Booting issues after changing HardDrive

[WhiteArrow3800]

I recently had troubles with my 15" MacBook Pro. I had narrowed it down to being a hard drive issue. It would boot up to the OS selection screen (I was running boot camp). The Mac OS would just tell me to restart, the Windows XP side wouldn't make it to the log in screen unless I booted in safe mode. I tried to reformat with the Mac OSX disc but it would again, tell me to restart, but it did recognize the disc. My neighbor gave me a Linux cd and it booted fine from the disc so we came to the conclusion it was the hard drive that had gone bad.

I ordered a replacement drive and I've replaced it this afternoon. I found that apparently I have left the Linux CD inside and can't eject it. Now when I turn it on all I can see is the light on the front (by the screen latch) just blinks. Nothing is displayed on the screen. So I figured I would put the old drive back in and get the disc ejected, however I got the same response, blank black screen with just the light on the front blinking. Is this a sign that something isn't working, or maybe something I forgot to do? I went back through and made sure everything was connected that I took off...

So I'm not sure if I'm having this issue because of another possible issue, or if it's because the Linux disc is still in the drive. I tried holding down the mouse button while I started the machine but that did nothing.

I have been without my MacBook for 4 weeks now, I was looking forward to having it back.

[djackmac]

but it did recognize the disc. My neighbor gave me a Linux cd and it booted fine from the disc so we came to the conclusion it was the hard drive that had gone bad.

Usually the flashing LED is a sign of a RAM problem. Did you remove the RAM for any reason? Actually could have been the problem the whole time because even if a machine does boot to CD/DVD and not the HD, doesn't necessarily rule out bad RAM. I'd try reseating the RAM first. Then perhaps if you have more than one RAM chip, try each chip alone in each RAM slot to see if its RAM or the logic board. Perhaps you damaged the board changing the drive yourself?

[WhiteArrow3800]

I pulled the RAM chips and put them back in and I got the machine to boot up and eject the disc. Now I'm back to square one, this is doing the same thing I had problems with before, It's just telling me to restart the computer.

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply though!

[djackmac]

I pulled the RAM chips and put them back in and I got the machine to boot up and eject the disc. Now I'm back to square one, this is doing the same thing I had problems with before, It's just telling me to restart the computer.

Now try one chip at a time to see if you can rule out a bad chip, because its pretty rare two chips would go bad together. If its happening with both chips in one RAM slot, then try one chip at a time in the other slot to see if its a bad RAM slot on the board. Is this making sense yet?

[WhiteArrow3800]

Yeah I get what you're saying. Last night I went back to it again and it recognized the boot disc and I got it to run a hardware test. Woke up at 4 this morning to see it found nothing wrong. It seems to start the install properly now, but I didn't have time this morning before work to let it go. So I'll find out tonight. Thanks.