MacBook won't boot up at all

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The Mac was running fine until I tried to open an email with photos and everything locked. I could not get to the dock at all. So I decided to shut it down completely and reboot. When I did that, I got the chime, but nothing else. I tried to reset using the command-option-P-R keys but that didn't work. Called apple and discovered that my complimentary phone service had expired but the techie gave me a tip which was to load disk 1 and try to do something from disk utilities. Quite frankly, I'm lost. I'm new to Mac's and you folks are my only hope for tonight. Any suggestions? By the way, I can't figure out how to get the startup disk to eject.......
 
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MacHeadCase

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Hi wavewuver!

Insert the DVD install disk (is it a CD?) and startup by holding down the C key. Run Disk Utility to repair your volume. See where that takes you and let us know what happens next.
 
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Ok.....I went to disk utilities and the only thing that showed up was the disk I have inserted. The only button that wasn't greyed out was "verify disk permissions". I pressed that but I got an error message that said "no valid packages". Now that tells me nothing.

At least I can get to disk utilities, does that help?
 
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MacHeadCase

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Can you restart holding down the Shift key and let us know if this takes you anywhere? This is known as Safe Boot.

I googled and so far haven't come across anything worth posting.

Right now I'm thinking it's either a really really messed up system or the hard drive is dying... Have you heard any strange noises coming from the hard drive?
 
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Thanx for your help so far.........

Well, I held down the shift key, powered up, the chime went off and then it came to a screen I've never seen before. The last message on the screen said I should restart. So I did. The apple came up, the gear turned many times and it brought me to the Mas OS 10 installer screen screen that I've seen many times today, but I've not been able to do much with.

What do you think?
 
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MacHeadCase

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Darn! Should have given you the steps: Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode. Try it again but follow the timing that is described in this Apple article.

If that doesn't work, maybe you can read this: Isolating issues in Mac OS X.

And if that doesn't help either, I'm outta ideas and someone else should jump in here. Too bad you don't have DiskWarrior: I think it might help a whole lot in this situation but it is pricey though.
 
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Thanx MacHead.....I'm beat from shoveling snow and will deal with the Mac tomorrow. At least I have my old windows machine to communicate with. How ironic!!!!!!!!

Thanx.....
 
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Black MacBook Black 2GB iPod Nano & Black 80GB iPod Classic B&W G3 G4's - PowerMac & Cube
I had a similar experience, and it turned out that my hard drive was dead. :( It was still under warranty, and was a quick fix, but still a huge pain. I lost all of my datas.

What I did to find the problem:

Let your MacBook boot to the installer. Don't run it yet though.
I just went into disk utility, and my hard drive was no longer on the list.
That let me know that my hard drive wasn't being recognized, and was dead.

Hopefully that's not your problem, so good luck.
 
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Yeah he doesn't see his hard drive in Disk Utility's window either... :blind:
 
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Not good. Believe me, I know.
 
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Not working. My hard drive is not being recognized and so I can't even try to use the "first aid".

Just a thought.....quite some time ago I upgraded the RAM. Do you think it's worth the effort of taking out the new RAM and putting in the original?
 
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MacHeadCase

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IMO, if it was bad RAM, you would go from kernel panic to the next. Maybe it is your hard drive dying on you like Jeff says.

It wouldn't hurt of you did pull the new RAM stick out and putting the old back in though. Try it and see if it runs ok after that.

Let us know how this goes.
 
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Swapped out the memory, but it didn't help. It was worth a try though.

Tried all of the suggestions everyone made but nothing worked. Thanx for your help.

It's going to the shop and I'll post what they find. I suspect a bad hard drive. Did I have my data backed up..........NOPE!!! Stupid me!!!:eek:neye:
 
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MacHeadCase

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Too bad you lost all your data but at least now with the new hard drive, your Mac has a new lease on life.

But do buy an external hard drive for your backups. If anything should happen again, at least you won't loose all your files.
 
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You know, the sad thing is that I already have an external hard drive, and now I'm going to use it.

The apple technician really did a quick swapout for me under warranty. This is the 3rd major repair in 6 months. I had the optical drive replaced TWICE in the first month. Now the hard drive. Time to call apple because I'm not so sure this mac will last.

The apple tech recommended that I use "carbon copy cloner" to back up my system. anyone have experience with this?

Feels good to have the mac back.......
 
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MacHeadCase

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SuperDuper! is even better than CarbonCopyCloner. I can't find the link right now but some backup apps were compared and tested and SuperDuper! came up on top with the least number of files dropped than all the other apps in the test, including Apple's Backup app.
 

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