Help!! White screen of death

Angelseverywhere

okay so i have a mac book pro. and it wont go past this white screen then it will flash this  folder with a question mark in it. so i did some research. tried all the commands they said also went a bought a new hard drive cable and replaced it. but i still get it the white screen with the folder. do any of you have any other advice? maybe somewhere where i can make a jump drive recovery. i am about to give up.

mike wuerthele

What model MacBook Pro? Do you have another Mac handy?

marvin

Angelseverywhere said:

okay so i have a mac book pro. and it wont go past this white screen then it will flash this  folder with a question mark in it. so i did some research. tried all the commands they said also went a bought a new hard drive cable and replaced it. but i still get it the white screen with the folder. do any of you have any other advice? maybe somewhere where i can make a jump drive recovery. i am about to give up.

Your drive needs a working system on it to boot up. A blank drive won't have a recovery partition. Try to restore the system over the internet by booting holding shift-option-command-R if you haven't already tried this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

angelseverywhere

I did try the shift option comm r unfortunately. I am not even sure what model it is. It was given to me and I thought can't be that hard to fix lol i was wrong haha is there a way to make a recovery disk download a version on a jump drive? also is there away to look up serial numbers to find out the model?

tenthousandthings

Angelseverywhere said:

I did try the shift option comm r unfortunately. I am not even sure what model it is. It was given to me and I thought can't be that hard to fix lol i was wrong haha is there a way to make a recovery disk download a version on a jump drive? also is there away to look up serial numbers to find out the model?

The reason Mike asked if you have another Mac handy is because it sounds like you will need one to create a bootable installer drive (see below). You also need to know the model number to make sure the system you install is the correct one. Just look on the bottom. If there is no model number (all the MacBook Pros I own have one printed there), then you can use the serial number to find it: http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/

If you've tried the newfangled approach via shift-option-command-R and failed, then you probably need to create a bootable installer drive: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

This is a minimal Apple support document. There is more user-friendly advice available online, and there is also the free app DiskMaker X

edited June 2017

angelseverywhere

I have gotten the model and specs for it now! no I do not have another mac that is why i asked if i could put the files from the site you gave me on my pc then put it on a jump drive. also how do i know if its sierra or mavrick or the other ones. specs really dont tell  you that.

tenthousandthings

Angelseverywhere said:

I have gotten the model and specs for it now! no I do not have another mac that is why i asked if i could put the files from the site you gave me on my pc then put it on a jump drive. also how do i know if its sierra or mavrick or the other ones. specs really dont tell  you that.

So what is the model number and "specs"? That's all we need to know to point you in the right direction.

edited June 2017

tenthousandthings

Angelseverywhere said:

I have gotten the model and specs for it now! no I do not have another mac that is why i asked if i could put the files from the site you gave me on my pc then put it on a jump drive. also how do i know if its sierra or mavrick or the other ones. specs really dont tell  you that.

Scroll down through the specs on everymac.com to find the "Maximum MacOS" for your machine. That's the information you need to know. The procedure varies depending on what that is.

angelseverywhere

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.53-aluminum-13-mid-2009-sd-firewire-800-unibody-specs.html

marvin

Angelseverywhere said:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.53-aluminum-13-mid-2009-sd-firewire-800-unibody-specs.html

That model is just out of range for internet recovery, which needs 2010 or later. You'd need to get a copy of the install discs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-OS-X-10-6-Install-Disc-Install-DVD-MacBook-Pro-13-Unibody-Mid-2009-/112444648498

If you replaced the drive with a standard hard drive already, consider buying an SSD before going to the trouble of installing the system. An SSD makes a huge difference to the performance of older machines and they are fairly cheap now:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE
https://www.amazon.com/500GB-Internal-Solid-State-WDS500G1B0A/dp/B01LWQ9LYV

The SSD might not operate at full speed but still 5x faster than a standard hard drive.

tenthousandthings

Marvin said:

Angelseverywhere said:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.53-aluminum-13-mid-2009-sd-firewire-800-unibody-specs.html

That model is just out of range for internet recovery, which needs 2010 or later. You'd need to get a copy of the install discs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-OS-X-10-6-Install-Disc-Install-DVD-MacBook-Pro-13-Unibody-Mid-2009-/112444648498

The install discs are a good idea. They install Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) which you must update to 10.6.8, to allow you to upgrade directly (free, via the Mac App Store) to your maximum macOS, El Capitan (OS X 10.11): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886

You could also skip Snow Leopard and create a bootable installer USB drive for El Capitan, but unless you have access to a Mac and have an 8+ GB USB drive sitting around, in the end it's probably cheaper to just spend the $20 for the original discs as Marvin suggests.

edited June 2017