Snow Leopard boot up problems on MBP

Question

Level 1

4 points

Snow Leopard boot up problems on MBP

Using Snow Leopard on MBP; on opening, laptop hangs up before getting to Log-In. Spinning ball freezes and nothing further happens. Have to do a hard shut-down to turn laptop off. I had noticed some corruption on bottom of Snow Leopard boot up prior to this problem - a pattern of tiny multicolored squares at bottom of start up screen. Snow Leopard ran fine for a couple of months prior to this. Any suggestions about what's happening and/or solutions? Thank you.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Aug 19, 2012 8:04 AM

Reply

Answer 1

sanjampet

Level 5

7,982 points

Aug 19, 2012 9:02 AM in response to wccjr

you can try a SMC reset:

Power off, powr up holding left side shift, control, option, and press these keys after power up before start up chime, and hold them till the fear stops spinning.

A PRAM reset:

power off, power up holding option, command, the keys P,R. Hold till the start up chime rings twice and release.

Also try a permissions repair: go to utilities>disc utilities open disc utilities, highlight your disc from the left colum (usually Macintosh HD or what ever you may have named it, click permissions repair.

Reply

Answer 2

wccjr Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 19, 2012 2:09 PM in response to sanjampet

The PRAM reset worked beautifully and brought up my log-in page. I went into Disk Utility and ran Verify Permissions finding many problems. I then ran Repair Permissions and it froze midway through the process. I had to do a hard shutdown and now am back to where I started, unable to get the laptop to boot up. After powering on the spinning gear freezes after a minute or so and nothing else happens. The PRAM reset trick did not work again for me. Thanks for trying to help. Any other suggestions?

Reply

Answer 3

sanjampet

Level 5

7,982 points

Aug 19, 2012 2:39 PM in response to wccjr

did you try the SMC? Then a PRAM.

Your OSX might need to be reinstalled, or possibly your HDD is dying.

I would take it to an Apple repair center, as it would not go thru the permisions repair.

If you can get it up and running do a back up.

Reply

Answer 4

wccjr Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 19, 2012 2:48 PM in response to sanjampet

Yes, I tried the SMC and then the PRAM repair. I think I will take it into a Mac accredited repair shop tomorrow as I believe it has something major going on. The hard drive whines loudly and is probably failing. I probably should have backed it up when I got it running again instead of attempting the Permissions repair.

Have you had any experience using the product Disk Warrior for recovering hard drives? I'm thinking about buying a copy.

Many thanks for your interest.

Reply

Answer 5

sanjampet

Level 5

7,982 points

Aug 19, 2012 3:04 PM in response to wccjr

I have no experience with Disk Warrior, but if your HDD is making noises, it on the way out. That pram might have been the final run.

Sorry to hear about this.

Best of luck

Reply