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Where can I download Apple Hardware Diagnostics for MacBookPro2,1?

My MacBook Pro 17-inch Core 2 Duo (MacBookPro2,1)'s DVD drive appears to be faulty - It treats working DVD's as 'blank'.


I want to run Apple Hardware Diagnostics (AHD) on the machine but (a) I can't find the original DVD for the machine (b) in any event it won't work as the drive is faulty!


I know I can download older versions of AHD at http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html but where can I find one for my Mac?


I want to download it and 'restore' it to a hard disc partition so I can boot it from there.


Any ideas anyone?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 27, 2012 2:09 PM

Reply
16 replies

Apr 27, 2012 6:33 PM in response to TheKnowledgeSeeker002

I'd go with Ogelthorpe's lead. The AHT does not test storage media capabilities, just stuff like the RAM, CPU, GPU, video, etc. Hence, the HDD and optical drive are just checked as "present" (i.e., the controller card on the things answers back when pinged by the test), but not checked to see of they mechanically work.


Other places to look for spare parts (and how to put them in) are PowerBookMedic.com and IFixIt.com.

Apr 27, 2012 6:50 PM in response to TheKnowledgeSeeker002

AHT should have been installed on your disk when you upgraded to Lion. Boot while holding the D key.


Using Apple Hardware Test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509


It won't test DVD read or write capability as others mentioned though.


If AHT does not load when booting with the D key:


Symptoms

You may see a message stating "Apple Hardware Test does not support this machine." This is produced when you hold down the "D" key during startup and Apple Hardware Test is not found in the hard drive. This occurs when using computers that require an EFI Firmware Update to use the Lion Recovery feature.


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4154

Sep 4, 2013 5:49 AM in response to John Galt

@John Galt, please re-read the section regarding AHT on Lion (or later) in "Using Apple Hardware Test". If you upgrade your Mac to (or even past) Lion you will not receive AHT with it. Apple is very clear that your mac has to be shipped with Lion (or later) to have this feature.

All older Mac that had preinstalled Leopard or SnowLeopard have AHT on the Application Install Disk 2.

Sep 4, 2013 7:06 AM in response to Archetrix

Archetrix wrote:


All older Mac that had preinstalled Leopard or SnowLeopard have AHT on the Application Install Disk 2.

I dispute that as false.


My (now dead) Early 2008 MBP, last of the non-unibodies, came with the AHT preinstalled in the internal HDD from factory and did NOT require any additional external support to run the diagnostic. This was confirmed, much to their amazement, by a local level 2 AASP. The Early 2008 was the first model to incorporate the AHT into the HDD. Its default OS was 10.5.x Leopard; upgrading to 10.6.x Snow Leopard did not cause a loss of the onboard AHT.

Sep 29, 2013 11:39 AM in response to TheKnowledgeSeeker002

Every Mac model has its own components different than any other, and the Apple Hardware Test is unique to each model. A handful of models share one AHT. A pile of them are available for download but are obscured behind a non-obvious naming convention. A partial list is hereand here. Unfortunately Apple simply doesn't make it easy to figure out how to restore this.


What I've learned is that pretty much all intel Macs before 10.7 did have AHT preloaded on the drive, found in hidden folder /System/Library/CoreServices/.dianostics. If you reformat the drive and reinstall, this is not reinstalled. And if you encrypt the drive with File Vault 2 it would be unavailable in any case. With 10.7 and newer hardware, the AHT is stuffed into an AHTxx.dmg file and found on the Recovery HD volume, also in a hidden directory. So it can still be used when FV2 encryption is enabled.


Since install disks are gone, I don't actually know how current Mac owners are supposed to get this restored, however also since that time, Apple has moved to firmware that can load the proper version of AHT via option-D on boot with a wired or wireless internet connection. It doesn't permanently download this to disk, the firmware downloads and runs it, and upon reboot it's gone again.


So the gist is, once you've lost the installed version of AHT, you either need the AHT disk that came with your computer or buy one from Apple or go to an Apple store and they'll run it for you. Or you have a newer Mac with firmware that can talk to Apple directly (pretty much anything 2010 and newer) over the internet.

Where can I download Apple Hardware Diagnostics for MacBookPro2,1?

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