MacBook Pro won't turn on after "chime"

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MacBook Pro won't turn on after "chime"

Hi all,

I purchased my 13-inch MacBook Pro in early May. I have had little problems with it -- just the power cord stopped charging once or twice but I got a new one.

To better help anyone answering this, here's a list of programs on my MacBook that I installed myself (i.e, they did not come with the MacBook):
-Skype
-PhoneView (backs up the contents of your cell phone)
-AIM (which I deleted about three months ago)
-Pages & the other two programs that come with Pages, which I bought at the Apple store

I was listening to music and it suddenly stopped. I figured maybe my battery had died because it was not plugged in, so I touched the touchpad only to see the colorful pinwheel. I was able to navigate to other things around my MBP, but whenever I hoovered over iTunes the pinwheel would pop up again. I tried to X out of it, and then force quit, but nothing happened. I then tried to Restart, but again nothing happened. I finally held down the Power button until it shut off.

After plugging my MBP back in to charge it, I let it rest for about 20 minutes before turning it back on. I hear the noise that it makes (the whirring noise that I believe comes from the disc -- my apologies if I'm wrong!), and I heard the "chime" noise it makes. It then displayed the typical white screen with the gray Apple logo and the circle underneath to tell me that it was loading. After about three minutes, (which is rare for my MBP to start up, usually it takes less than 1 minute), the Apple logo turned into a circle with a line through it, as you would see on a No Smoking sign. I tried all the suggestions that the Apple Support online and MBP forums gave me (holding down L CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, and POWER buttons) and the same thing happened each time. I also plugged in the power adapter as well, and still nothing. Also, it may be good to note that the computer IS charging, the light on my charger is Orange.

Please someone help! It's finals week (of course this has to happen now, right!), and all of my information I need is on my MBP. Any at home things I can do to fix it ... even if it means losing everything (documents, downloaded programs, photobooth pictures, etc)?

Thank you!!

-MKz

MacBook Pro, Not sure what my OS is :/

Posted on Dec 16, 2010 12:56 PM

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Answer 1

S.U.

Level 6

9,601 points

Dec 16, 2010 8:22 PM in response to mkzombie

Welcome to Apple Discussions!

It sounds like you are experiencing a kernel panic:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1892

The article suggests several things you can try like a PRAM and VRAM reset.

Here is another link that might help you to troubleshoot it:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

A good start would be to reseat your RAM and see if this helps.

If the hard drive spins up and you have access to another Mac, you could try using FireWire Target Disk Mode and see if you can get to your data that way:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

If you can boot from a disc, you could try running the extended version of the Apple Hardware Test. If you get an error code, it would point to a specific hardware problem.

It's not necessary to sacrifice your data to fix this. All your data is on your hard drive, and if it comes to it, the hard drive is user-replaceable on your machine. Following the instructions in your owner's manual, you can remove your hard drive and put it in an enclosure and turn it into an external drive. You could place a new drive in your Mac and install a fresh copy of the OS on it. This would be a way to eliminate any software problems and would preserve the contents of your original hard drive.

This is of course not something you want to do in the middle of finals, I know. I'm just pointing out some options that are available to you so that you understand that you don't need to sacrifice your data to fix this. If during the troubleshooting process, you are faced with doing an Erase and Install, that would be the time to look at replacing the hard drive so that you don't lose your data.

Good luck! Post back if you have any more questions.

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