MacBook Pro Won't Boot Up

[Rure]

I have a MacBook pro running on Leopard (Late 2008 model I believe? Don’t remember the specs clearly but if you need it I can find it) and I was experiencing slow performance of Finder so I decided to reboot it to solve the issue.

After rebooting, I’m stuck on a white boot screen for a prolonged period of time. Eventually, I get sent to my partitioned Windows hard drive. I found it strange and I did another reboot. While holding down the option key I could only see my mouse and the partitioned Windows hard drive. My OSX Hard drive disappeared?

I did some searching and found that I needed to insert my OSX installation disk and perform a repair from the Disk Utility. After I did that I ended up with a lot of "Invalid Node Structure's" and "Invalid Record Count"

I left it overnight to continue 'repairing', and in the morning after it completed, the software told me that the disk could not be repaired and that I need to backup and restore the harddrive.

Do I have any other solutions? I really don't want to lose any of my important data on my hard drive.

I stuck with just backing up whatever I can and restoring? Or is there an alternate solution.

Thank you so much, and sorry for the long read.

 

[Doctor X]

Are you able to "boot" to the Windows partition? I do not dabble in PC-on-Mac but since it is off the same HD I doubt your HD is fail'd. It may be failing or you may have frelled your OSX. If you can do that can you "see" your OS X partition.

If you can, then IMMEDIATELY, back up your data. Seriously. Once it is gone, it is very hard, if not impossible, and $$$ to replace.

If none of that works, get an External HD--you can get 1-2 TB these days for cheap. Partition it, put your OS on one, leave the other to hold those big video files of tulip porn you have.

Now try to see if you can--booted from the External HD--"see" your OS X partition. Can you "get" stuff from it. If you can, do so, reformat . . . et cetera.

If you cannot . . . now you have, as they say, a problem. I have never used Time Machine since it did not make the best clones way back. Gurus may tell you otherwise. However, you MIGHT be able to copy the data to the "Stuff" partition to try, later, to sort out data. That probably will not work, but you never know. I use SuperDuper! which is a good cloning program. Hold that thought.

Consider getting DiskWarrior. This program can literally "take a picture" of your HD. It can repair it and has a good track record of repairing what can be repaired or AT LEAST making a Disk Image of your HD. It has saved my ass in the pass.

It that works, stick the Disk Image in your "Stuff" . . . reformat . . . et cetera.

IF that does not work, well . . . I am afraid you may have either a Dead HD or a Frelled Beyond Recovery Volume. I am unaware of partitioned HD only losing one partition for long--failure sort of goes to total failure, but a Guru might tell you otherwise.

Even with a really Frelled Volume--and believe me, I have done some stupid things trying to "fix that" in the past--Disk Warrior can usually recover SOMETHING.

Now . . . if you need a new Internal HD you can at least run your computer off your External--makes buying online easier! If you need and get one you can NOW daily back up your HD--it can take a few minutes which will now allow you to LAUGH and CHORTLE if this problem occurs again, since you will just recover yourself from your back up!

Good luck!

--J.D.

 

[Rure]

Are you able to "boot" to the Windows partition? I do not dabble in PC-on-Mac but since it is off the same HD I doubt your HD is fail'd. It may be failing or you may have frelled your OSX. If you can do that can you "see" your OS X partition.

Thank you for the reply. Yes I am able to boot from my Windows partition and use it fine. But I can't actually see my OS X partition when I boot up holding down the option key. I only see the Windows Partition.

I was thinking of using DiskWarrior, but it has an expensive price tag.

I think I will just decide to back my data and just restore the hard drive.

+rep/thanks =)

 

[djackmac]

I was thinking of using DiskWarrior, but it has an expensive price tag.

It's worth the price tag.

 

[Doctor X]

It is indeed--it has saved my butt a few times.

Granted, a lot of this butt-saving was before Ex-HDs and the like became so much cheaper--along with good cloning software. Back in the day, "back up your data," meant spending the day with DVDs . . . CDs . . . Zip . . . *shudder* floppy disks: all incredibly inconvenient.

Now, if you have one or two back-up drives, unless you cloned errors in your volume, a fresh install and transfer of your account is nice. BUT, problems like failing memory can introduce errors which, if you clone it, it exists in the clone--as I have discovered . Further, if you have a problem before you clone--and you just worked on "Something Important"--you might have a problem!

DiskWarrior is one of those "oh crap!" programs that you miss it when you really need it. Sort of like a good back up--wish you had one!

I will also add that since you mentioned "slowness" and the like, make sure you check out topics on basic maintenance of your Mac--see software like Onyx/Cocktail.

--J.D.