my mid-2008 macbook pro will not boot from Recovery HD partition

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Level 1

9 points

my mid-2008 macbook pro will not boot from Recovery HD partition

was watching a video on hulu using the chrome browser on my macbook pro running Mountain Lion. Suddenly the picture froze in a flickering loop, unable to force quit, I powered down. I have not been able to restart since in safe mode or from the Recovery HD partition. A standard start attempt results in the grey screen and spinning cursor that power cycles every few minutes. Does anyone have any suggestions or a fix for this?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Jan 13, 2013 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

keg55

Level 6

11,743 points

Jan 13, 2013 9:42 AM in response to MZ56

If you have a TM back up, see if you can restart holding the Option key and select the TM back up to boot into. You'll get the same OS X Utilities screen as you see with the Recovery HD. From there try to Verify/Repair your MBP. Or if you have a clone you can boot into use that. Or if you created a Recovery HD on a USB thumb drive using the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant, use that.

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Answer 2

MZ56 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2013 11:05 AM in response to keg55

Hi Keg55,

Many thanks for the response and advice. Unfortunately I have no back up or clone.

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Answer 3

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jan 13, 2013 11:07 AM in response to MZ56

You could also boot from your original installation DVD that came with the MacBook Pro. Hold down the "C" key while starting with the DVD. Then use Disk Utility to see if your internal drive is functioning.

It may be that your hard drive has failed. That would explain why you can't boot to the Recovery partition. If it has, it underlines the importance of making and keeping a backup.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jan 13, 2013 11:18 AM in response to MZ56

X 3 on the need to backup.

Apple support article that might help:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

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Answer 5

MZ56 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 17, 2013 12:22 PM in response to Eric Root

I subsequently managed to reboot through a single user command line using the fsck disk utility to repair the disk.

Once up and running again I ran the disk utility to repair the disk and permissions.

This was where I got the following issue...

Permissions differ on “Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .

I repaired the permission and backed everything up on a 1TB My Passport through Time Machine.

The MBP crashed again, while watching a flash video on Safari.

Again it would not reboot normally, to the recovery partition or to the backup on My Passport.

I used fsck again to repair and reboot successfully.

Running disk utility again I got the same permission difference again.

I also still get a flickering picture on video in Safari or chrome and my whole experience is now quite sluggish.

Finally, I went onto App Store and found in my purchases that OS X Mountain Lion has a 'download' rather than 'installed' button next to it, while About this Mac tells me I'm running 10.8.2

Do you think I need to reinstall 10.8.2?

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Answer 6

MZ56 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 17, 2013 12:24 PM in response to Lanny

I subsequently managed to reboot through a single user command line using the fsck disk utility to repair the disk.

Once up and running again I ran the disk utility to repair the disk and permissions.

This was where I got the following issue...

Permissions differ on “Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .

I repaired the permission and backed everything up on a 1TB My Passport through Time Machine.

The MBP crashed again, while watching a flash video on Safari.

Again it would not reboot normally, to the recovery partition or to the backup on My Passport.

I used fsck again to repair and reboot successfully.

Running disk utility again I got the same permission difference again.

I also still get a flickering picture on video in Safari or chrome and my whole experience is now quite sluggish.

Finally, I went onto App Store and found in my purchases that OS X Mountain Lion has a 'download' rather than 'installed' button next to it, while About this Mac tells me I'm running 10.8.2

Do you think I need to reinstall 10.8.2?

Reply