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NEED HELP ASAP MacBook stops booting at gray Apple screen. Using a CD isn't an option

post #1 of 5
11/29/11 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 
After trying to transfer some apps from my old MacBook to my new MacBook Pro I had to do a hard restart on the MacBook. The apps had transfered over fine but when booting up the MacBook it gets stuck at the Apple logo screen with the spinning wheel.

The CD drive has been broken for a minute, so it's not useable.

After playing around in single user mode I see that all the files are still there.

Ideally I'd like to get the MacBook to start up normally but if not I'd like to just transfer files over to this MacBook Pro or an external drive.

If there's no way to get that laptop to boot can I somehow transfer files/directories via ethernet cable from the old Mac to the New one?

Thanks guys
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post #2 of 5
11/30/11 at 3:38pm
Thread Starter 
Bought a firewire cable and did target disk mode. Got everything so I'm very happy about that. I also bought a Time Capsule for the future.

So now, still, the MacBook won't get pass the gray screen. What should I do??

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rovers View Post

If the startup process doesn't get past the grey screen while you can still see all the files it probably means that the HD is still good and Mach 1, the Unix kernel, still works, but that OSX, or the sectors of the HD that OSX resides on, is corrupted.



I would try to transfer the files first. Connect the MB and the MBP with a USB (2.0) cable, and try to start up the MB holding "T" ('Target Mode'). If it works the MB will act like an external HD to your MBP and appear on the MBP's desktop as an (external) volume. You can then drag/copy everything from the MB to the MBP.

If the MB won't start up in Target Mode I suspect its HD has crashed. If so it will need to be replaced to enable the MB to start up and function normally again. In that case you must consider the contents of that HD lost...

If you want to prevent that scenario in future for your new MBP you had best use OSX' Time Machine application to make regular backups on an external HD.
If you had had a Time Machine Backup of your MB you could have easily 'restored' all its files to the new MBP just by firing up Time Machine, selecting what folders to restore, clicking the button, and going for a cup of coffee. When you came back all would be ready. Restart the MBP and you're in business.
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post #3 of 5
11/30/11 at 4:47pm
Boot into verbose mode by holding Cmd-V when you start the computer up. Hopefully you'll be able to see where it's hanging (if it's even getting that far).
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post #4 of 5
12/1/11 at 12:19am
Thread Starter 
it looks like it's stopping at:

AirPort: Link Up on en1
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post #5 of 5
12/1/11 at 1:44am
Thread Starter 
Last few lines are:

AirPort_AthrFusion21: Ethernet address 00:16:cb:bb:8d:90
IO80211Controller::dataLinkLayerAttachComplete(): adding AppleEFINVRAM notification
AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 1 (Unspecified).
en1: 802.11d country code set to 'US'.
en1: Supported channels 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 36 40 44 48 52 60 64 149 153 157 161 165
AirPort: Link Up on en1

After the last one nothing happens.
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