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macbook pro won't boot, stuck on white apple screen

Noticed today, that my macbook pro won't boot . It gets to the white apple screen with the spinner under the apple logo. It stays like this for a long time without doing anything except spinning.


I've powered down and tried to boot up several times.


I have boot camp and windows on my mac and when the white screen appears, I can press Option to bring up which hard drive and the Windows partition will load without any problems.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Dec 12, 2012 1:42 PM

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6 replies

Dec 12, 2012 3:09 PM in response to ehb91

Exacty what happens when you try to boot up from the disc that came with your computer? Are you holding down the c key? Have you tried holding down the "option key?" Are you able to run the Hardware Test - Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test


Shut down your computer and disconnect all peripherals (keyboard & mouse if pertinent) from your computer. Now reboot.

If the Mac starts up normally, shut it down again and then plug in one of the peripherals (keyboard or mouse first) and start up your computer again. If it does so successfully repeat the process, adding one peripheral at a time until your Mac acts up. At that point, disconnect the last peripheral you added, reboot your Mac and search the peripheral vendor's website for an updated driver.

If no driver exists or the problem remain after installing the new driver, try a different cable or a different port on your Mac.


If none of the above works, again disconnect all peripherals from your Mac, hold down the "shift" key to start up in "Safe Boot" mode.

If the Mac starts up correctly, restart without pressing the "shift" key.


If your computer still does not start up properly, shut it down and restart it while holding down the Apple+Option-P-R keys; keep holding "all 4 keys" down until you hear the startup sound "twice."


If none of the above work Disconnect all peripherals from your computer. Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.

Select your language.

Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.

Select Disk Utility.


Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.

Click Repair Disk.

(If Disk Utility cannot repair, you will need a stronger utility (3rd party) - Diskwarrior or Techtool PRO)

Restart your computer when done.


Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751 and restart your computer.


Remove any 3rd party ram.


Reinstall Lion - This will install a "fresh" copy of Lion without archiving old system files but leaves the rest of your files in place.



If your computer is still under warranty or you have Apple Care, take full advantage of it by letting tech support deal with your problems. It's what you're paying them for.

Out of warranty - take the computer to an Apple store or an AASP. Whichever is more convenient for you.













User uploaded file

Dec 12, 2012 3:31 PM in response to CMCSK

Thanks for the reply, I tried to edit my update post, but the thread was down for maintenance.



I was able to boot from disk and i went into utility repair and disk repair and ran through the repair for my macintosh hd.


It completed the repair successfully, so I tried to boot normally but there was no difference.


I havent been able to get it to start up in safe mode. im not sure if i am holding it long enough or waiting long enough for it to start up. I'll hold down shift and it just spins the gear looking spinner under the aple like it is thinking but this is what happens on normal startup.


I tried the cmd+option+p+r approach and it restarted but didn't work once reset.


Should I go through the installation of the OS again or will that whipe my hard drive clean?

macbook pro won't boot, stuck on white apple screen

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