Madgick

Q: 2011 Macbook pro wont complete bootup. Is hardrive dead?

My macbook froze today on the desktop after I logged in. I was forced to turn it off by holding the power button and now I am unable to get it to boot up. It will turn on and get about 2/3rds through the progress bar, then the progress bar and apple logo disapear and I'm left with the grey screen

 

I suspect the hard drive has died but I need to be sure before I fork out £100+ for a new 500gb SSD. How can i be sure this is the problem?


I've tried the usual PRAM and SMC resets, they appeared to work but still no boot up. I'm also able to hold Option at startup and choose to boot into bootcamp or the Recovery Partition, but these also greyscreen/blackscreen after attempting to boot up for a few seconds


Finally, I've tried doing a safe boot by holding Shift+CMD+V and I've recorded it on my iPhone. It shows the log and cuts out at the same point every time:

pooter.jpg

Is this helpful? would it be naive of me to post a full video? because I can do this if it would help diagnose my hard drive as dead

 

Thsnk, Ben

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Dec 16, 2014 3:05 PM

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Q: 2011 Macbook pro wont complete bootup. Is hardrive dead?

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  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Dec 16, 2014 3:13 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 9 (52,521 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 16, 2014 3:13 PM in response to Madgick

    There is no such start up combination as SHIFT+COMMAND+V.  See this for Safe Boot startup:

     

    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

     

    What are the results?

     

    Ciao.

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Dec 16, 2014 3:27 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2014 3:27 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Hi Ogelthorpe, thanks for your quick reply.

     

    Shift+Command+V does exist, details are here: Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

    To quote the article: "Start your Mac, then immediately hold the Shift key. This performs a Safe Boot. Advanced tip: If you want to see the status of a Safe Boot as it progresses, you can hold Shift-Command-V during start up (instead of just Shift). "

     

    This is what produced the image in my first post. The image shows the last thing on screen before it goes to grey screen again.

     

    If I do a regular safe boot, it grey screens also

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Dec 16, 2014 3:42 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2014 3:42 PM in response to Madgick

    UPDATE - I am able to boot into Single-User Mode, but I know so little about linux. Could anyone suggest some diagnostic ideas?

     

    Also, i attempted to boot from an OSX Lion disk that I have, but that also went to grey screen after quite a long time of the apple logo and spinning/loading icon.... if my hard drive was dead, I wouldn't have thought it would effect trying to boot from CD?? perhaps its something else?

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Dec 16, 2014 3:56 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 9 (52,521 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 16, 2014 3:56 PM in response to Madgick

    Madgick wrote:

     

    Hi Ogelthorpe, thanks for your quick reply.

     

    Shift+Command+V does exist, details are here: Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

    To quote the article: "Start your Mac, then immediately hold the Shift key. This performs a Safe Boot. Advanced tip: If you want to see the status of a Safe Boot as it progresses, you can hold Shift-Command-V during start up (instead of just Shift). "

     

    This is what produced the image in my first post. The image shows the last thing on screen before it goes to grey screen again.

     

    If I do a regular safe boot, it grey screens also

    I stand corrected.  This is my startup list (by Apple):

     

    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Dec 16, 2014 4:05 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 9 (52,521 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 16, 2014 4:05 PM in response to Madgick

    Madgick wrote:

     

    UPDATE - I am able to boot into Single-User Mode, but I know so little about linux. Could anyone suggest some diagnostic ideas?

     

    Also, i attempted to boot from an OSX Lion disk that I have, but that also went to grey screen after quite a long time of the apple logo and spinning/loading icon.... if my hard drive was dead, I wouldn't have thought it would effect trying to boot from CD?? perhaps its something else?

    Lion was available as a USB drive not a disk.  If you have a DVD Lion installer, then it is 'homemade'.  It then begs the question if it is reliable or not.

     

    Have you tried the Safe Boot?

     

    Ciao.

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Dec 16, 2014 4:22 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2014 4:22 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Safe Boot attempts to load and then grey screens when the loading bar is about half way.

    You are right that my Lion is a home made boot disc, however I am starting to suspect this is not a hard drive issue.

     

    I was able to boot into single user mode and try "/sbin/mount/ -fy" which ran a check on the hard drive and says "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK"

     

    Still unable to boot regularly/bootcamp/recovery/safemode ooooor from CD

     

    Really stuck for ideas

  • by OGELTHORPE,Helpful

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Dec 16, 2014 4:32 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 9 (52,521 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 16, 2014 4:32 PM in response to Madgick

    This what I would try.  Take out the HDD and install it in an enclosure.  Connect it the MBP via USB and see if it will boot the MBP via startup manager:

     

    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1310

     

    Ciao.

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Dec 16, 2014 5:11 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2014 5:11 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    After trying "/sbin/fsck/ -fy" about 10 times out of frustration in the single user mode (earlier I called this "sbin/mount/ -fy" which was wrong btw) and then trying a bunch more safe boots, The recovery drive decided to work!!??! So I used Disk Utility and attempted to Repair the drive, which said there was nothing wrong with it. Then I attempted to boot normally a couple more times and now one of them has randomly worked?! So my laptop is now working and I'm letting it backup time machine now (my last one was only a few days ago anyway luckily). I had an error report about a graphical problem on the last boot, so I'll look into it further and report back if I find the cause. I'm a little worried this isn't the end of the problem

     

    Thanks Ogelthorpe for your prompt responses. If it hadn't fixed today, I would have been asking my friend for his HDD enclosure ;P

  • by alberto-b,Helpful

    alberto-b alberto-b Dec 17, 2014 2:59 AM in response to Madgick
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 2:59 AM in response to Madgick

    Hi,

    I have a 2011 macbook pro too, it started having the same issue you described, and it turned out it was not the HD, rather the graphics card, like many others... 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card
    If your macbook is a 15 or 17 inch, it has a GPU (not the 13 inch, that has only integrated graphics), and unfortunately it's probably suffering from the same issue.
    However try to have a free check at an Apple store.

  • by Cunnla,

    Cunnla Cunnla Dec 17, 2014 3:20 AM in response to Madgick
    Level 4 (2,016 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 17, 2014 3:20 AM in response to Madgick

    Oops, too late.

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Dec 17, 2014 4:48 AM in response to alberto-b
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 4:48 AM in response to alberto-b

    Hi Alberto. This is really helpful thanks, it sounds more like what I was starting to expect would be the issue, since I was unable to boot either the Recovery drive or from disk. It seemed to be working ok last night but I'll see what further diagnostics I can do on it tonight with some of the things mentioned in the thread you linked, like gfxCardStatus.

  • by Suby6383,

    Suby6383 Suby6383 Dec 17, 2014 6:49 AM in response to Madgick
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 6:49 AM in response to Madgick

    I'm from Canada this happened to me in November 2 weeks after my Apple Care finished but Thank you.

  • by Suby6383,

    Suby6383 Suby6383 Dec 17, 2014 6:51 AM in response to alberto-b
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 6:51 AM in response to alberto-b

    Thank you very much for your answer.  It helps very much. Sometimes I find the forum much more helpful than waiting 3 hrs at the Apple Store.

  • by Madgick,

    Madgick Madgick Jan 3, 2015 4:14 PM in response to Madgick
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 3, 2015 4:14 PM in response to Madgick

    LATEST UPDATE: So it seemed to be periodically working and my 3 year warranty has been out for a little while now so I was kind of happy with that, but then it finally died and never got past the grey screen again, so I reluctantly took it to an apple store to see how big the repair bill would be.

     

    The 'genius' ran some pretty cool diagnostics (which the geek within me enjoyed) and agreed with what we'd eventually concluded here, that the graphics card had died. He then confirmed that my warranty was way out of date, but then instead of quoting me a huge repair bill, tapped away at his iPad for a few minutes and said that since I'd bough the Macbook direct from Apple and from the UK online store, he could put it through for free repair based on UK Consumer Law?!?!?! FANTASMICAL NEWS!!!!!

     

    So its currently being repaired completely free, saving me at least £400 already, as well as a small list of other potential fixes we then discussed... since it was free

     

    I have since looked quite a long way into these consumer laws. In short, it guarantees you to get some decent mileage out of a product that would be expected to last a long time (up to 6 years).

     

    In the real world, this will usually translate into having an argument with a bloke from Currys about your dishwasher that broke after 2 years and him saying you only had a years warranty. They tend to deny knowledge of these laws in the hope that you'll give up and go away, and you might need threaten to go through the small claims court before they actually sort it out for you. Alternatively, at Apple they seem to treat it like a free 6 year warranty for everyone (2 years for iPhones/iPads) and will tell you about it even if you didn't know

     

    tl;dr Apple customer service is awesome and saved me big monies