today when I opened the lid it crashed but this time I got the "Your computer restarted because it encountered a problem" and the error report mentioned something about a hibernate restore error. Just out of curiosity I restarted my computer and you guessed it, prohibitory error. Powered off, let it sit for an hour, powered back on and it worked. I am completely baffled by the errors I am having considering I have a clean install of El Capitan. I am guessing either my SSD is bad or the connection is faulty. I appreciate any help.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), Mid 2012

Posted on Jun 1, 2016 4:13 PM

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Q: Persistent prohibitory sign even after clean install

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  • by theratter,Apple recommended

    theratter theratter Jun 1, 2016 4:46 PM in response to chevrolet67
    Level 4 (3,917 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 1, 2016 4:46 PM in response to chevrolet67

    Are you using the original Lion disc that came with the computer when it was new? Did you re-partition the drive first before trying to install? Have you tried simply reinstalling El Capitan from scratch? If so then there is a chance the HDD or its ribbon cable is defective or failing. Can you install onto another disk to use for booting the computer?

     

    Mac OS X- Gray screen or prohibitory sign appears during startup

    Mac OS X- "Broken folder" icon, prohibitory sign, or kernel panic when computer starts

     

    Clean Install of El Capitan on a New Disk

     

    1. Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command-Option-R keys until a globe appears.
    2. The Utility Menu will appear in from 5-20 minutes. Be patient.
    3. Select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
    4. When Disk Utility loads select the drive (usually, the out-dented entry) from the side list.
    5. Click on the Partition tab in Disk Utility's main window. A panel will drop down.
    6. Set the partition scheme to GUID.
    7. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
    8. Click on the Apply button, then click on the Done button when it activates.
    9. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
    10. Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.

     

    This should install the version of OS X that was pre-installed when the computer was new.

     

    [Permission to use part or all of the above has been granted by Kappy, exclusively, to theratter.]

  • by chevrolet67,

    chevrolet67 chevrolet67 Jun 1, 2016 5:37 PM in response to theratter
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 1, 2016 5:37 PM in response to theratter

    My laptop did not come with a disc, and when I tried command-option-R it only gave me the option to install Lion. In disk utilities I went into the erase option and repartition as the mac OS X intended journaled before installing Lion.

  • by theratter,

    theratter theratter Jun 1, 2016 6:56 PM in response to chevrolet67
    Level 4 (3,917 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 1, 2016 6:56 PM in response to chevrolet67

    Yes, as noted in the list of instructions it will install the OS X version that came with the computer new. For your model that is Lion. Then you can access the App Store to install El Capitan.