Macbook pro problem

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Hello everyone im new to this community! I was recently given a macbook pro i turned it on when it goes to boot its a white screen with a folder with a question mark. I researched and i got a mac osx disc tried to boot from that but it goes to a white screen with the apple logo and it just stays there. He has important files to get off the computer and i have no clue what to do?
 
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Mac Mini Core i7 2012 | White 2009 MacBook 2 Ghz | 733 Mhz G4 Quicksilver
Have you got another mac

Was the install disc you got for that mac a grey restore disc or was it a retail copy (has a picture of a cat on it)?
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Go to Apple Online and purchase a copy of Snow Leopard OS X.6 for $20. Sounds like you got a silver/gray system disc which will only work with the machine it was sold with when new.


http://store.apple.com/us/search/OS-x.6#!
 
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harryb2448 if i buy the disc from apple wont the disc erase all the files on the pc?

There's a very good chance the hard drive has failed. If you buy the 10.6.3 retail disk, boot from it, accept the default English, the access the utilities menu, then disk utility. Check to see if disk utility sees the hard drive, if it does click on it and select repair disk. If it doesn't, and the data on the hard drive is important to its owner, you have a serious problem. Earlier you were asked if you had a Mac, do you, and if so what type?
 
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With your MacBook Pro you can try accessing the hard drive of the MacBook you were given via target firewire mode. Link the two MacBook Pro's with a firewire 800 cable. If you don't have one they can be bought cheaply on eBay. Power on your MacBook Pro. Power on the faulty MacBook Pro while holding down the character T. If the suspect hard drive is accessible it will mount on your MacBook Pro. Run disk utility on your MacBook Pro to see if it see's the hard drive in the faulty MBP.
 
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Unless you invest some cash I doubt you'll get far. If I was looking at this MBP I would boot from an external drive containing an OS at least equal to the OS it shipped with and check to see if the hard drive could be seen in disk utility. The drive should be big enough to hold the OS, diagnostics and whatever data is on the drive. If yes, I would run disk warrior on the hard drive. If disk warrior successfully rebuilt the directory, great, problem likely fixed. If it starts registering disk malfunctions, let the diagnostics run until they finish, could be hours or days. You may get the option to recover data from a disk preview. If unsuccessful run data rescue. If this recovers your data, great. Both disk warrior and data rescue are commercial applications. If data rescue doesn't recover the data and the data has sufficient value, source a clean room data recovery company, this is expensive. If the hard drive isn't seen by disk utility, remove it, mount it in a caddy or usb case, see if a mac can see it. No Mac, you have a problem. If you get access to a Mac and the Mac doesn't see it, revert back to a potential clean room recovery. If the Mac does see the drive and it checks out ok, you likely have a cable problem, source, replace and problem solved. There's no easy way to recover data. The easy part is replacing a failed hard drive and reinstalling the OS.
 
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harry said to buy a system disc from apple for $20 i need 10.6 the paperwork to the computer says 10.6 will the system disc do any good?
 

pigoo3

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i dont have a macbook i have a pc.....im trying to fix this macbook sorry lol

The thread title, post #1, and post #8...you mentioned that you have a MacBook Pro. Then in post #10 you say..."i dont have a macbook i have a pc". What does this mean??

When you make statements like this...you're only going to completely confuse everyone who is trying to help you.

If by "PC" you mean a Windows computer...the Windows computer is going to be a no help whatsoever in solving the problems with your MacBook Pro.

As harryb2448 recommended...get the OS 10.6 install disk from Apple. This will give you a good place to start.

- Nick
 

pigoo3

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harry said to buy a system disc from apple for $20 i need 10.6 the paperwork to the computer says 10.6 will the system disc do any good?

Yes it will help. You need something to boot the computer with & install the OS from. The "system disk" will allow you to boot the computer (from the disk) and install the OS (10.6).

At this point the MacBook Pro's hard drive is either dead...or it needs an OS installed on it (that's why you're seeing the "?" question mark). Without the "system disk" to boot the computer from...at this point...you will not know if the hard drive is dead...or just needs the OS installed.

Get the OS 10.6 install disk (system disk).:)

- Nick
 
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1. Get the OS X.6 DVD from Apple Online for $20.00..

2. Pop it in and boot, holding down 'C'. If it boots, leave Installer, go to Utilities and run Repair Disk and see what is reported regarding the state of the hard drive. It may be the drive is shot and to recover those files you may well need Data Rescue 3 or similar which costs more, $99.00.
 

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i went to buy the apple osx disc its not on the site....

Enter "Snow Leopard" in the Apple website's search field & it comes right up!

Too easy!;)

- Nick
 
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got the system disc just put it in goes to the installer it says select launguage i dont want to install this...
 

pigoo3

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got the system disc just put it in goes to the installer it says select launguage i dont want to install this...

Selecting the language you want installed as the default language is part of the install process. You MUST select a language.

- Nick
 

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