MBP hangs on grey, DVD and CD detected, but bad I/O

[wwwzap]

Hi Guys,

I have a 13" a1278 MBP unibody mid-2009. 2.16 Ghz Core Duo

When I power up my MBP, it hangs at the grey screen. There was a time I could occasionally get it to boot into OS X, but it would hang before I could get anything useful done. And I do mean HANG. Nothing worked at all, not the mouse, not Finder. It didn't even detect a kernel panic. Just nothing.

I was able to loot all the data on the HDD using target disk mode, but when I try to boot using the HDD, it just hangs on grey. It does not give the folder with question mark icon, it either shows nothing but grey or it hangs on the apple logo with the spinning icon. I was once able to run diag from the OS X install DVD, but no more. I cannot even boot to the install DVD. (Diag found nothing wrong).

I tried disconnecting the HDD, but still could not boot to the install DVD. I also was not able to boot to the install DVD over firewire using the working disk drive on another mac in target disk mode. (I put another mac in target disk mode, ran a firewire, but could not boot my MBP to the install DVD on the other mac.)

This problem seems to be getting worse and it seems to be a problem with both the HDD and the disk drive. Is it the I/O controller or the HDD? Could it possibly be the disk drive?

I've reset the PRAM and SMC without any luck.

It also took several tries to get all the data off the HDD in target disk mode, as both computers hung one time, and other times there were problems with permissions.

I want to say its the HDD, but wouldn't I be able to boot to DVD with the HDD disconnected?

Please help?

 

[chscag]

I agree with you - it should have booted to the DVD with the hard drive removed. There's something going on with the hardware though... it is strange since you were able to get in Target Disk mode. If the logic board were bad, you probably couldn't get in Target mode at all.

I don't have much faith in the Apple Hardware test diagnostics. Unless something is really broken it may skip over it. It's especially bad at finding hard drive and logic board errors.

I guess it is possible for the optical drive to also be acting up. You could try blowing a couple blasts of air into it from one of those compressed air cleaner cans.

And lastly, is the machine covered by Apple care?

 

[wwwzap]

Not covered by Applecare.

Thanks for your reply. I guess the next thing to try is to replace the HDD and see what happens. I hate spending guess-money but I'll never know if I don't. I'll post back when I install a new HDD.

 

[wwwzap]

You may be right about the CD Rom drive. I had some increasing trouble with it before this other trouble began. I'll have to look into that carefully.

 

[wwwzap]

I replaced the HDD without any luck. It still wont boot to DVD, even from a mac in target disk mode. I have to admit, I haven't tried blowing compressed air into the cd drive, would that still be a possible fix?

I'm out of ideas.

 

[chscag]

Give it a try as you have nothing to lose. Also, you might consider borrowing an external USB or FW optical drive and see if you can boot with it.