Laptop Cannot Boot

[Al]

My MacBook Pro, after 4+ years of use, might be finally done. While I was moving it downstairs on Saturday, I unplugged the charger from the laptop end while it was rebooting, and it went pitch black. I thought it just hiccuped to sleep mode or something must have failed on restart, so I just pressed some keys and the power button, and it wouldn't boot up again.

I HAD to unplug my charger obviously because I couldn't drag the power outlet with me and all the other plugged devices in it with my laptop. Just removing the magnetic charger while it was restarting probably wasn't smart. Now I'm computerless and I start college in a week.

So yeah just letting you all know since this will hinder me from any activity on IRC, training to join on OSRS, doing my dailies on RS3, and I probably won't be able to start DS.

I searched the issue online and it seems I can get it fixed by replacing my hard drive, but this likely means that all my data won't be recoverable. As it says here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/421757.


If anyone knows anything about this or any possible solutions, I would greatly appreciate it.

[I CE Y]

Put more coal in. init fam

[btraill]

Hey Al, sucks to hear!

Have you tried booting into any of these modes? (recovery, safe boot, etc):

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255


Do you get any initial display of a boot screen or does it stay black? Do fans start to spin-up when you press the button/can you hear anything inside powering up on boot?

[Mojo]

RIP :(

Can't help much I have a Mac VM but not a real one :P

[PineappleTom]

Not heard of that, sorry.

[Al]

Hey Al, sucks to hear!

Have you tried booting into any of these modes? (recovery, safe boot, etc):

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255


Do you get any initial display of a boot screen or does it stay black? Do fans start to spin-up when you press the button/can you hear anything inside powering up on boot?

If you have iMessage or Kik I can send you a video clip of exactly what happens. I press the power button normally to boot it up and it has buzz sounds (normal), then there's a loading bar which only fills about 15% before it completely shuts down again. If reattempted it will do the same. Won't be better progress on a good minute or anything.


edit: I just attempted to go into safe mode and also startup manager (holding shift or option on startup) and it doesn't do anything.

I found a video on YT of a guy showing the same problem with his. He says it loads for a minute but it's really like 10 seconds. Only difference is I have a loading bar not a spinner.

http://youtu.be/FfERIqQh69k

[Al]

I managed to get it to something else, single-user mode, by following some random YouTube comment: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oo424dn4hftflym/photo%20sep%2021%2C%2012%2057%2056%20pm.png?dl=0. ##

This was the result: [fucking pasting is not working let me try PMing it to you]

The error on the bottom says "Boot task failed: fsck-safe," so I Googled that and I found this article: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/155209/macbook-pro-2011-rebooting-on-startup. Not sure where to go from here.

[Keith]

mbp late 2011? if thats the one i have the same model and it blows i've had to bring it back from death countless times. It's even caught on fire before.

also post 1500

also also I had the same problem as you I THINK. I had to buy a new harddrive and replace it. There's a way to save your files if you have a certain piece of equipment and a friend's mac to use - or give it to some IT people and they'll be able to officially diagnose it. But if it is the same problem that I had you're almost better off getting a new computer because mines been downhill from there. ALSO ALSO ALSO: If all of a sudden it works and you can get back on, immediately back up everything, because it will crash again.

[Al]

My shit has already been fcked up but it was running til Saturday. CD drive doesn't work and battery too old (only lasts like 20 mins before you have you plug in charger). Also it got really inconvenient when I had to scour my hard drive for things to delete. Only has like 250 GB..

[btraill]

Sounds like a failing harddrive TBH... :(

[Al]

That's what I thought. I don't want to get the new one cause the new ones don't have a CD drive and some ports I think. :/

[Mojo]

it's 2k15 do you need a disk drive?

[btraill]

What Mojo said, you don't 'need' one! My new laptop doesn't have one... Nowadays everything (well, mostly) has a installer provided somewhere online.

[Al]

I guess I could get a pluggable drive if I really needed one. I know how it's moving on and they say we can go without the disk drive without internet.

Not bigger than the issue of not being able to start my computer though lol. I might bring it to the Genius Bar today. Have friends in IT but they're busy.

[Al]

So I finally got it to an independent shop that works with my school. It costs $250 so far to replace it with a SSD. And it'll cost more if they need to go further to retrieve my data. Is this reasonable?

[Ars Technica]

So I finally got it to an independent shop that works with my school. It costs $250 so far to replace it with a SSD. And it'll cost more if they need to go further to retrieve my data. Is this reasonable?

What size SSD?

[Al]

Yeah they didn't even say. I'm guessing 240 GB...which would be 10 less than what I had on my HDD. I'd be shooting for 500 GB but that sounds like it'd be more than $250?

[Ars Technica]

Yeah they didn't even say. I'm guessing 240 GB...which would be 10 less than what I had on my HDD. I'd be shooting for 500 GB but that sounds like it'd be more than $250?

I wouldn't pay it, but then again I'm technical and can do it myself, but SSDs are generally going for less than a dollar a gig in terms of price, so it depends what they're charging you for labor. When I did tech work in retail we would generally charge $60 to swap out a hard drive with a new one, plus the cost of the drive. There'd be a bit more if they wanted data transferred, but if not then it's fairly cheap.

[Al]

Well...like Keith said, it's only gone downhill. My computer's in the shop for the 3rd time--it was never fixed even though they said it was. It just keeps clicking off and they now want to resolder the motherboard ("reflow" as they call it) and they said it's a 70% chance.

I told them I've lost all hope basically and want them to just transfer/save all my data by any means.


Yeah I miss IRC/TS too. Haven't been able to do anything cause of college, but I miss those nights coming home and finding people on. Cue sad violin music.