MacBook pro switches off during startup

My MacBook crashed yesterday during startup. My hunch is an ssd failure but I want to double check the symptoms here first. Super nervous and am hoping to save the device. Not really the time to be splurging on a new MacBook pro.

To start: this is a 2011 MacBook pro 13 inch. The original hard disk failed in 2017. I replaced it myself which failed again and then replaced that with a Samsung ssd 500gb in 2018.

Symptoms

Opened laptop from sleep, password entered and then froze at login screen. Manual power off via power button. Switch on to white screen. Manual power off and start again to an extremely slow apple logo and loading bar. Then switches of by itself. Totally dead. This repeats twice and then the Apple logo and loading bar starts loading normally till it gets half way then self switch off.

Tried safe mode but essentially same response. It kills itself.

Tried recovery mode but it went straight to internet recovery. The globe was spinning at first but then froze within seconds. Fans started blazing and after 20 minutes I manually powered off via holding power button.

When I started MacBook again; Prohibitive symbol appeared instead off apple logo. Then apple logo and loading bar. Then prohibiting symbol again. After 20 minutes I manually powered off.

Switched on again and this time straight to prohibiting symbol.

Tried recovery mode and again globe stopped spinning so I manually turned off.

Thoughts:

I feel like the ssd failed and I need to buy new one. However I want to make sure everything else is fine otherwise it's just a wasted money on a new ssd.

I think the power is fine because even though it crashed and switches off, it was also capable of running for 20 minutes during the internet recovery.

I also think I am now wiping the ssd by doing internet recovery hence the prohibiting symbol. I don't want to try that again and do further damage.

My question is: is the RAM fine? Do the symptoms only point to ssd? Are there any other issues here?

Also note: I have a somewhat recent backup that I can restore to a new ssd like before. But I don't want to wipe anymore of this ssd.

The condition otherwise I'd pretty good. I've taken good care. No liquid damage that I know off. I feel the device is good and strong for a couple years more. Any advice and opinions is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Oct 17, 2020 3:30 AM

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20 replies

hapsap Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2020 4:35 AM in response to drbrtsn55

Hi thank you for your reply. I haven't tried because it's the only backup i have and I don't want to risk corrupting it. I used to have two backups but one of the backup hdd failed last month, which in hindsight could have been a sign of the ssd failing. I just presumed the hdd broke physically because it was making a fast clicking noise.

i wish I could run disk utility to be sure that it's the ssd failing but if the ssd is fine and it's something else, I risk my last and only backup. And a corrupted ssd could also corrupt my back up too. Is my thinking correct in this?

Oct 17, 2020 6:26 AM in response to hapsap

The initial "chime" sound is generated in software when your Mac passes the Power-On Self Test. If it occurs and/or startup continues, your Mac is working. The blank gray screen should light up. Then on to the disk Drive.

The solid Apple is not in the Mac's ROM at Cold start. The Apple logo can only appear when it is fetched in the first "blob" of software loaded from a 'magic' place on the boot drive, or re-run after a Restart. Then a whole lot of stuff is initialized, and the progress Bar moves part way across. After a cold start, seeing the solid Apple appear says your drive is not completely dead.

The next step requires a lot of files by name, so the File System is initialized, and the Boot Drive is Mounted. If the drive directory is damaged, the drive can not be Mounted, so your Mac begins one pass of Disk Utility Repair. This will take an additional about five minutes. During this process, the progress bar may be extended, and will grow by an additional amount not seen on a routine startup.

at the end of that process (which should not take more than about five minutes), it will attempt to Mount the drive again:

-- if the drive Mounts, boot-up continues.

-- if the drive cannot be Mounted, your Mac can do nothing more, so it powers off.

-- if the process stalls, this may indicate you have Bad Blocks on your Boot drive. The re-reading of Bad blocks can take a very long time (on the order of a quarter minute for each Bad Block).

Oct 17, 2020 8:44 AM in response to hapsap

The complexity of possible drive-cable failure makes the complexity of this situation overwhelming. You can't tell drive failures from cable failures from other failures.

So the suggestion is to move the drive you would like to use to an external enclosure. Update it, boot from it, bring it completely up to date, and run with it that way for a while. This bypasses the failure-prone internal cable completely, and cuts the problem down to manageable scope.

If you already are using an SSD drive, you could try the shortcut of replacing the drive cable, to see if that alone would fix the issues.

Unlike Rotating magnetic drives, which often fail by developing more and more and more Bad Blocks, failing SSD drives tend to fail in a fairly spectacular way -- with no survivors.

Oct 17, 2020 9:12 AM in response to hapsap

It can be faster and more straightforward to just replace the drive inside the Mac. IF and only IF it works on the first shot.

If if does not work, you can cut the problem down to size my using an external enclosure. Once the drive is PERFECT, all other issues can be assumed to be caused by the "surgery" of placing the drive inside your Mac.

hapsap Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2020 7:40 PM in response to John Galt

Good to know. My concern was a dodgy cable would mess up the restore to a new ssd which could feedback and mess up the read from the backup disk kind of like how now the current ssd is likely being written over each time it enters into internet recovery.

My other concern is that I remove the cable and can't replace it. Or I break the replacement. First time doing this. Hence why I want to try just swapping the ssd first and if that fixes things good. If not, it's the cable that's broken so it won't matter if I break it. I definitely don't want to swap the cable unless I absolutely have to. Id pay someone else to do it though but closest apple certified technician are an hour away and under the current pandemic situation it's just not feasible.

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MacBook pro switches off during startup