MacbookPro won't pass apple logo

Suggestions to pass apple logo?
My macbookPro does not boot. It can not pass the apple logo with some some sound (something is alive). Restarting in the safe mode [option+power} gives the option of using recovery disk and an external hard drive but it does not reboot from there. I do have time-machine back up on the external hard drive. But, i am not able to make use of the Disk utility to re-install the operating system. The operating system i am using is likely some short of OS X, whatever came with the computer ( purchased in late 2011). I tried all the easily reachable suggestion including including holding all the keys! and power to reset did not work. A clue is that when the verbose mode restart, it says:{ Error reading file AppleFWAudio.kext...error reading file AppleThunderboltEDMService.kest... Error reading file ATIRadeonX3000.kext...Error reading file ATISupport.kext}.
Suggestions to pass the apple logo??

It sounds like your hard drive is hosed one way or another. The fact that it's trying to read kext files says that it's making an attempt to boot but it can't find what it needs. Either you've got bad sectors, deleted important files, or the indexing is screwed up and the system has managed to lose some of those files. That's my guess.

I use a product called Scannerz for drive checking. I don't know that it would be of much use to you at this point because you need to be able to boot a system up to use it. The do however have a lot of free documentation on their web site that may be of use to you. The site's address is:

Scannerz, FSE, and SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter by SCSC

In the downloads section they have a several articles on drive problems. They also have some stuff on their how to section.

I assume you've tried this stunt:

About NVRAM and PRAM

If I was in your shoes I think I'd try to get another external HD and try and install the OS on that directly from Apple. One of the bad things about Time Machine is that it apparently doesn't check file integrity when doing backups. If some of your files were corrupt and they got backed up and then you tried to re-install using stuff from a backup it would be using corrupt data.

Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

It is likely a dead drive.

Try booting while holding 'command' and 'R'

choose the Disk Utility option

Try running the 'Repair Disk'.

see if that will repair it enough to get back to the Desktop again &/or report back what that says.

Bob: I would love to do try and install the OS on that directly from Apple. Is it actually possible even in the case that I can not reboot from the recovery mode. when i do the option+ startup I get three options the main hard drive, the recovery hard drive and the external hard drive (where my time machine stuff is) in addition to where i want to connect internet to (a list of my wifi). Then, regardless of what i select i get back to the apple logo and wheel then after a while back to apple logo and stuck there.

Not to butt in but I think his point is to get completely off the existing HD. You've already identified failures on it. The loading of the kext files that are failing is done very early in the boot process. If they don't load, the system doesn't boot. The recovery drive is also on the HD. The Time Machine backup is, I assume, unbootable. All the EFI information is on the drive. If the system can't get this stuff it's not booting, period.

If you know someone else with a Mac and a compatible operating system, see if they will let you put their system into target mode and then boot from it. This would at least tell you that the logic board isn't shot. Then you could proceed down the long and winding road of determining whether some index files got messed up, the HD cable is bad, or the HD itself is bad.

In any case, good luck.

I was able to go the disc utilities with option+startup. First, tried the disc repair it gave several " invalid node structure" and 1 hour wait did not result in a significant progress. Second, stopped the first and went to the route of re-installing OS. Currently working on this but it is taking over 2 hours...will post the results. If this route can not get through i will likely be able to find a mac user and do the target mode operation..

I think you're drive is bad, as in has bad sectors or is developing them. If a problem like this is growing it can be confusing because it's not static, its dynamic...as in changing all the time (and probably getting worse).

....so, what happened????