Macbook won't boot

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Macbook won't boot

I was browsing the web earlier and my 2012 Macbook Pro crashed, not unusual but since then it will not boot back up.

Upon restarting I am able to login to myself or the Guest account and once I login to my account the screen looks like it does when it does a system update, my avatar appears with a loading bar beneath it but it never progresses past about 25% before the macbook crashes.

I have gone into Disk Utilities and tried to repair with different results each time:

- in the sidebar I can select "Macintosh HD", verify and repair it

- beneath it is another tab titled "Macintosh HD" but sometimes I cannot interact with it (i.e cannot click Verify or Repair)

- on the occasions that I can interact with it I attempt to verify the disk but it fails and says "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk" but I cannot click Repair Disk

- once I repair the first Macintosh HD it changes it's name to "Virtual Whole Disk"

I have attempted to reinstall the OS X which achieves absolutely nothing, it crashes before it starts

what can I do? It says that I have used less than half of the 500gb of data on the HD

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Nov 20, 2015 9:40 AM

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Answer 1

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Pmintz25

Level 4

2,058 points

Nov 20, 2015 9:56 AM in response to mcoeztee

When you say Macintosh HD shows up twice, are you saying it looks like my image, with one all the way to the left and one slightly indented? (This is El Capitan so it will look a little different but the sidebar should be the same). The indented one is the partition that contains your data and the one all the way to the left contains the partition layout.

If you can not repair the indented Macintosh HD, then the hard drive has most likely failed. Reinstalling will not fix the issue until the hard drive has been fixed. Sadly, the only way to attempt to repair the hard drive (when Repair Disk fails) is to format the partition using the Erase tab. If that fails, try a Secure Erase. I have been able to fix a failing hard drive by doing a Secure Erase when a normal one failed.

Note that this will obviously wipe your hard drive and you will lose anything not backed up. A secure erase will make it impossible to recover lost files as well so only do a secure erase if you know you have a back up

You can also try to repair the disk using fsck.

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck - Apple Support

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Answer 2

mcoeztee Author

Level 1

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Nov 24, 2015 4:06 AM in response to Pmintz25

okay so it would appear that my hard drive has failed, is there anyway way to salvage any music folders that haven't been back up? I have a 1tb hard drive that I have connected to my Mac but cannot prove anything on to it it would appear.

Since I have finished university there isn't really much of absolutely critical importance that I would need to recover so have been lazy about backing it up, the only things I'd really like to keep are some music and a few document folders, is there a way of moving them now or are they lost due to the failed hard drive? I know it's my fault for not backing up but I just want to try and save somethings before I completely restore everything

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Answer 3

Pmintz25

Level 4

2,058 points

Dec 1, 2015 10:49 AM in response to mcoeztee

Sorry for the late reply.

If you can not boot up to retrieve your files, you can try to use Target Disk mode from another computer.

Share files between two computers with target disk mode - Apple Support

This requires you to connect two different Macs with a firewire/thunderbolt cable. Basically makes one computer an external drive.

Good luck!

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