MB 1,1-7,1 2008 Macbook A1181 - Flashing folder/question mark

[a1181matthew]

Hi there, first time poster here.

I recently purchased a 2008 MacBook A1181 from eBay as "untested spares & repairs" with the intention on attempting to try get it running again since I always wanted one as a child. I was made aware by the seller that it didn't come with a hard drive so at the same time as buying the laptop, I bought a 240gb Western Digital Green SATA SSD to stick in it. My friend also made me a bootable OS X Lion USB drive to use to get the os installed. When powering up the laptop with the USB drive plugged in, all I get approximately 15-20 seconds of white screen followed by the same white screen and a flashing folder with a question mark in the middle. After following several guides online to boot into recovery mode, holding down option key etc I was still having the same result, so I suspected possibly a faulty hard drive cable. I ordered a second hand (apparently working) replacement which arrived today and as far as I am aware the install went well but the same issue persists. Just the white screen with flashing folder & question mark. No chime, no acknowledgement that the USB drive is plugged in, nothing. I have a couple of theories as to potential issues...

1 - There is an issue with the bootable USB drive (my friend is a PC guy and this was his first time doing anything Mac related) - so possibly something not done correctly? Although seems strange to me that the MacBook doesn't even seem to recognise its plugged in.

2 - Second hand hard drive cable is also faulty or I've damaged something installing it. Hopefully not the case.

3 - Could there be a compatibility issue with the SSD I've fitted?

4 - There is a deeper issue with the MacBook - something else is cooked? Is there any way to further diagnose it without the computer running?

At this point I'm considering either buying a hard drive with an OS preloaded - they seem readily available on eBay, or buying a set of original OS X install disks and trying to boot it from them as I can hear the optical drive when I switch the computer on. Does anyone have any thought? Apologies for the lengthy post!

Cheers,
Matthew

 

[GMShadow]

Hold the Option key as you boot - that will give you the boot selection menu. Then select your bootable flash drive and install OS X that way.

 

[a1181matthew]

Hold the Option key as you boot - that will give you the boot selection menu. Then select your bootable flash drive and install OS X that way.

Thanks for the reply. I've already tried this before and after changing the hard drive cable but nothing happens unfortunately.

 

[GMShadow]

Okay, I'd lean toward there being an issue with the bootable USB. Even if the hard drive wasn't being recognized the USB drive would be.

I guess it depends on what you're wanting to do with it, but while that machine will run 10.7 Lion, 10.6 Snow Leopard will almost definitely be a better experience. If you don't want to burn a DVD, Snow Leopard is readily available.

 

[a1181matthew]

Okay, I'd lean toward there being an issue with the bootable USB. Even if the hard drive wasn't being recognized the USB drive would be.

I guess it depends on what you're wanting to do with it, but while that machine will run 10.7 Lion, 10.6 Snow Leopard will almost definitely be a better experience. If you don't want to burn a DVD, Snow Leopard is readily available.

To be honest I’m not really sure what my plans are for it, mainly just have a bit of fun really since this was the machine that made me really “notice” Mac back in the day so it doesn’t really matter to me what operating system it runs. I think that’s what I’ll go for then. Cheers!

 

[rampancy]

Hi there, first time poster here.

I recently purchased a 2008 MacBook A1181 from eBay as "untested spares & repairs" with the intention on attempting to try get it running again since I always wanted one as a child. I was made aware by the seller that it didn't come with a hard drive so at the same time as buying the laptop, I bought a 240gb Western Digital Green SATA SSD to stick in it.

First of all, welcome! I'm so happy to see someone else who's tinkering with an A1181 - as someone who is still enamored by these machines (even though they don't always love me back), it's great seeing these Macs getting some love on the forums.

My first thought is you might need to get another SSD. Long story short, from my own experience I suspect that WD started using a controller chipset and/or updated firmware during later production runs of the WD Green that either don't play nice with Apple's implementation of SATA I in the A1181, or just quietly dropped SATA I compatibility.

For A1181 SSD upgrades, I trust SSDs where the manufacturer explicitly states backwards compatibility with SATA I/1.5 Gbps SATA (even though SATA III drives should be by default backwards compatible). The only brand so far I know that still does that (last I checked) is Samsung with their 870 EVO.

Apart from that, the only other SSD that I've consistently and reliably used with the A1181 (even the original Core Duo 1,1) is the Kingston A400.

At the very least you should be able to boot the Mac from the USB drive too. YMMV, but in my own experience I've had a lot of probems getting bootable USB drives to work with A1181s, either with Linux or OS X. The most reliable option for me has remained booting from a DVD/CD, as GMShadow mentioned - thankfully, disk images of the 10.6 install disk should still be pretty easy to find.

And as others have mentioned, Snow Leopard is much more preferable to Lion on the A1181, even with SSD/RAM upgrades. Unless there's a piece of software you really need (or if really you want to daily drive it on a more semi-serious basis with Chromium Legacy and Pale Moon) 10.6 provides an overall better experience.