Unable to boot, tried a few things but would like some opinions from others.

Hi everyone, lately my computer has been working funny. Well, thats not right. It's not working at all.

Operating system is 10.8.

This morning, I accidentally popped the power cord out and it died on me (my battery is not working at all). No big deal, this happens to it sometimes. However, this time, it got stuck on the grey screen, with an endlessly spinning wheel. I decided to try to fix it myself instead of taking it in.

So far, these are the steps I've gone through:

Safe Mode boot up- Didn't work, got stuck near the very very end and now the computer attempts to start in safe mode every time, even when shift isn't held.

Checked hardware- Used the boot up holding D to get to the hardware check. Scanned, only problems were 4BAT, and I already knew the battery was pooched.

Recovery mode- Verified and attempted to repair disc. The disc could not be repaired. When I try again, it gets stuck with only a little bit to go. Then again it tells me:Error, Disc Utility cannot repair this disc.

It also tells me the disc is not mounted.

From here, it seems the only option (short of taking it in) is reinstalling Lion on it. Yet when I try to restore, there's nothing for me to restore it to. The screen is blank. I'm assuming this has something to do with Disc Utility telling it isn't mounted, as verifying and attempting to repair the disc makes Macintosh HD appear. The problem from there is that it's locked, preventing me from doing anything to it.


Everything I've done so far seems fairly simple. I don't want to cause irreparable damage, so I was hoping someone a bit more experienced could weigh in on the matter, and help me decide what course of action to take from here.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll know what the ****'s going on! It seems to be a problem with macs going by what I've read today.

G'day and welcome to the forums.

Disc cannot be repaired says it all alas.

Don't think a re-install is the go either ~ new hard drive. Sounds like it has simply died not a Mac problem at all as Apple does not make drives..

The hardware check told me nothing was wrong with the hard drive. So from the sound of it, you think that the only thing I can do is to get a new hard drive?

When I open it in single user mode and use the /sbin/fsck -fy, it tells me Incorrect number of thread records (4, 21871). Does that ring any bells for you?

You did say 'Disc cannot be repaired'.

That is the message for crook hard drive.

Ok. Thank you!

I'll get a new hard drive. Have a good one!

Bogaragaraga said:

The hardware check told me nothing was wrong with the hard drive. So from the sound of it, you think that the only thing I can do is to get a new hard drive?

When I open it in single user mode and use the /sbin/fsck -fy, it tells me Incorrect number of thread records (4, 21871). Does that ring any bells for you?

Click to expand...

Huh...??? Nothing wrong...???

Gheese, you just stated previously that DU said it can't mount the drive AND it can't repair it!!!

What else do you need to know??

As stated, it sounds like the drive is kaput!! Just like DU was telling you.

Easy please easy!

I think Bogaragaraga was hoping against hope, not disbelieving. It is possible to corrupt device by pulling the power suddenly without dismounting.

You are correct. Just trying to confirm I had no other options besides replacing the HD. This is my first time trying to do something like this, so excuse my ignorance that may have appeared as stubbornness.

Thank you very much for your opinions everyone, have a great life!

". It is possible to corrupt device by pulling the power suddenly without dismounting."

That is information that is extremely helpful. I think I destroyed my own computer, because for a few weeks, it had no battery power so when I moved it around I would just unplug it then plug it back in and let it restart.

Good to know that's a no-no!

It is exactly the same with Windows. Whenever anything is mounted, hard drive, external drive, thumb drive, one has to dismount the device. For the internal hard drive, the normal shut down procedure does this. For externals, drag the icon to the Trash prior to disconnecting.

Keep coming back ~ lots to learn here.

Bogaragaraga said:

You are correct. Just trying to confirm I had no other options besides replacing the HD. This is my first time trying to do something like this, so excuse my ignorance that may have appeared as stubbornness.

Thank you very much for your opinions everyone, have a great life!

". It is possible to corrupt device by pulling the power suddenly without dismounting."

That is information that is extremely helpful. I think I destroyed my own computer, because for a few weeks, it had no battery power so when I moved it around I would just unplug it then plug it back in and let it restart.

Good to know that's a no-no!

Click to expand...

The old HDD may not be completely kaput if you want to try using it for non-critical data and it may have ended up with a super corrupt directory that Disk Utility is unable to fix.

If you can get it to mount using a USB-SATA adapter or a SATA enclosure with Disk Utility, use DU to partition and format the drive but don't bypass the option to do a single zero out pass.

Doing so will wipe the drive clean as well as making sure that any bad sectors won't be used.