MACBOOK unable to boot (HAPPY NEW YEARS)

Joined
Dec 21, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hi Guys & Gals,

If anyone can give me help that would be awesome, just looking at what my options may be, here's the story:

Upgraded my IMAC yesterday to snow leopard - no probs

I had to find another way to upgrade my MacBook since the dvd drive has not worked for six months, so I used disc utility and did a restore onto an external hdd and placed snow leopard their to install on my macbook.

Initially had problems installing as it said it couldn't install onto my mac hd so I thought it may be because it was partitioned so I unpartitioned my drive through bootcamp (not worried as I hadn't used windows in about a year).

I tried to install again and it made it to the page where it says how many minutes left (it started at about 45 and made it to about 42) from there it said some installation error. Tried this a few times.

I then tried to restart and my Macbook will not boot to the OS. Kind of worried because guess who the wanker is that never backed up his Macbook. I think I may of needed to use the power button to restart and that is when the problem started.

Things I have tried:

Safe Mode - did nothing

Target Mode with Imac - did this to try and back up files but Imac did not recognise the macbook *Edit* My bad, did not understand firewire. Funnily enough firewire requires a firewire cable, I was using ethernet thinking that would be good. That said I cannot get a firewire cable until tomorrow due to shops closed for new year.

I am able to bring up disc utility in the boot up and tried verify disc, said the drive has errors and needs to be repaired. Clicked repaired and it went for about 2 minutes before it had errors and said backup and erase the drive.

Not sure if the drive is damaged (just read through my own post and obviously it is just don't know if it is recoverable), it still shows up if I use option on the boot up and can see it easily in disc utility.

So my questions are is there firstly an easy option? I have partitioned my external hdd, on one partition is snow leopard install and on the other is leopard install disc one so I'm not sure if I can do something that way.

If there doesn't seem like an easy option is there a way to back up my macbook?
 
OP
H
Joined
Dec 21, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Also to add I have tried the pram thing reset at the start but hasn't helped either.
 
OP
H
Joined
Dec 21, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Just to add this is what shows up in the info whilst trying repair in disk utility:

Checking journaled hfs plus volume.
checking extents overflow file.
checking catalog file
keys out of order (in RED)
rebuilding catalog B-tree
the volume macintosh hd could not be repaired. (in RED)
Error: filesystem verify or repair failed (in RED)
 
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
The Internet
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook Pro 15" 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB Ram Running Snow Leopard
Is there a bootable install of Leopard or Snow Leopard on your external? If so you may be able to boot off of your external drive, and repair permissions from there, or boot of of your external drive, download and install Data Rescue 2, and move all your files off of the internal with data rescue. There may be a free program out there to rescue your files, but DR 2 has yielded the best results in my experience in file recovery.
 
OP
H
Joined
Dec 21, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Just made a bootable SL on my ext hdd, I've booted into the Macbook and had error come up saying along the lines "Macintosh HD is damaged and cannot be repaired, you can copy and save files but not change them, please backup and reformat your drive as soon as you can."

Will let you know how it goes, I partitioned the hdd so I'll backup the macbook on the spare partition.
 
OP
H
Joined
Dec 21, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
1
*Edit*

I booted up with the external hdd, basically just cloned the Mac HD onto my ext hdd then booted it to make sure it worked no problems (used program called superduper). Disk utility wouldn't let me use restore, I could select the leopard os clone as source but not select Mac HD as destination. Restarted the macbook and opened with my bootable snow leopard clone and this time disk utility let me do the restore. YAY! Everything work, nothing wrong with Mac HD luckily.

Now I'm back to step one installing snow leopard again.

Thanks for your help TechGuy.
 
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
The Internet
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook Pro 15" 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB Ram Running Snow Leopard
No Problem! I'm glad it ended up working for you!
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top