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Macbook will not boot up.

A friend's macbook (10.5) will not boot up. I booted it to my clone. I was able to read the files on the internal, but when I copied them, all of the files have a red minus symbol. I want to copy the whole internal and reinstall the system with install disk and restore from backup. I assume this is a permissions issue, but I do not know what to do.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), 2 GHz Intel Core Duo; 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; iLife '09

Posted on Mar 25, 2010 10:09 AM

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Posted on Mar 25, 2010 1:45 PM

He could try this;

Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode

What is Safe Boot
Safe Mode takes awhile to start, so patience is a virtue here!
Good Luck!

DALE

5 replies

Mar 25, 2010 1:54 PM in response to CaptainRichard

OK, have you tried using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk.

He could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them. Disk Utility's Disk Repair is not perfect and may not find or repair all directory issues. A stronger utility may be required to finish the job.

After that Repair Permissions.

No need to report Permissions errors....we all get them.

Do you have a copy of DiskWarrior?

 DALE

Mar 25, 2010 6:12 PM in response to CaptainRichard

If Disk Utility can't fix it, you'll need a more robust utility to repair it.

Yes, the directory is damaged. your best chance at repair is the following...

I would recommend DiskWarrior. It is the best at directory repairs. It rebuilds then actually replaces your old directory. I feel every Mac owner should have a copy.

Make sure you get the disk so you can boot up on it to run repairs. You can also install it on another drive and run it from there to repair this one. DW works faster that way.

I use DW once a month to try and catch errors in my system from getting too far out of hand. It has repaired every little and big issue I have ever had with my three Macs.

If you have a good backup, hopefully a clone of your system before you had issues, an Erase and Install will also rid you of this issue. But, beware! You will lose everything on the drive with this procedure.

A clone from a different Mac, yours, is not recommended. It would have to be the same exact model and build date for it to work without issues.


Good Luck! DALE
p.s. Here's a review of DiskWarrior 4.

Macbook will not boot up.

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