Is My Processor Bad?

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A few days ago, while trying to upgrade to Mavericks (could be Yosemite I'm not sure), my macbook pro froze on me and I was forced to hold down the power button to turn it off. Since that, it will not boot back up. All I get is the white screen with the flashing question mark and folder.

I've tried everything I could find online to get it going. I held down alt/option while turning it on, reset PVRam, everything. But nothin worked.

I figured I may have corrupted something on my hard drive but just to check, I took my hard drive out and put it into my girlfriends macbook, and it booted up fine.

I then put her hard drive into my machine, and I get the same folder with question mark.

This tells me the hard drive is perfectly fine, and there may be a problem with my processor? Or maybe something else?

I'm just trying to figure out if this can be fixed or do I need to dump this machine and get a new one...

Any ideas??
 

Raz0rEdge

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Welcome to Mac-Forums..

The fact that you are getting the question mark and all that means your process is fine. If not, you wouldn't have gotten anywhere near that..

The question mark usually means that you don't have an OS installed and the fact that you were doing an upgrade might mean that you froze and had to shutdown during a crucial point and as such have lost the data on there..

However, its strange that you say you can boot that HD on another machine, you might want to confirm it really is your machine by ensuring that your data shows up on that machine..

As long as you had anything beyond Snow Leopard, there is a Recovery Partition put on your HD by the OS and hopefully that didn't get messed up during your broken upgrade. Try activating that by holding CMD+r during the power-up and see if you can get into the Recovery console. From there, you can download a copy of OS X (the one that launched the recovery console) and install it and then do the upgrade later..
 

pigoo3

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A few days ago, while trying to upgrade to Mavericks (could be Yosemite I'm not sure), my macbook pro froze on me and I was forced to hold down the power button to turn it off. Since that, it will not boot back up. All I get is the white screen with the flashing question mark and folder.

My initial thought here would have been that being partially thru the OS upgrade something could have gotten corrupted (as you mentioned). But since you say your HD installed in another computer works fine…I would say that theory would be a "no go".

In addition to Raz0rEdge's great suggestions…you could also try an "SMC Reset" (Google for steps).

- Nick
 
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Thanks for all your help guys. I've further narrowed down the problem..

I put my hard drive in one of those enclosures that allows me to connect it through usb. When connected using usb, I turn my mbp on, holding down the alt/option button, and I'm able to boot from the external drive.

This tells me that the problem lies in the internal hard drive connection. Not sure if the wire can be replaced but that's the next thing I'll have to try. I'm just relieved I'm getting somewhere with this....

Thanks...
 

pigoo3

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I put my hard drive in one of those enclosures that allows me to connect it through usb. When connected using usb, I turn my mbp on, holding down the alt/option button, and I'm able to boot from the external drive.

This tells me that the problem lies in the internal hard drive connection. Not sure if the wire can be replaced but that's the next thing I'll have to try. I'm just relieved I'm getting somewhere with this....

This is great news…since you don't want the problem to be processor/logic board related. As soon as I read your recent discoveries…I was thinking the same thing (before I read all of your post) that it could be the computers "hard drive cable" or also referred to as the "SATA cable".

I know that in your initial post you mentioned that the problem (computer froze) happened while doing the OS upgrade from Mavericks to Yosemite. But this must have been purely coincidence. This "freezing" could have happened while doing anything…it just so happened while doing the OS upgrade.

It certainly sounds like it could be the hard drive cable. And replacing it is probably the next thing to try.

You can go to ifixit.com to find the replacement procedure for your MacBook Pro model. And a place to get the part is Powerbookmedic.com (or eBay)…whatever works best for you.:)

- Nick

p.s. Some great troubleshooting you did there! Nice job!!!:)
 
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Yeaa Nick I think it was purely coincidental.

But that coincidence made my heart skip a few beats. I thought I lost everything. I literally saw my whole hard drive flash before my eyes! :D All my pics, vids, work, everything...

Thanks for the link. I'm ordering one asap. I'm also going to backup my hard drive. I've learned my lesson...

btw - anyone know if theres a way I can backup about 600gbs of data to a cloud somewhere? Or is it best to just buy an external drive? I'm asking beause I've had an external break on me in the past...

This is great news…since you don't want the problem to be processor/logic board related. As soon as I read your recent discoveries…I was thinking the same thing (before I read all of your post) that it could be the computers "hard drive cable" or also referred to as the "SATA cable".

I know that in your initial post you mentioned that the problem (computer froze) happened while doing the OS upgrade from Mavericks to Yosemite. But this must have been purely coincidence. This "freezing" could have happened while doing anything…it just so happened while doing the OS upgrade.

It certainly sounds like it could be the hard drive cable. And replacing it is probably the next thing to try.

You can go to ifixit.com to find the replacement procedure for your MacBook Pro model. And a place to get the part is Powerbookmedic.com (or eBay)…whatever works best for you.:)

- Nick

p.s. Some great troubleshooting you did there! Nice job!!!:)
 

pigoo3

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btw - anyone know if theres a way I can backup about 600gbs of data to a cloud somewhere? Or is it best to just buy an external drive? I'm asking beause I've had an external break on me in the past...

I'm sure you can...but it's not going to be free!;) I know with Apple's iCloud...you get 5gig free. But that's only the tip of the iceberg if you have 600gig to backup. Get an external HD!:)

- Nick
 

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