my Mac is not starting up

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My 2007 macbook pro, which has been completely fine until I installed Snow Leopard, is not starting up. The grey screen of startup has a weird blue plaid-like pattern on it, and I get the apple and gear in the background for a while, but it never gets past this stage - it always kernel panics. I had a terrible time installing snow leopard (it kept freezing and I had no recourse but a hard shut down), but I finally got it working with a random freeze here and there. I was playing Civ IV today and it froze and crashed, and now it won't start up at all. Everyone told me that snow leopard was a fairly simple and painless install so I don't have any data backed up besides the music on my ipod.

Any suggestions? I have tried both booting off the disk and booting in safe mode, and neither works.

Thanks!
 
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My 2007 macbook pro, which has been completely fine until I installed Snow Leopard, is not starting up. The grey screen of startup has a weird blue plaid-like pattern on it, and I get the apple and gear in the background for a while, but it never gets past this stage - it always kernel panics. I had a terrible time installing snow leopard (it kept freezing and I had no recourse but a hard shut down), but I finally got it working with a random freeze here and there. I was playing Civ IV today and it froze and crashed, and now it won't start up at all. Everyone told me that snow leopard was a fairly simple and painless install so I don't have any data backed up besides the music on my ipod.

Any suggestions? I have tried both booting off the disk and booting in safe mode, and neither works.

Thanks!
Does the system boot up with the Snow Leopard DVD?
If so, then your basic system is functional.
You can try to re-run the Snow Leopard install and select repair instead of new install.

It almost sounds like a hard drive failure. If you boot off the Snow Leopard DVD and you don't see the internal HD, you pretty much know you have an HD failure.

If you can afford it, you could replace the internal HD with a new one. Get an external USB enclosure and mount the original HD in it. If all goes well with the OS install on the new HD, you should be able to migrate all of the user data from the USB (original) to the new internal HD - assuming the old HD is mechanically / electrically sound.
 
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Does the system boot up with the Snow Leopard DVD?
If so, then your basic system is functional.
You can try to re-run the Snow Leopard install and select repair instead of new install.

It almost sounds like a hard drive failure. If you boot off the Snow Leopard DVD and you don't see the internal HD, you pretty much know you have an HD failure.

Thanks for the quick response.

First of all, the system does not boot off of the snow leopard DVD. If I put the disk in, I can select the disk while pushing the options button (all the while looking at a messed up plaid screen), but I yet again get the apple and gear for about 15 seconds before I get another kernel panic.

Second, if it is a hard drive failure, it has been a slow one - I went for about 2 days with random freezes, each followed by a startup that was plaid followed by a kernel panic, followed by a successful startup after the kernel panic. it was doing fine and crashing less and less throughout these two days, and I just assumed it was a weird snow leopard bug that would be worked out in 10.6.3.

There is some good news though. I was able to boot up in transfer mode and it has remained stable for long enough for me to dump pretty much all of my important user data onto another computer. Now my mind is at ease about losing data, but I still have a computer that doesn't work.

Is there any other special way to boot? Or, since I now have all of my important data, can I somehow reformat my hard drive without being able to access either the HD or the Snow Leopard install disk? I am prepared to wipe it clean and do a fresh snow leopard install.

Again, thanks for your help.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
iMac 2.66 GHz 20", iPad Mini2 32GB, iPhone6 64GB, Watch Sport 42mm Black, iPad Air 2 128GB
If you have an odd display and you can't even boot off the DVD, plus you managed to get the data off the disk, that sounds more like something other than the disk to me - maybe graphics or motherboard.

Sorry - maybe there are some technical wizards who can offer you some better advice? Good luck ;)
 
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If you have an odd display and you can't even boot off the DVD, plus you managed to get the data off the disk, that sounds more like something other than the disk to me - maybe graphics or motherboard.

Sorry - maybe there are some technical wizards who can offer you some better advice? Good luck ;)

But isn't it kind of odd that this only started happening while installing snow leopard? I've never had problems like this ever before.
 
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But isn't it kind of odd that this only started happening while installing snow leopard? I've never had problems like this ever before.
Hardware problems can occur at any time, usually for most, when the original warranty had expired. :Grimmace:

A few years ago, I had a B&W G3/400, purchased new, about 1 week before apple announced the original G4s, that in its one year warranty period had it's motherboard and power supply totally die and were replaced under warranty. Then, about 3 months outside warranty, the power supply died again, but although Apple offered to give me a gratis ex-warranty repair, they would only warrant this for a nominal period (thirty days, IIRC), so I got a PC instead and have just returned from the dark side, after a long 10 year nightmare vacation. :eek:
 

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