How can I start the Apple Hardware Test when holding D doesn't work and I don't have the installation disc?

Since this issue is resolved you would be better off making a new thread with all the new issues (or visiting an Apple store).

Capacity in AHT refers to how full the battery is (I think), you would have a much lower maximum capacity after 5 years of use, just run it for a few minutes on battery, if it changes you know it is the current level.

I don't see anything to indicate you should be replacing thermal paste on this Mac. It would only be a good idea if you were capable of doing intensive repairs & had an idea of where a specific fault would be. Opening up & removing heat sinks on a hunch is not advisable IMO - there are too many small screws to lose & delicate parts to break. On a 10 year old Mac that may be a different story.

If the Apple store feels you have a software issue they will erase the HD if you have a backup. Simply copying will not resolve many issues.

It sounds like you have crammed the boot disk too full.

Many figures for free disk space are thrown around, personally I consider 20GB free at all times to be a minimum…

Swap is not the only usage that changes over time, caches & other temporary files will also need space that alters with the tasks you are doing.

If you run too close to no free space you will soon find that basic operations like deleting files fails to work.

Spinning hard disks also read & write slower as they store more data, so I avoid filling spinning boot disks beyond about 50% if possible.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-WhyYouNeedMoreThanYouNeed.html

Hey,

I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), which uses the same hardware test image that you used for your example. I followed you exact steps, which gave me the following:

Last login: Fri May 22 19:09:22 on ttys000

[computer name]:~ [account name] cd /Volumes/AHTCTwo/System/Library/CoreServices

[computer name]:CoreServices [account name] sudo ditto .diagnostics /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

Password:

[computer name]:CoreServices [account name] cd /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

[computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine CommonAHTResources/

[computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine Mac-F22586C8/

[computer name]:.diagnostics [account name] sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine diags.efi

[computer name]:.diagnostics [account name]

This was my second attempt, therefore there was no need to create the .diagnostics folder. After doing this, I rebooted several times holding D and I could not get it to work.

I would greatly appreciate your help.

I found that getting the AHT to boot from the internal disk was a pain. It never seems to work despite following various online guides, checking permissions, execute bits & several attempts to bless the diagnostics loader.

Eventually I gave up & made a script to copy the diagnostics onto a USB stick…

https://gist.github.com/drewreece/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929

If you can handle shell scripts that may get you into AHT.

It needs a HFS formatted disk as a destination it will set that as bootable via bless, so the next reboot should use that to startup from.

It doesn't help with your question, but it is the only workaround I know of.

I have replaced original hard drive to samsung SSD and upgraded memory too.

I have now installed El Capitan and want to run Apple Hardware Test.

I have already tried 'D' , Option + 'D' both didn't do anything.

I have checked under "/System/Library/CoreServices" and no ".diagnostics" folder.

So I followed your steps and tried to create ".diagnostics" folder but got no permission msg.

Mac:CoreServices kneethan$ sudo mkdir /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics

Password:

mkdir: /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics: Operation not permitted

I don't think OS X 10.11 allows you to edit /System even as root. More info can be found if you search around…

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the-rootless-feature-in- el-capitan-really

System Integrity Protection or 'rootless' will stop you doing anything in /System.

Personally I have never had great success installing Apple hardware test onto the OS disk, hence my script to make USB stick version (above).

Newer models have Apple diagnostics Using Apple Diagnostics - Apple Support, make sure you have the right tool for your Mac.

I agree, instead of messing around with OS X system files I prefer your USB method. please help me follow your method.

to copy AHT to usb, what should I do (should I format )? how to run your script please?

then what I have to do use it after I copied to USB key.

Grab the AHT disk image from Apple.com, github has a list be sure you have the correct model.

https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

In Terminal view the output of these two lines…

sysctl hw.model | awk '{ print $2 }'

ioreg -l | grep board-id | awk -F\" '{ print $4 }'

… and compare to the github list

Inside an admin account (it needs to use sudo for 'blessing' the system).

Grab my script, open the ZIP file. In the folder that is created (probably called 2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c460e0ed540 !) drag that script onto Terminal. Then drag the AHT disk image onto Terminal & finally drag the destination disk (a USB disk formatted to Macintosh OS Extended).

It should look a bit like…

[~/]$ /Users/USERNAME/Downloads/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c460e0ed540/AHT-my- disk.sh /Users/USERNAME/Downloads/AHTdiskimage.dmg /Volumes/path-to-USB

NB: The bold parts will be specific to your system, there are spaces between the file paths.

If you are unsure paste the command here & we can try to confirm it is correct, Terminal correctly escapes spaces & other special characters in file paths if you use drag & drop, so it should complete them correctly for you.

Hit return & it should ask for confirmation and then copy over the AHT disk & offer to bless the tool for use on next boot.

I haven't tested this on 10.11 & I cannot do so at present, sorry. If it fails it is possible to copy over by hand, but that takes a lot of describing. The script just uses the cp command to copy the relevant files over after mounting the disk image. The USB destination is not erased, but avoid copying it to a disk that has valuable data (just in case, have a backup).

It may also appear as a bootable disk in the 'boot picker' (hold alt at startup), this seems to vary on some models.

I followed your instructions and got this message :

iMac:Library kneethan$ /Users/kneethan/Downloads/2e5eed7dbfbd5dd7e929-6ddeffa80174801842f729c8657e3c46 0e0ed540/AHT-my-disk.sh /Users/kneethan/Downloads/018-2845-A.dmg /Volumes/Apple\ Hardware\ Test/

Will copy content from /Users/kneethan/Downloads/018-2845-A.dmg into /Volumes/Apple Hardware Test/...

Do you want to continue? [ Y or N ]

Y

--> Will use sudo for bless stage - enter admin password at prompt

--> Mounting disk image...

--> Copying system...

--> Bless system...

Enter admin password:

Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc

looks like in El Capitan they did the following :

To safeguard against disabling System Integrity Protection by modifying security configuration from another OS, the startup disk can no longer be set programmatically, such as by invoking the

bless(8)

https://github.com/kainjow/BootChamp/issues/19

I think you are right. bless looks like it isn't allowed by SIP.

You can try selecting the disk in System Preferences > Startup Disks if it shows as bootable in that list. Reboot to see if AHT starts. If not try holding alt at startup with the disk connected, it may appear as an option.

Thanks Drew Reece, im now running extended AHT test , I was able to launch with restart and option key press.

THanks a lot for your simple elegant solution. I'm going to keep that USB for just AHT .

🙂

Great, I'm glad it helped.

Good luck with your AHT, try loop mode to run it for a few hours (hit cmd+L to toggle it). I use normal & extended when trying to get any error messages but they can be cryptic & not always accurate.

Thanks for the tip for loop test. Others having similar problem in running AHT , I encourage you to follow Drew Reece non invasive solution. I wasted my most of the day today for running AHT until I found his solution.

my system info : mid 2007 iMac , upgraded hard drive to Samsung SSD.

HI Drew, I followed your instructions after intermittent freezes and slow downs when using my mid 2011 27" iMac. It's been upgraded to 20G of RAM and the issue literally appeared overnight. Thank you for the script and making life easier!

My question is would there be any chance this error is being caused because I put AHT onto an external drive connected via USB? Error: 4hdd/11/40000000 SATA (0,0)

Everything seems to point to this being HDD failure which makes sense, even though I also had the HDD replaced when Apple sent out notices of known issues with them early on after I bought the machine.

I don't know if the error is related to running AHT of a USB drive but I seriously doubt it. Apple doesn't publicly document these error codes but you can usually find a few sites that explain the meaning. I assume your issues happens without the USB drive - if so it's not connected as far as I can tell (try another USB disk with AHT if you want, but it probably won't change the error).

You may want to replace the HD, SATA connector or consider running from an external disk as a test - that will show if your iMac can run without the internal HD. I would unmount the internal disk when testing to try to remove it from use. Hardware errors may require you to replace parts before they are resolved, contact Apple if you think they can help, they may give you a price for fitting a replacement disk. Apple may take your case history into account, but 5 years is beyond any normal or extended warranties.

tried your methodology, from a USB stick, for my MacPro1,1 running Mavs

The "quarantine" sudos didn't work.

And holding D on star-up went no where except the usual start drive.

Any input would be welcome.

Sure wish there was still a way to send a PM on discussions.