Prohibitory symbol on Mac startup, although another hard drive partition on the same Macbook works just fine?
The computer: I have a mid 2012 13 inch Macbook Pro with 10 GB RAM and 250 GB space. I have a solid state drive. These specs have not been changed in years. I think my OS is Mountain Lion? Can't remember if I've downloaded Yosemite or not.
The problem: The laptop was working fine until about three or four days ago, when I started experiencing some freezing with that rainbow beach ball for the first time. I also experienced some glitching with windows I had up. Today, my laptop won't reach the Mac log in screen. The start up loading screen with the Apple logo eventually turns into a loading screen with a prohibitory symbol (a circle with a line through it). It never passes this screen.
Relevant observation: I have 50 GB of my computer's hard drive partitioned off with a Windows OS, which I access through holding "option" upon start-up. The Windows partition continues to startup and function normally. So the issue isn't a hard drive problem... [I've had this partition for 3 years. Not a recent thing.]
What I've already tried:
- Tried to start the computer in Mac "Safe Mode" by holding shift during start up. That didn't work.
- Ran Apple Diagnostics. The test detected a hardware issue with number: 4MEM/9/40000000: 0x84882f98. Googling this issue suggests I have a Ram problem? I couldn't get a clear answer. Nonetheless, I tried taking out my RAM, putting them back in, trying one and then the other. I even tested a spare piece of RAM I owned. Didn't help anything.
- Ran the computer in "Verbose Mode" by holding down command and V during startup, but I couldn't really understand the screen so that was a dead end for me.
And I know I'm a sad, silly person, but I do not have the computer backed up. 😟 However, I was able to access some of my more important files on the Mac side through the Windows side to save them on an external harddrive... Anyway, restoring the computer is not an ideal next step.
Please help me. What should I try next? I do not have AppleCare anymore. Thank you so much.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), No Mini DisplayPort