08-29-2009, 10:53 AM

I powered up my Apple 17” MacBook Pro with Mac OSX10.5.8, installed the Snow Leopard disk and started the install. I answered the licensing agreement and pressed continue. At this point I walked away for a few minutes to let the install continue. I returned a few minutes later to a completely black screen! What is this? Oddly my AC power light was RED but other than there were no signs of life.

I Pressed the power button – nothing. Hmmm…held down the power button for a long time (6-8 sec) and I got the machine to boot. The Apple logo showed on a gray screen with the small circular progress circle. After 10 secs the machine turned off! I tried this again several times with the same results. I then held down the power key while holding the option key and got the icon for the hard drive with EFI boot and the DVD boot icon. I tried the EFI boot option and got the same results. The machine just keep turning off. I repeated this method and selected the DVD boot option…same thing.

At this point I was seriously regretting installing a brand new OS on MacBook Pro and I set the machine aside so I could come back later with a solution. Meanwhile I search the internet for anyone else with this problem. I could not find any posts related to my problem.

An hour later, I went back to my machine to try again. I noticed the laptop was very warm. Very odd considering it was off….or so I thought! It was actually on but there was no LCD backlight! I got out a flashlight so I could see what was on the screen and what do you know?...the Install screen was there. The Power light was still RED not GREEN. I used the flashlight to finish the install. When it finally rebooted, the LCD turned back on and my upgrade was complete: data & apps in tact! There is obviously a problem on some Mac laptops where the proper video driver is not working during the install process.

I hope this helps anyone with a similar problem.

08-29-2009, 10:59 AM

Great of you to come post this merlin!!

08-29-2009, 11:01 AM

Nice job figuring things out...using the flashlight.

Sounds like it was some sort of screen brightness issue...I'm curious...did you try using the screen illumination keys on the keyboard to increase brightness before using the flashlight?

Glad to hear the install went well...after initially seeming like it was going to be a nightmare!

- Nick

08-29-2009, 11:07 AM

Yes , I tried increasing the brightness but nothing I did would get the LCD to illuminate. Very odd!

08-29-2009, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by merlin_vi

Yes , I tried increasing the brightness but nothing I did would get the LCD to illuminate. Very odd!

Thanks for confirming! Is everything working normally now relating to screen illumination (can adjust using the keys)?

Thanks,

- Nick

08-29-2009, 11:33 AM

Yes, everything seems normal now all function keys including illumination...even the bug Adobe CS3 scare seems invalid. Things in the suite seem to work fine. I had a full backup and a mirrored 2.5 drive just in case. I have not run VMware Fusion yet but all other apps seems to be working (at least with a cursory overview). I highly recommend a full backup before attempting a 10.6 upgrade!

08-29-2009, 02:07 PM

I experienced the exact same issue on a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.... computer seemed on...but I looked at a seemingly black screen (brightness buttons had NO affect) ..worried that the computer had gone into sleep mode. I then realized that there was a dim install screen image waiting for me to click "Continue" on closer examination by putting the screen under a bright direct light...obviously the backlight on the lcd was not functioning but the computer was on and waiting for my input...it took quite a bit to find the mouse under the no light circumstances..but I did..hit "continue" and the install progressed. On final reboot of the install the Snow Leopard home screen came up (although it was very dim..this time I could adjust the light brightness button and it worked) and I had upgraded successfully and have no problem since.

Originally Posted by merlin_vi

I powered up my Apple 17” MacBook Pro with Mac OSX10.5.8, installed the Snow Leopard disk and started the install. I answered the licensing agreement and pressed continue. At this point I walked away for a few minutes to let the install continue. I returned a few minutes later to a completely black screen! What is this? Oddly my AC power light was RED but other than there were no signs of life.

I Pressed the power button – nothing. Hmmm…held down the power button for a long time (6-8 sec) and I got the machine to boot. The Apple logo showed on a gray screen with the small circular progress circle. After 10 secs the machine turned off! I tried this again several times with the same results. I then held down the power key while holding the option key and got the icon for the hard drive with EFI boot and the DVD boot icon. I tried the EFI boot option and got the same results. The machine just keep turning off. I repeated this method and selected the DVD boot option…same thing.

At this point I was seriously regretting installing a brand new OS on MacBook Pro and I set the machine aside so I could come back later with a solution. Meanwhile I search the internet for anyone else with this problem. I could not find any posts related to my problem.

An hour later, I went back to my machine to try again. I noticed the laptop was very warm. Very odd considering it was off….or so I thought! It was actually on but there was no LCD backlight! I got out a flashlight so I could see what was on the screen and what do you know?...the Install screen was there. The Power light was still RED not GREEN. I used the flashlight to finish the install. When it finally rebooted, the LCD turned back on and my upgrade was complete: data & apps in tact! There is obviously a problem on some Mac laptops where the proper video driver is not working during the install process.

I hope this helps anyone with a similar problem.

08-29-2009, 03:10 PM

i tried this with my problem and it does not seem to work on my machine, unfortunately. still have a ways to go before my meeting. cleaver though!

08-30-2009, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by merlin_vi

Yes, everything seems normal now all function keys including illumination...even the bug Adobe CS3 scare seems invalid. Things in the suite seem to work fine. I had a full backup and a mirrored 2.5 drive just in case. I have not run VMware Fusion yet but all other apps seems to be working (at least with a cursory overview). I highly recommend a full backup before attempting a 10.6 upgrade!

Thanks Merlin !!! I was stuck with this issue for the past 6 hours...
I knew the machine is still working (based on the DVD sound), but didn't think about a flashlight...

Well done man.

08-31-2009, 06:41 PM

I just tried to upgrade my Macbook Pro's OS and has the same result. But I did not think to use a flashlight, i restarted my computer as it has become unresponsive.

This should be in bold on the box. Or the OS should be shipped with a flashlight. I guess thats what people get for installing a .0 OS. We are the guinea pigs..

09-01-2009, 12:36 AM

Ok I had a similar problem. I have a brand spankin' new MacBook Pro (13-inch, core 2 duo, aluminum) that I bought about 3 weeks ago. The only things I've installed on it are Adobe Reader and Xcode. I intentionally did not install a bunch of stuff, because I knew I was going to upgrade to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as soon as it came out. Well I got my installer DVD today, I booted up and inserted the disc. The installer seemed to start fine. After about 5 minutes into the install, it rebooted the machine. It showed the Apple logo and spinning circle thingy for about a minute (what it normally shows at bootup). Then, suddenly, the screen went totally blank. I could hear the DVD drive making some noises every couple of minutes, so I just waited patiently, and did NOT hit the power button or anything. However, after about 20 or 30 minutes, I could not hear anything, so I hit the space bar several times. I wonder if hitting the space bar effectively clicked the OK/Proceed button (that I couldn't see, due to the blank screen), because a minute later I heard the CD/DVD drive spinning again, and a couple minutes later it rebooted the machine again. This time the screen was not blank, and it started up and showed some video/animation with music, obviously something on the install disc.

I really hate to do something major like upgrade an Operating System, and NOT receive some kind of positive acknowledgement or feedback indicating that it completed successfully. Call me insecure, but I would very much prefer to see a big green checkmark, with a message that says "Installation completed successfully!" Did Apple not test this upgrade on the new MacBook Pro's? How can I be sure that everything got installed/upgraded properly? I go to "About the Finder" and it shows 10.6 -- but then, that's just the Finder version... This is a bit disconcerting. I am thinking about doing a complete re-install. Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks.

09-01-2009, 12:42 AM

if you open up terminal and issue the following command it will show you what version you are running.

sw_vers -productVersion

output as follows.
mikeMbp:~ mike$ sw_vers -productVersion
10.6

clicking on the Apple then "About This Mac" provides the same information.

09-01-2009, 02:42 AM

same happenned to me ...flashlight really works...

09-02-2009, 10:09 AM

I have a first generation macbook and just installed snow leopard from tiger yesterday and had no issues at all. I could see the progress bar the whole time. I did put the disk in first then turned my mac off and booted up and installed from the dvd.

09-03-2009, 10:46 PM

this also happened to my upgrade of snow. i have a first generation intel macbook pro. just like merlin i followed the snow upgrade and everything seemed to be ok the screen went black but i thought thats ok to save the screen from being on for so long. but things seem to stop at some point and the installation stopped. i wasnt sure if im having a hardware issue or the install just got stuck on something.

reading the above post helped a lot thanks for posting. tonight i used a flashlight to see whats going on and it turned out that the installation did complete ok but the install failed to turn the brightness levels up so i couldnt see it was stopped on the login screen...

anyway i took these iphone shots so everyone could see this can happen and its not a big deal just login and turn up your brightness.
btw to select my login user in that dark screen i just typed the first character of my name and pressed enter...

1- snow when it started for the first time was completely dark
http://www.austinphotonet.com/arc/other/snow/snow_1.jpg

2- after i look with the flashlight i see the login screen.
http://www.austinphotonet.com/arc/other/snow/snow_2.jpg

3- after login i turned the brightness up and everything just fine
http://www.austinphotonet.com/arc/other/snow/snow_3.jpg


thanks again for the top post it helped me move on and complete the install