Can't get into the Mac partition of my Macbook Pro anymore?

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I’ve seen my problem mentioned a few times, scattered across the internet in sad little dusty corners, so hopefully somebody here will know how to actually address it (thus earning my eternal gratitude). Know first-off I’m not a person with a machine-oriented machine in her head, so spouting technobabble will get me nowhere. Assume I’m a baby. Because I am. (And if I don’t get any help, I’m going to start crying like one.)

This is a blue screen of death story. My Macbook Pro is a 10.4.11. (Just thought I’d throw that out there to get the laughs of derision out of the way first thing.) In all the years I’ve had it, only problems I’ve ever had have been from my own fault—fairly recently it slid off of the desk and the LCD screen shattered, which I replaced myself and which went by without a hitch, and years before, the logic board fried, which also was fixed without a hitch, but that’s been absolutely all. This new problem is no doubt my fault as well, seeing as I don’t give the thing as much memory as it deserves (at any given moment I have about 6 GB of space, and that’s with having practically nothing *on* the thing except music [I have an obscene amount of music…this thing is pretty much a giant ipod…]).

Most of the time, as the days progress and I work on it (CS4, internet, Word, TextEdit), it slowly loses memory—even when I constantly delete things I no longer need after transferring them to my external, not leaving too many applications open, etc.—to the point where everything is jammed, so before I reach that point I quit everything and reboot it, whereupon its memory is returned. Yesterday it was frozen in its typically irritating ‘I can’t do nuthing’ mode (Safari [yes, Safari…] was the only thing open, with one single window of three tabs [two of which I was trying to close…])—however, something sudden called me away, so I had to leave it for about 8 hours, and when I came back, it wouldn’t get out of the dark screen I’d put it in (I usually turn down the screen light so it doesn’t get too hot if I’m not using it), so I just forced it to shut off with the power button. When it booted back up, the apple screen/grey screen/loading screen/whatevers all loaded fine, but the desktop never loaded: just a vivid correct-blue that flickered occasionally (from blue to dim blue), and the mouse cursor. I could move the cursor, but nothing else ever happened. It stayed like this. Thinking it might have just been a fluke I restarted it again, but can’t get anything other than this blue limbo:

I reset the PRAM. I tried starting it in Safe Mode, which I’ve never had cause to do before, but when I try to log in, it acts as if it’s taking me in, but then kicks me back out to the Log In screen each time I try to log in (I have tried ‘holding the Shift key down as I click Log In). It apparently understands when my password is correct, because I’ve tried incorrect ones and it does the ‘wrong’ shake, and using the correct password starts to get me in, it just bounces me off like I’m running into a rubber band. I can't get into Safe Mode.

I’ve tried turning it off, then holding the power button down until the white light that comes on flashes rapidly, then letting go.

I tried getting into Single User mode and did the scan/fix/whatever that weird command is, but it didn’t find anything out of the ordinary (i.e., everything came up “OK.”)

I also have a partitioned harddrive, so I tried booting up the Windows side, which worked perfectly. It’s only the Mac side that won’t boot. I.e., I’m able to load the Windows side using the ‘hold down option’ method while booting. I got this thing in the 2000s, so asking me to boot using the original business that came with it is useless. I’ve moved five times since then and my life has not been simple (at one point I was living in a car); sadly, it’s lost in the annals of time.

The only thing that any of this has accomplished, to my noticing, is that the blue screen no longer ‘flickers’ now, but stays a solid correct-blue.

One thing that I do recall that was something slightly strange is that, before I had to leave, when the computer kept getting in my face flashing its ‘Disk Full Alert’ Force Quit window, as I was using the Escape button to gtfu, I accidentally exited out of a different window that had popped up, which was fairly large and full of type, and I’d never seen it before, but it was only there for a nanosecond so I couldn’t read any of it. I couldn’t get it to pop up again; just the Disk Full window. I’m not sure what it was…with my luck it was probably instructions of the 'one single magical thing' that would fix my computer, or something…

I just know this has something to do with the ‘room’ on the computer, or some weird startup thing that got scrambled, but I can’t get into it to delete anything (not that there’s anything to delete…except the music…over the course of years I’ve deleted everything I could afford to that was lying around, except for some more recent docs and pics, and those are nothing). I just know everything’s in there, I just can’t get in. The fact that everything just almost works is infuriating. I have a lot of important stuff on there that I haven’t had the chance to back up yet (I’ve only 36 G left on the 1 TB external harddrive I have, so it’s not like I never back up anything), so if I could at least get in there to transfer them over to the TB I’d be eternally grateful…and perhaps start looking into finally getting a more updated laptop, even though I never have any money. I think almost ten years’ worth of fidelity, two different colleges and myriad moves/living arrangements is a **** good run.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I have to rely on people like the ones here because this kind of stuff is primarily a dead zone in my head. Unless you just give me the whole “Take it into a genius bar” lowest-common-denominator ‘method,’ which is also not what I’m looking for…ever. (There are none of those where I live anyway; the closest ‘city’ to where I am is Wenatchee, and everything they have is PC based. There are no Apple stores.)
 

bobtomay

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A full drive to the point where it won't even boot into safe mode is a problem.
Still using 10.4 and no boot disc compounds it.

Been a few years since I used BootCamp/Windows on my Mac - but pretty sure while you're booted into Windows you cannot write to the HFS+ volume.

Only thing I can recommend at this point - depending on how much free space you have in the Windows partition - would be to pay for Paragon's HFS+ for Windows or try the 10 day trial - then move some files from the OS X partition over to your external drive. Not sure what you're going to move - since if you move the music files, you're screwing with iTunes and it will no longer know where those files are. I'd probably try freeing up at least 10 GB of stuff from the OS X partition.

Related to your "backup" drive - anything you have sitting on that drive is NOT backed up if that's the only place those files exist and will be gone WHEN that external drive dies.

Once you've done the above - and "assuming" that gets you back into OS X...

RUN, don't walk, to your nearest computer store and get a new larger drive to replace your current internal drive and a new larger external drive to backup all that data.
 
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I'll look into the HSF+ for Windows thing (I'm assuming since you mentioned moving files between partitions that this is what that will enable, since not being able to get to the Mac side is the problem to begin with). Thanks for mentioning it. Although I'm still hoping there's some other alternatives (I've never tried firewire or targeted mode before, etc.).

I never said that the TB was the *only* place where my stuff is backed up, so I'm not sure where that came from...I just said that there is some stuff on the Macbook that I haven't been *able* to back up yet.
 

bobtomay

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If you have access to another Mac, you can try firewire target disk mode.

(Only an observation, because you only noted having one external 1 TB drive with only 36 GB free space remaining on it and hence, why I said, "if" that is the only place you have that data - which is the case with well over 90% of users in your current predicament - many of whom have some thought that because they have data on an external drive it is backed up, when in fact, it is not. Don't know your skill/knowledge level - but you did say to assume you are a baby. ;) )
 
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Haha!! You're right about the baby thing...compared to some people I know, at least; I know as much about computers as I do modern cars (i.e., turn the key and hope to God all the circuitboards are behaving in there).

I've asked about firewire at some of the places in Wenatchee but none of them are Apple people so they never know what I'm talking about, or always have to point me somewhere online; if I'm running a 10.4.11 would I need some sort of adapter for the firewire? The other I'd be using is a desktop and a pretty recent one (10.6? Can't remember, I'll have to ask my friend, the one who owns it) so I don't think the cord would be able to have them talk to each other...if you know anything about how to go about doing firewire I'd appreciate knowing. Thanks for your help so far!

Whenever I transfer stuff from my laptop onto my externals I do it one time for each so they all get 'updated' at once (albeit manually, I'm sure there's some sort of easier way to do it); I just mentioned the one because it'd be the 'primary' TB I'm updating (in that I'm just updating that one first). Man, I have horror stories about externals...after going to school twice I don't like taking chances there, at least. XD
 

bobtomay

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Yes, you'll need a firewire cable to connect the two computers together. It could be called called a FW800 or FW 9 pin or FW 1394b cable. It will look like this. Def, don't get a 4 pin or 6 pin cable.

Your friend's Mac would be the host - yours the target - from there the explanation in the link should do it for you.
 
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Thanks a bunch! Super helpful...it may be a long shot but hopefully my endeavors will result in victory (of some sort).
 

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