Macbook (Late 2009) Shuts down unexpectedly during boot

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Macbook (Late 2009) Shuts down unexpectedly during boot

I have a late 2009 macbook that did not have any major issues until a couple of months ago, when it shut down randomly on me, and when I tried to reboot it, it would make a *click* noise and it would turn off without any signs of problem. I've tried resetting both the pram and smc, neither of which seemed to do anything. The farthest it's gotten into boot since is just barely into the log in screen, so any hopes of getting info off of it is pretty much gone.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

MacBook

Posted on Dec 20, 2014 8:53 AM

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Answer 1

sterling r

Community Specialist

Dec 22, 2014 7:13 AM in response to 74235

Hi there 74235,

If I understand correctly you are unable to successfully boot your Mac because it keeps turning itself off during the boot and is accompanied by a physical clicking sound, rather than a sound coming from the speakers. I would recommend these 2 steps from the following article to see if checking the disk in one of two ways will resolve or isolate the issue:

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck

Try Safe Mode

If you're using Mac OS X 10.2 or later, you can start up your computer in Safe Mode, which includes an automatic disk check and repair. If you're using Mac OS X 10.1.5 or earlier, skip to the next section. A Safe Boot, which starts up your computer into Safe Mode, might allow you to start up your computer successfully. To do this, follow these steps:

Start up in Safe Mode.

After the system has fully started up, restart your computer again normally.

If your Mac successfully restarts, the issue should be resolved. If the issue continues, try using Disk Utility.

Try Disk Utility

Use these steps to use the Disk Utility app to verify or repair a disk.

If you're using OS X Lion or later, start the computer from Recovery System or Internet Recovery. If you're using an older version of OS X and your computer came with a Mac OS X Install disc, insert the installation disc and restart the computer while holding the C key instead.

When your computer finishes starting up, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities window, or from the Installer menu if you're started from an installation disc.

Click the First Aid tab.

Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.

Select your Startup Disk (usually named "Macintosh HD").

Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

Tip: With Mac OS X v10.6 and earlier, always start up your computer from an Install or Restore disc when using Disk Utility to verify or repair your startup volume. Otherwise, you might see some disk error messages.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care,

Sterling

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