start it up it dosnt even load the desktop

Hello,
I have a very weird problem with my macbook pro 15". I have had the computer for over 3 years now and have had no problems with it, until recently when i have had to run a cd boot to clean install everything twice to get the laptop to work again. The laptop seamed to be working fine and i shut it down using the apple and shutdown way, the way your ment to and the next time i go to start it up it dosnt even load the desktop (stays on the blue screen). I have tryed to load it in safe mode by holding the shift key, that will load it to password screen and ill put in my password, it will look like its working but will then will go bk to the login screen. This is the second time it have done this now in 2 weeks so am asking for help to try find out wot i have to do to get it up and running again as fast as possible. If anyone can help i would be very grateful to hear from you.

Thanks
Bigsteve2008

please ask questions and ill try my best to get back to you a.s.a.p, thanks again

Before we go any further, let's make sure your hard disk is healthy, try running the Apple Hardware Test.

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

ill give it a go and let you know what happens thanks

hi, ill have to wait till saturday so i can get my old tiger disc. I did a little research for running apple hardware test on a leopard disc and the apple site told me that if i did a clean install using the leopard disc i would have removed the hardware test, so i need my tiger disc which is in my london flat. thanks for your help i will get bk to you on this though thanks alot.

here is that page if you wanted to check it out or not

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Using Apple Hardware Test after erasing your disk

Hi,
I got bk to my flat earlier than i planned. right, i tryed the apple hardware test and it has showed that nothing is wrong! If you could help me out with finding the problem that would be a great help. also when i was away it did the same thing again so i dnt no what do you propose i do?

Well, it sounds like you have a corrupted file system and not necessarily a failing hard disk.

I would follow the steps described here:

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck

would that be the case even if am doing a clean install?

bigsteve2008 said:

would that be the case even if am doing a clean install?

Click to expand...

If it won't do a clean install (i.e. you choose the Erase & Install option), then you've got a more serious problem like a bad hard drive.

ok, ive just done that last disk utility thing and fsck thing and both have come up with nothing wrong! what you think?

anyone else know?

bigsteve2008 said:

ok, ive just done that last disk utility thing and fsck thing and both have come up with nothing wrong! what you think?

Click to expand...

Let's recap:

1. You had a running system that stopped booting.
2. You did a clean install and the machine appeared to run normally again.
3. After some time, the machine stopped booting again.
4. You ran the Hardware Test and it came out OK - so that's encouraging (although the AHT is not always entirely comprehensive)
5. You've run a disk repair using Disk Utility and also the fsck command to fix the file system.

So, we're fairly sure we have a good drive mechnically. The file system checks out OK, no corruption. I think my next step would be to try to do another clean install and see how it goes.

Definitely do what cwa107 does. If that works, and then the machine stops booting again then there is definitely something wrong and your machine needs to be checked out. If it's under warranty, then bring it into the Apple Store and they can check it out for you. If not, then you might have to shell out some bucks to have them take a look at it.

cwa107 said:

Let's recap:

1. You had a running system that stopped booting.
2. You did a clean install and the machine appeared to run normally again.
3. After some time, the machine stopped booting again.
4. You ran the Hardware Test and it came out OK - so that's encouraging (although the AHT is not always entirely comprehensive)
5. You've run a disk repair using Disk Utility and also the fsck command to fix the file system.

So, we're fairly sure we have a good drive mechnically. The file system checks out OK, no corruption. I think my next step would be to try to do another clean install and see how it goes.

Click to expand...

i Have done clean instal already it has gone 3 times now. i am starting to think that its when i run the updates. Anymore ideas?

Might be a silly question but how long have you left it on the blue screen? Are you sure it's not just taking a long time to start up because you have downloaded loads of updates? I'm just thinking that maybe you've restarted the machine whilst it is simply configuring updates and corrupted the install or something of the sorts.

shfle said:

Might be a silly question but how long have you left it on the blue screen? Are you sure it's not just taking a long time to start up because you have downloaded loads of updates? I'm just thinking that maybe you've restarted the machine whilst it is simply configuring updates and corrupted the install or something of the sorts.

Click to expand...

ive left it for the ful time i was out, so a good 6 hours lol defo not that!