no entry sign upon boot up

Question

no entry sign upon boot up

Hi,

I've got an old early 2009 MacBook Pro 17" that seems to have just decided that enough's enough.

When I press power on it makes the boot up sound then proceeds to the screen with the logo and progress bar. This then takes 10 mins + and then stalls and shows a No Entry sign.

I've tried to select fix Macbook HDD but it says unable. I foolishly have files on the desktop that are not backed up and so need to get them off too.

Help!

MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2009)

Posted on Aug 3, 2015 6:42 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

sterling r

Community Specialist

Aug 5, 2015 6:20 AM in response to fruitandchips

Hello fruitandchips,

If I understand correctly your Mac seems to be trying to load for a bit, but then shows you a circle with a line through it preventing you from proceeding. According to the following article you will need to use OS X Recovery to reinstall the OS:

About the screens you see when your Mac starts up

Prohibitory symbol

When you see a circle with a slash symbol instead of the Apple logo, it means your Mac couldn't find a valid System Folder to start up from.

...

If this is your personal Mac, try reinstalling OS X by using OS X Recovery.

This should not jeopardize your data, but if you want to have another layer of security you can use Target Disk Mode to connect to another Mac and try copying the files off that way before using OS X Recovery.

Share files between two computers with target disk mode

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

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