prohibition sign during startup

Sounds as if your hard drive is failing - or a system can't be found on it.

Since you're running Lion (according to your profile) try booting into your Recovery partition by holding down the Command and R keys whilst booting. When at the Recovery window, open Disk Utility and try to verify and, if needed, repair your hard drive. If your hard drive cannot be repaired, it's time to go shopping for a new drive and using your backup(s) to restore your files to your new hard drive.

Clinton

Yeah - your internal drive is either dead or dying. Time for a replacement, I'm afraid. When you order a new drive, be sure and order an enclosure from your old drive - you may be able to get some of your old data back if you don't have a backup (I'm assuming that you do have backups? If not, now's the time to begin.

Good luck,

Clinton

Visit Crucial and OWC and check out their pricing. It's just going to depend on the size and speed of the drive. You're going to want a form factor of 2.5" x 9mm - both vendors carry different brands. Personally, I like Seagate and have had bad luck with Western Digital, so I avoid anything WD.

Clinton

Depending on the Year you Mac was made it may be the cable that goes from the drive to the logic board. If you have a 2009 model this is very common for that year Macbook Pro.

If you take the drive out of the system and connect it to a USB port with a SATA to USB adapter or enclosure can you boot the system from it? If you can then it is not the drive and it is the cable.

The AHT only looks at available hardware. Since the drive isn't showing up, that is why you have the No Pass, Prohibition, sign, it doesn't see any problems and the rest of the hardware is fine.

What year is your Mac.

Is it a 2010 model or did you buy it in 2010 and it is really a 2009 model.

Well the only way to tell is to be able to start the system and go to About This Mac in the Appple Logo menu item.

It is more then likely your hard drive but you won't know that until you remove the hard drive and connect it to the system by USB to see if you can boot off it. If you can then it is the cable. If you can't then it is the drive.

It's a very, very simple procedure - all you need are Phillips #00 and Torx T6 screwdrivers: I prefer the type with the magnetized head. I bought this toolkit from OWC - it has everything that you will need.

Just follow the instructions in the videos - here's a good one from OWC - and you'll have no problems.

Clinton

You will need a 00 Philips and a #6 Torx drivers to install a HDD. It is a simple install. The biggest concern is dropping the small screws and spending a half hour looking for them.

Ciao.

Only you can determine whether or not it would be safe for "YOU" to open up your Mac computer.

In all honesty all it takes is removing a few screws, unplugging one (1) cable, removing 4 screw from the sides of the old drive and screwing them back into the sides of the new drive, plugging in thatcable you removed from the old drive and putting all the other screws back in place and tightening them down.

It is not like you have to use a solderinig gun to poke around inside the electronics of the system.

The big part is having the right tool for the job at hand. You will need a #00 phillips head screw driver and a Torx T-6 driver. The Torx driver is for the screws used on the sides of the drive. Those screw on the sides of the drive position the drive in the drive bay anti shock mounts.

No other cables or parts need to be touched.

ahsni wrote:

I have 2010 model,

I watched a lot of ifixit videos about replacing hard drive, I have to do it first time . Would it be safe for me to open MacBook all by my self only looking at videos

Any precautions I must take .