Hello!
I've been trying to sort this for a few weeks now, and I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light on the situation.
Problem:
I have an early 2008 15" MacBook Pro which a few weeks ago suddenly died on me. It has what I believe is called a kernel panic. On startup a grey screen falls down with a box saying that I need to restart the computer.
I took it to my local apple store where they booted an OSX (not sure which) from an external drive (I think it was using a firewire cable). The MacBook appeared to work fine from this external hard drive, but when disk utility was run on the internal hard drive, the disk utility eventually froze.
Based on this info, the guy there deduced (fairly reasonably I suppose) that the problem must be my hard drive, and replacing my hard drive should solve this. So bought a
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500 GB,Internal,7200 RPM,6.35 cm (2.5").
The equipment I now have to try and get my MacBook to work:
- An iMac 2.7 Ghz i5 (8gb Ram) running Mac OSX 10.7.5
- A replacement hard drive for the MacBook (Seagate Momentus)
- A SATA HArd drive USB docking station
- A 500gb iOmega Hard drive with Firewire 800 cables
- The 2 original install disks for Tiger that came with the MacBook Pro
- A working .dmg of retail snow leopard
What I have tried so far:
I have formatted the replacement hard drive correctly (GUID) for Mac OSX. If I turn the macbook pro on with the new hard drive in, a folder icon with a question mark in it flashes in the middle of the screen... If I put in the original install disk, it starts to read it (apple logo and spinning wheel) and then eventually kernel panics. When I hold option on start up, the 'Mac OSX Install Disk 1" is the only option available (the cd/dvd drive must be working if it recognises the disk here i assume?) but when I select it, it spins for a bit, then kernel panics.
My next approach was to try and create an installable and bootable version of an OSX on an external hard drive. (I have tried this with both the original Tiger install disk, and with the leopard.dmg)... I followed the readily available instructions online on how to do this, and was able to restore the first partion on the external hard drive with the OSX install disk image.... The problem I have then face is installing the osx onto the second partition.
This seems to be because my newish iMac/OSX wont let me boot any OSX installer CD/firewire or otherwise, other than the original operating system for the iMac.
I thought this wouldn't matter, as I would be able to run the installer when I plugged the iOmega into my MacBook pro. The problem I now have is that the Macbook wont recogninise the iOmega when it is connected by firewire. It will only recognise it when connected by USB, but when I try and run the installer, it spins for a while then kernel panics. I believe this is because MacBook pros of this age will only run OSX Install/bootable through firewire.
So... hardware wise, could this be anything other than a problem with the hard drive? As we know the MacBook pro will boot from an external drive...
If anyone has actually managed to read this far into this incredibly boring, waffling description of my problem, I am already grateful, and if anyone can give any help or advice at all regarding this, I will be eternally in your debt....
Thank you
I've been trying to sort this for a few weeks now, and I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light on the situation.
Problem:
I have an early 2008 15" MacBook Pro which a few weeks ago suddenly died on me. It has what I believe is called a kernel panic. On startup a grey screen falls down with a box saying that I need to restart the computer.
I took it to my local apple store where they booted an OSX (not sure which) from an external drive (I think it was using a firewire cable). The MacBook appeared to work fine from this external hard drive, but when disk utility was run on the internal hard drive, the disk utility eventually froze.
Based on this info, the guy there deduced (fairly reasonably I suppose) that the problem must be my hard drive, and replacing my hard drive should solve this. So bought a
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500 GB,Internal,7200 RPM,6.35 cm (2.5").
The equipment I now have to try and get my MacBook to work:
- An iMac 2.7 Ghz i5 (8gb Ram) running Mac OSX 10.7.5
- A replacement hard drive for the MacBook (Seagate Momentus)
- A SATA HArd drive USB docking station
- A 500gb iOmega Hard drive with Firewire 800 cables
- The 2 original install disks for Tiger that came with the MacBook Pro
- A working .dmg of retail snow leopard
What I have tried so far:
I have formatted the replacement hard drive correctly (GUID) for Mac OSX. If I turn the macbook pro on with the new hard drive in, a folder icon with a question mark in it flashes in the middle of the screen... If I put in the original install disk, it starts to read it (apple logo and spinning wheel) and then eventually kernel panics. When I hold option on start up, the 'Mac OSX Install Disk 1" is the only option available (the cd/dvd drive must be working if it recognises the disk here i assume?) but when I select it, it spins for a bit, then kernel panics.
My next approach was to try and create an installable and bootable version of an OSX on an external hard drive. (I have tried this with both the original Tiger install disk, and with the leopard.dmg)... I followed the readily available instructions online on how to do this, and was able to restore the first partion on the external hard drive with the OSX install disk image.... The problem I have then face is installing the osx onto the second partition.
This seems to be because my newish iMac/OSX wont let me boot any OSX installer CD/firewire or otherwise, other than the original operating system for the iMac.
I thought this wouldn't matter, as I would be able to run the installer when I plugged the iOmega into my MacBook pro. The problem I now have is that the Macbook wont recogninise the iOmega when it is connected by firewire. It will only recognise it when connected by USB, but when I try and run the installer, it spins for a while then kernel panics. I believe this is because MacBook pros of this age will only run OSX Install/bootable through firewire.
So... hardware wise, could this be anything other than a problem with the hard drive? As we know the MacBook pro will boot from an external drive...
If anyone has actually managed to read this far into this incredibly boring, waffling description of my problem, I am already grateful, and if anyone can give any help or advice at all regarding this, I will be eternally in your debt....
Thank you