2012 Macbook Pro won't boot off of hard drive.

The HDD On my 2012 MacBook Pro retina died after an install of Windows 7 using bootcamp and wouldn't boot into OSX or Windows 7. After many different approaches using USB thumb drives with bootable versions of OSX, trying Internet recovery and restore from backup, I had no joy; it seemed that the Recovery Partition had gone. Then I found this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4848

I created the Recovery Disk from my MacBook Air, followed the instructions and it worked first time. Plug in the drive, hold down the Option (Alt) key and choose the Recovery Drive and it will install Mountain Lion for you!

That doesn't really fix the real problem, which I still have. I can't get the latest MacBook pro (mid-2012) to boot from ANYTHING but its internal drive. This is a real problem for those of us who image Macs from the network or elsewhere! In fact, it will be a real problem for you, too, when your internal hard drive crashes.

I've tried booting via the network, from an external Firewire 800 HD running the last OS 10.7.4, and a flash drive with a fresh 10.7.4 install. All show up when I hold down the option key - and all get the same result when a boot is attempted: the "circle of doom".

Anybody else have a 2012 MacBook Pro that won't boot off of external devices? It runs fine otherwise, and yes I've already appped the PRAM.

I have the same exact problem with this new 13" 2012 MBP. But what I did, is I took the HDD out of it and placed it in to my USB toaster, imaged the new HDD using the 2011 MBP I have. The 2011 MBP can boot from that newly imaged hard drive, but the 2012 MBP can't boot off that hard drive even when you put it back in to it's SATA port. So the problem here is not that it doesn't let you boot from external drives with OS, if you image the OS on to internal HDD it won't even boot off that. And ALL my machines from 2006-2011 are able to boot from my imaged drive. This ***** more and more. Apple is taking away more and more freedom from us to do what we want with our machines when we buy them. First, can't replace HDD on Thunderbolt iMacs without making the fans spin out of this world, then this, what's next?... Shame.

Well, you may be able to put in a SSD, then hold Command R at startup which will bring up the internet restore option and restore clean OS on to it, haven't tried yet. But I take a factory HDD out of 2011 15" MBP with factory OS installed on it, put it in to this new 2012 MBP (even inside, in the Sata port) and it won't boot from it. Holding the Option key at startup shows that drive as a bootable drive, but if you select it to boot from it, the "circle of death" with the line through it comes up. I am awaiting few more minutes for Apple advance tech support member to get back to me after he researches this deeper, but yeah, it seems the freedom that was promised to us by Apple in the 80's has been revoked.

Wow... I was planning on using CCC and transferring everything to my SSD then install it. If I can't do that anymore, I won't be a customer. Please update this thread with any information you get. Thanks.

I did a little google searching, and this seems like an isolated problem. Unless some software update was put out, users can definitely boot from a different drive through the SATA port or a USB port in the new MBP models.

It's a brand new model and a little early to say it is "isolated", since most users probably haven't tried booting from anything other than the internal drive. I tried with another new Macbook we had in stock but it was an older model and worked fine.

I suspect you will see more cooments on the web when power users strat discovering what I have. I hope you are right that it is a an isolated issue. But I doubt it.

I am having the same problem, "No smoking/booting" symbol. I put in a fully bootable drive from my 2008 mbp and it won't boot off of that, nor the Lion recovery thumb drive. I get an apple symbol hitting Command-R trying to do an internet recovery but it just stays an apple symbol and I just end up having to do a hard shut down and try again. I am a little peeved about this. Is this on purpose to make it so I can't self-upgrade the drive? It seems the only way to get it to boot would be to put the original drive back. Am I going to end up having to clone it? Who has ideas?

I'm having the same issue. Apple just replaced my lemon MBP with a brand new 2012 model. I tried putting in the SSD I had in my previous machine. I get the "Do Not Enter" sign when I try to boot from the SSD. It boots fine off of the HD it came with. Tried reinstalling the OS on the SSD, still no luck. VERY frustrating. Hopefully a call to Apple in the AM will solve this.

Hiyas. I had the same problem. I wanted to clone my 2011 MBP drive to the new 2012 MBP by booting from a USB drive where I have my image with my soft, OS, and files. Before I would always boot off that USB drive when I got a new machine, and once running from that USB drive, I would use SuperDuper to clone the USB drive to the internal drive. When I was unable to boot the 2012 from USB drive getting that same "circle of death" I called Apple an they explains to me why.

Apparently the new 2012 models would only boot from another drive if it has not just te latest version of Lion, but also the specific build number of Lion, which can ONLY be bought with new 2012 machine or downloaded on to it directly from Apple Internet restore.

TO SOLVE THE SSD REPLACEMENT: Put the new SSD in place of the original 2012 MBP hard drive, start up your machine and hold down Command+R. Internet restore wi come on which will allow you to install the proper OS on any new drive you install in to your MBP (tested, confirmed).

TO SOLVE BOOTING FROM EXTERNAL DRIVE: Setup all your software and files per a factory Lion OS that came with your new MBP and then clone it to an external drive/partition via SuperDuper (even te free trial version will do it, no need to purchase it) and you will har a bootable restore drive with all your software, OS and files for future 2012 MBP clones. Or, what I did is I used the Migrate Assistant in the Utilities folder and just had my 2011 USB drive restored over the faxtory 2012 Lion OS, which has effectively restored all my files, software, and even Hosts file. Then I created a restore of this new 2012 setup using SuperDuper on to a new USB partition that I called 2012 so I can use it on any of my future 2012 machines I get.

Hope it helps.

Thanks, yes I am mid-Internet recovery right now. So I will just do the migration assistant deal when it's done and hopefully my problems will be solved! I wish I had those 5 hours back from last night though =)...

I am trying Internet Recovery off a freshly partitioned SSD drive now so maybe that with migration assistant will work. If not I will try to CCC the original drive, clone to the SSD drive and see if that boots. If so then I'll use migration assistant.

I'm not sure why people are having such trouble. I swapped the stock drive in my mid 2012 15" MBP with a larger 7200rpm drive, and cloned everything off the old drive before swapping it for the new drive, and it boots from it fine. My machine also boots fine from CDs and USB.

The problem might be that people are trying to boot their new Macs with a version of OS X that was released prior to the release of their machine. For example, a 2012 MBP most likely can't boot 10.7.0, it could only boot the specific build of Lion that it shipped with.

I personally have a 10.7.4 image I was trying to apply. The image was made about two months ago on a 2011 MBP model. Works on all my other machines just not this new MBP 2012 model I got. The previous models are all 2011 models. I am just going to make a 2012MBP Image. Annoying,but fixable.

Well, of course it worked for you, Josh - your drive's OS was created in the latest MBP. The rest of us weren't so lucky.

Jay is correct. there are missing drivers in the latest 10.7.4 OS update that are needed for the mid-2012 MBP. Apple really dropped the ball on this.

This may be fixed in OS 10.7.5 update, which is not here yet.

In the meantime, The internet recovery should work, but how time-consuming! I won't know for sure until we get new Macs in, I had to deploy the problem MBP, and that was the only mid-2012 model we had.