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This is, unfortunately, the second time I have experienced the following problem.
When I turn on my MacBook, the screen goes to the regular gray-with-apple, spinning disk just below. Then, it changes to blue. Sometimes, I am able to see the pointer in the upper left hand corner, other times there is only a small white square. From there, the screen changes to different colors of blue over and over again while a spinning disk appears, disappears, reappears, never actually booting the computer.
I have tried all the methods listed here: Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier) , but to no effect. I have been able to save all my most important data via opening the hard drive in Target Disk Mode and dragging it onto a friend's computer. I have not been able to start in Safe Mode (the MacBook simply stays for longer on the gray apple screen before going into the flickering blue one), and I have tried the Disk Utility partitioning solution suggested in this thread: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/183585-mac-osx-10-5-5-wont-boot.html , but it also did not work.
The last time this happened I was in school and ultimately decided to re-install the entire system, which resulted in the loss of most of my data. However, I am currently at home for winter break and so do not have access to my OS installation disks, halfway across the world. Even if I did have them, last time I was not able to reinstall with the option of saving my data - I had to go for the whole shebang and wipe the system from the ground up. Ideally, I would like to avoid doing this.
If anyone has any ideas whatsoever, I would be extremely grateful. I have an appointment with an Apple Genius Bar set for Saturday morning, but would be really, really pleased to be able to solve this issue on my own - I'm just not comfortable with the fact that it's happened twice! It seems like the issue must be with the hardware, and yet everything seems to be running so smoothly, otherwise. If this is any clue at all as to what might be wrong with the computer - both situations occurred after I had rebooted the MacBook because it either would not recognize a printer, or would not install a program (Silverlight.dmg, for the latter). In the case of the former, the computer acknowledge that it was hooked up to a printer and seemed to be sending jobs, but there was no actual activity going on with the printer. Initially, I assumed this was a problem with an already finicky printer but tried to reboot just to see if it would help. Then catastrophe, and I was unable to turn the computer on at all. This time around, I was trying to install Silverlight and found that the installation process consistently stalled when the .dmg was searching for a disk onto which to write the program. It would say something to the effect of "searching other external devices" even though there were no external devices attached. Thinking a reboot might help, I gave it a go and ended up with the same disaster as before. Ick.
Thank you for any and all suggestions, tips, hints, solutions - I'm open to trying anything at this point. Please keep in mind that my only available tools are another MacBook and a FireWire. I don't have my installation/utility disks, and I don't have anything like Disk Warrior. I understand if either of these would be pertinent things to have, but they simply aren't available. Thanks again!
When I turn on my MacBook, the screen goes to the regular gray-with-apple, spinning disk just below. Then, it changes to blue. Sometimes, I am able to see the pointer in the upper left hand corner, other times there is only a small white square. From there, the screen changes to different colors of blue over and over again while a spinning disk appears, disappears, reappears, never actually booting the computer.
I have tried all the methods listed here: Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier) , but to no effect. I have been able to save all my most important data via opening the hard drive in Target Disk Mode and dragging it onto a friend's computer. I have not been able to start in Safe Mode (the MacBook simply stays for longer on the gray apple screen before going into the flickering blue one), and I have tried the Disk Utility partitioning solution suggested in this thread: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/183585-mac-osx-10-5-5-wont-boot.html , but it also did not work.
The last time this happened I was in school and ultimately decided to re-install the entire system, which resulted in the loss of most of my data. However, I am currently at home for winter break and so do not have access to my OS installation disks, halfway across the world. Even if I did have them, last time I was not able to reinstall with the option of saving my data - I had to go for the whole shebang and wipe the system from the ground up. Ideally, I would like to avoid doing this.
If anyone has any ideas whatsoever, I would be extremely grateful. I have an appointment with an Apple Genius Bar set for Saturday morning, but would be really, really pleased to be able to solve this issue on my own - I'm just not comfortable with the fact that it's happened twice! It seems like the issue must be with the hardware, and yet everything seems to be running so smoothly, otherwise. If this is any clue at all as to what might be wrong with the computer - both situations occurred after I had rebooted the MacBook because it either would not recognize a printer, or would not install a program (Silverlight.dmg, for the latter). In the case of the former, the computer acknowledge that it was hooked up to a printer and seemed to be sending jobs, but there was no actual activity going on with the printer. Initially, I assumed this was a problem with an already finicky printer but tried to reboot just to see if it would help. Then catastrophe, and I was unable to turn the computer on at all. This time around, I was trying to install Silverlight and found that the installation process consistently stalled when the .dmg was searching for a disk onto which to write the program. It would say something to the effect of "searching other external devices" even though there were no external devices attached. Thinking a reboot might help, I gave it a go and ended up with the same disaster as before. Ick.
Thank you for any and all suggestions, tips, hints, solutions - I'm open to trying anything at this point. Please keep in mind that my only available tools are another MacBook and a FireWire. I don't have my installation/utility disks, and I don't have anything like Disk Warrior. I understand if either of these would be pertinent things to have, but they simply aren't available. Thanks again!
