MacBook Pro Mid 2009 won't boot, detect USB and can't reinstall OS on new SSD

[Trevstonbury]

Good morning,

I’m hoping someone can help me. I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2009, it’s no longer booting properly from the existing hard drive and just gets stuck at the loading screen and eventually reboots in a loop. Ive tried all sorts of things to repair it, as well as replacing the Hard drive with a Crucial MX500 SSD but nothing is working properly.

I suspect the current disk is failing, I can boot it into recovery mode but have only been able to run first aid on the disk once which failed. I’ve also gone in through safe mode to run the various verify and fsck-fy commands which are failing – so I think it’s a bad disk

Carried out PRAM & SMC Resets which have made no difference

I have replaced the hard drive with the SSD which at first wasn’t detected until I formatted it. Then I used TransMac with an El Capitan image, restored the image to a USB drive in an attempt to boot into recovery mode and install using the new image onto the new SSD, which fails to work.

Firstly, it won’t boot into recovery mode, I’m guessing it’s because there is no recovery mode available as it was on the old HDD and this older Mac has no internet recovery option. When I use the ‘Option’ key at boot to select a boot device it only detects the blank SSD, it doesn’t detect the USB. In fact, it doesn’t detect any external drive I've used with TransMac or a DVD with El Capitan on. The only USB drive it detects is a Transcend external USB which was used for time machine backups but as I can’t get into recovery mode with the new SSD I can’t restore it. When I've tried restore from time machine backup with the old hard drive in, no backups are detected. I’m not sure why it only picks up the Transcend drive…

I’ve tried to get into hardware diagnostics mode using ‘D’ but that doesn’t work
I’m really at a loss with what to try next, if I can’t get the MacBook the install media I can’t think of a way to reinstall on the new SSD.
Bit of background info, I don’t have a spare Mac or Apple device, Only a Windows 10 computer. Any help would be much appreciated!!

Kind regards

Trevor

 

[Rod]

Does the device recognize the Transcend USB (I assume it's an external HD) as bootable when you start up holding the Option key. If so you have a chance of reinstalling the OS if not the only solution I can think of would be to purchase (online) a bootable USB thumb drive installer for El Capitan. That will enable you to erase/format/map the SSD and install a fresh copy of El Capitan. It sounds like you have a Time Machine backup so you can restore your data from that.
Your problems are further complicated by the fact that your device is vintage now and the only Mac you have.
I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of having a full, current backup, preferably a bootable clone if you are a single device owner. The advantages and convenience far outweigh the modest cost of such applications eg. Carbon Copy Cloner at around US $50.00


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[Trevstonbury]

Does the device recognize the Transcend USB (I assume it's an external HD) as bootable when you start up holding the Option key. If so you have a chance of reinstalling the OS if not the only solution I can think of would be to purchase (online) a bootable USB thumb drive installer for El Capitan. That will enable you to erase/format/map the SSD and install a fresh copy of El Capitan. It sounds like you have a Time Machine backup so you can restore your data from that.
Your problems are further complicated by the fact that your device is vintage now and the only Mac you have.
I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of having a full, current backup, preferably a bootable clone if you are a single device owner. The advantages and convenience far outweigh the modest cost of such applications eg. Carbon Copy Cloner at around US $50.00


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Hi Rod!

The Transcend USB device strangely is the only external USB device that the Mac picks up, I don't know why, though this was the drive the time machine backups were taken with. It does show it as a boot option if I hold the Option key. The Mac isn't mine, one of the things I tried to do is use EASEUS to clone the old HDD to the SSD, the clone was successful but it won't boot, just get a white screen with directory icon and ? symbol....

Thanks!

 

[chscag]

The Mac isn't mine, one of the things I tried to do is use EASEUS to clone the old HDD to the SSD, the clone was successful but it won't boot, just get a white screen with directory icon and ? symbol....

Welcome to our forums.

We do not recommend EASEUS to clone from one drive to another. The only two programs that we do recommend and that work well are Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. You can do a search for them and download a trial copy. Both are fully functional and will clone a boot drive to another drive and render it bootable.

 

[pm-r]

I suspect the current disk is failing, I can boot it into recovery mode but have only been able to run first aid on the disk once which failed.

Do you have the original map OS install disk that came with that Mac, and if so, use it to boot from and run Disk Utility.

It would have come with Pre-Installed MacOS: X 10.5.7 and an equivalent CD/DVD bootable install disk.



- Patrick
======

 

[krs]

In fact, it doesn’t detect any external drive I've used with TransMac or a DVD with El Capitan on.

Trevor,
You mentioned you tried it with a "DVD with ElCapitan on" Could you explain in some detail what you mean by that?
Apple never offered any El Capitan install disks - is that a DVD you created or received from somewhere else?
I'm trying to understand if what you have, should work.

I don't know anything about TransMac but it seems to me I have seen posts in this forum previously where people are trying to install Mac software using some special Windows application and were unsuccessful.

PS: Checking on the net - I assume you tried making a Mac USB installer using instructions like these:
How to quickly make a Mac OS X bootable USB on Windows • Pureinfotech

 

[Rod]

So you have a Time Machine backup that appears as an option to boot the device. If you boot from that you will see a Recovery window. It will be slow. You should see options Restore from Time Machine Backup, Reinstall macOS, Get Help Online and Disk Utility. Here I would choose Disk Utility.
Now you mention the Mac isn't yours, is the Time Machine backup yours? If the TM backup is yours then you may be able to Boot, erase, format and partition the disk with Disk Utility but you still need to have a macOS installer to put an operating system on it.
So kris may have the best solution for you.

 

[Trevstonbury]

Welcome to our forums.

We do not recommend EASEUS to clone from one drive to another. The only two programs that we do recommend and that work well are Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. You can do a search for them and download a trial copy. Both are fully functional and will clone a boot drive to another drive and render it bootable.

Thanks for the info, the issue is I don't have access to another Mac to use Carbon copy or Super Duper

- - - Updated - - -

So you have a Time Machine backup that appears as an option to boot the device. If you boot from that you will see a Recovery window. It will be slow. You should see options Restore from Time Machine Backup, Reinstall macOS, Get Help Online and Disk Utility. Here I would choose Disk Utility.
Now you mention the Mac isn't yours, is the Time Machine backup yours? If the TM backup is yours then you may be able to Boot, erase, format and partition the disk with Disk Utility but you still need to have a macOS installer to put an operating system on it.
So kris may have the best solution for you.

Hi Rod, ive been told there is a time machine backup on it, it picks up the drive as a boot device but doesn't see any backups on it...

 

[Trevstonbury]

Hi Krs,

I've followed the instruction using transmac and every USB device I have tried just doesn't get picked up by the Mac. The image I had was downloaded off the internet, not great I know but ive used it in the past before, I don't have easy access to another Mac. The only USB device which gets picked up is the transcend external drive which is supped to have a time machine backup on it, the Mac sees this but can't see any backups....

 

[ferrarr]

Hi Krs,

I've followed the instruction using transmac and every USB device I have tried just doesn't get picked up by the Mac. The image I had was downloaded off the internet, not great I know but ive used it in the past before, I don't have easy access to another Mac. The only USB device which gets picked up is the transcend external drive which is supped to have a time machine backup on it, the Mac sees this but can't see any backups....

When you start up, do you hold the “option” key down or “command+R”?


About macOS Recovery - Apple Support or How to select a different startup disk - Apple Support


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[Trevstonbury]

I've tried both, with the new SSD in 'Option' button only detects the blank SSD, if I press Command+R nothing happens as there is no recovery partition on the new SSD. If I try the old HDD it just brings up the Macintosh HD and does go into recovery mode but doesn't see the external USB. The only USB or external device detected is the Transcend external drive which is supposed to have the time machine backup on, which also isn't detected....

 

[ferrarr]

I've tried both, with the new SSD in 'Option' button only detects the blank SSD, if I press Command+R nothing happens as there is no recovery partition on the new SSD. If I try the old HDD it just brings up the Macintosh HD and does go into recovery mode but doesn't see the external USB. The only USB or external device detected is the Transcend external drive which is supposed to have the time machine backup on, which also isn't detected....

Even with the Time machine backup connected?


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[Trevstonbury]

Even with the Time machine backup connected?


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Yeah it's really odd, I can see the transcend drive and when I go to restore from time machine backup ( with the old HDD in) no backups are showing. I must add that it's not my drive and I didn't take the backup so I can't confirm of it was done properly. What is strange though is that this is the only external drive which is even detected by the Mac..

 

[MacInWin]

I must add that it's not my drive and I didn't take the backup so I can't confirm of it was done properly.

What? Are you saying that the backup isn't really a backup of YOUR system but from some other? That's why it is not visible. It's not yours. Apple has pretty strong security to prevent any disclosure of data to anyone other than the original user.

 

[krs]

What? Are you saying that the backup isn't really a backup of YOUR system but from some other? That's why it is not visible. It's not yours. Apple has pretty strong security to prevent any disclosure of data to anyone other than the original user.

No....
As I understand it, the Mac itself is not Trevor's - he mentioned that in one of his posts.
So I assume the backup is a backup of that particular Mac - so it should work.

As to the 'strong security' aspect - when did that start?
I have backups, via SD and CCC, of various Macs in my family and I can boot into all of them on my Mac.
This is with ElCapitan - are you saying that this won't be possible in later macOSs?

 

[MacInWin]

OK, I'll back out of here. I've never been able to boot any TM backup on anything but the machine for which the backup was made. I have been able to migrate data from a TM backup to a new machine as part of setup, but not boot from a different machine. Maybe it's the way I make backups.

Anyway, carry on...

 

[krs]

One thing I'm wondering about this issue.
The 2009 MacBook pro came originally with Leopard (10.5)
At that time Apple didn't offer a means to create a USB installer for that OS.
So has anyone ever tried using a USB installer with a 2009 MacBook pro.
Maybe that option is not supported by that hardware.
Just asking.....

 

[ferrarr]

Any 2009 Mac, came with either Leopard (10.5) or Snow Leopard (10.6). You used to be able to order a disc from Apple for Snow Leopard, but I am unable to locate it. It looks like Apple has stopped offering them for sale.

 

[krs]

OK, I'll back out of here. I've never been able to boot any TM backup on anything but the machine for which the backup was made.

Jake,
You may well be correct when it comes to TM backups.
I jumped the gun when I read that wondering what will happen once I upgrade everyone in the family to Mojave.
But my backups are via SD and CCC, so different backup strategy - I never liked Time Machine.
I'm sorry about my post regarding this.

 

[krs]

Any 2009 Mac, came with either Leopard (10.5) or Snow Leopard (10.6).

You're right - I edited my post where it said Lion so people reading this thread don't get confused.
But my question still stands - the OP was trying to boot from a USB installer on a 2009 MacBook pro.
I sthat expected to work on an old MBpro?