Need some advice please

[GNVTECH]

A friend of mine is selling me a broken MacBook Pro, it{s a 13.3 core i5 4Gb RAM 500HDD late 2012 with Maverick OS), the issue is that it doesn´t boot, just the apple logo with the progress bar thst fills up and turns off. I´ve already ran the system diagnostics and everything appears OK, using the disk utilities it shows that the main HDD needs to be formatted because there are some inconcistencies in the disk´s info. My question would be : after checking the system diagnostics and identifying the fault is ihe hdd and everything else seems to work ok, the worse scenario would be swapping the hdd and reinstalling the OS? or is there the chance to have worse malfunctions? Thanks in advance.

 

[pigoo3]

For 100% accuracy's sake (and if it does actually have a 500gig HD in it)...it's technically a Mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro. This is important...since technically there were no "Late 2013" MacBook Pro's. To further complicate things...Apple did release 13" MacBook Pro's "Late" in 2012...but these are the 1st generaion 13" Retina MacBook Pro's...but did not have a 500gig HD...they had SSD's (none of which were 500gig).

Back to the issue. Sounds to me it could either be a bad hard drive or a messed up OS (beyond this it is hard to tell with the info given). If it's a bad HD...then the HD needs to be replaced. If it's a messed up OS...then the OS only needs to be installed.

Now I ask the important ethical question. Is your friend selling this MacBook Pro because they think it's broken?? If so...a good friend would tell this friend that at worst it's only the HD...and replacing the HD is a relatively small expense. Then this friend could continue using the computer...or sell it for a lot more when it's 100% operational. If you don't tell your friend this...then you may be taking unfair advantage of your friend.

Of course there may be some info missing about this transaction that wasn't mentioned...that may put a different spin on things.

- Nick

 

[Audit13]

Apple had a Late 2013 13" Macbook Pro: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp691?locale=en_US. I have one too

It could be a bad sata hd cable that is causing the problem.

 

[pigoo3]

Apple had a Late 2013 13" Macbook Pro: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp691?locale=en_US. I have one too

That's one of the model's I was referring to in my earlier post...but it's really not commonly known as a "Late 2012" MacBook Pro...more well known as a "Retina 2012". But technically it was released in the Fall of 2012...so it does/could fit a "Late 2012" labeling.

But relating to the OP situation. If that MacBook Pro has a 500gig HD in it...definitely not a "Late 2012" model...more likely a "mid-2012".

- Nick

 

[GNVTECH]

Ethics & hardware

For 100% accuracy's sake (and if it does actually have a 500gig HD in it)...it's technically a Mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro. This is important...since technically there were no "Late 2013" MacBook Pro's. To further complicate things...Apple did release 13" MacBook Pro's "Late" in 2012...but these are the 1st generaion 13" Retina MacBook Pro's...but did not have a 500gig HD...they had SSD's (none of which were 500gig).

Back to the issue. Sounds to me it could either be a bad hard drive or a messed up OS (beyond this it is hard to tell with the info given). If it's a bad HD...then the HD needs to be replaced. If it's a messed up OS...then the OS only needs to be installed.

Now I ask the important ethical question. Is your friend selling this MacBook Pro because they think it's broken?? If so...a good friend would tell this friend that at worst it's only the HD...and replacing the HD is a relatively small expense. Then this friend could continue using the computer...or sell it for a lot more when it's 100% operational. If you don't tell your friend this...then you may be taking unfair advantage of your friend.

Of course there may be some info missing about this transaction that wasn't mentioned...that may put a different spin on things.

- Nick

Ok, thanks for the quick answer. Talking about the ethical concern, I´ve already told my friend there´s the possibility to fix the failure by reinstalling the OS or by swapping the HDD, but he doesn´t care cause he´s already bought a new mac and has no iterest in the broken one.

About the hardware, Is there a chance to have a bad motherboard or is it too remote?

Thanks again.

 

[GNVTECH]

I´ll be checking that option. TY

 

[GNVTECH]

Apple had a Late 2013 13" Macbook Pro: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp691?locale=en_US. I have one too

It could be a bad sata hd cable that is causing the problem.

I´ll be checking that option. TY

 

[pigoo3]

Talking about the ethical concern, I´ve already told my friend there´s the possibility to fix the failure by reinstalling the OS or by swapping the HDD, but he doesn´t care cause he´s already bought a new mac and has no iterest in the broken one.

Sounds like a win-win for both of you.

About the hardware, Is there a chance to have a bad motherboard or is it too remote?

I would bet that it's a bad HD, or an OS issue...and maybe a bad hd cable as Audit13 mentioned. If it was something worse...I don't think you would see what you're seeing.

Two things you can try to test further:

1. Try booting into the Recovery Partition by rebooting...then press & hold the two key combo of command + r.
2. Boot the computer from an external HD with an OS on it (Mavericks or newer). Hold down the option key on boot-up...then choose the external HD to boot from.

The sure-fire way to test this (and faster way) is with the external HD. If this works...then it's either the HD or the OS install that's bad. If the external HD test doesn't help...then it's either the HD cable or something more serious.

If you can get into the Recovery Partition...then you can try reinstalling the OS from there. After the OS reinstall...then you can try rebooting into the main partition...and see if eveything works.

- Nick