Source
r/applehelp•
threejayg

Circle with line through

Mac

Have a 2009? MacBook pro unibody with a core 2 duo.

Recently started acting funny and randomly not booting. It got worse and now won't boot at all. I made a bootable USB with high Sierra on it to try to do a fresh install.

I insert USB, power and option, the flash drive shows up, I click it and I get the circle with the line through it.

I removed both sticks of ram, tried each one individually, removed hard drive, nothing changes.

Once gave this error.

http://i.imgur.com/bvuWz3a.jpg

Posted Jun 8, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC · edited

18
John-Circumference•

bad hard drive? to check i'd say make a bootable el cap usb and check if it is ok in there. el cap because 2009 pros don't officially support sierra or high sierra

2
threejaygOP•

Would it still boot from usb with a bad hard drive?

1
John-Circumference•

yeah it should boot from usb still. (again) just make sure have el cap on that usb. (remember to use the reply button lol)

1
Capt_Applejack•

I'd try starting up in safe mode before anything else. If you have any devices connected to the MacBook, I'd suggest disconnecting those.

Safe mode will clear some cache files that could be causing issues and it will try to repair the disk if it can. It will also prevent some non-essential processes from starting and those processes could be causing this issue.

Safe mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Basically, turn off the computer, hold shift, press the power button, wait about 20 seconds then let go of shift. If you try this, let me know if you're able to get to a login screen.

1
threejaygOP•

I'm getting a similar panic screen when I try to boot in safe mode

1
Capt_Applejack•

See if you can run internet diagnostics. Hold option(alt)+d while the computer is off, turn it on while still holding d, let go of d after about 15 seconds.

If diagnostics can’t be run, I think it’s something more than a bad drive. You should be able to get it into diagnostics without a hard drive

If diagnostics are run and it doesn’t return any serious error messages, put the computer in recovery mode, open disk utility and try running first aid on the startup drive. If it doesn’t fail, click the red button to close disk utility and try reinstalling macOS.

1
threejaygOP•

I'm getting a gray folder with a question mark.

1
Capt_Applejack•

That means it doesn’t detect macOS. We should be able to get into both diagnostics and recovery without macOS installed. Typically this happens if we don’t hold the startup keys early enough and long enough. It’s important to start holding the keys before you hear any startup sounds and before you see anything on the screen.

If you see the same thing after trying diagnostics again, I would suggest trying to use alt+command+r to get into internet recovery mode. If that doesn’t work then I’d suggest just using command+r

If you continue to see the question mark regardless of the keys you try using at startup - there may be something wrong with the keyboard. If you’re using alt and command on the left side and you have the same keys on the right side, try using the right ones

1