Hello, MacBook Pro won't boot.

[jekyl]

OSX 10.8.

Computer starts to boot, with status bar. The bar moves ~ 1/4", stops, then machine shuts down.

I tried recovery, disk utility reports that the hard drive seems fine. But trying to reinstall the OS reports the disk to be locked. This is my pastors Macbook and I'm at a loss what to try at this point.

 

[Weaselboy]

OSX 10.8.

Computer starts to boot, with status bar. The bar moves ~ 1/4", stops, then machine shuts down.

I tried recovery, disk utility reports that the hard drive seems fine. But trying to reinstall the OS reports the disk to be locked. This is my pastors Macbook and I'm at a loss what to try at this point.

Is Filevault encryption turned on if you look in the Security pane in System Prefs?

Coomand-r boot to recovery again and start Disk Utility. Then select the drive and go to the File menu and click "unlock drive" then enter the password. Now try to do a repair disk.

 

[jekyl]

Is Filevault encryption turned on if you look in the Security pane in System Prefs?

Coomand-r boot to recovery again and start Disk Utility. Then select the drive and go to the File menu and click "unlock drive" then enter the password. Now try to do a repair disk.

There is no encryption on the drive. There was no option in disk utilities to unlock the drive. We're going on the assumption that the drive has gone into bookend mode. He's taking the MacBook in under his (still in effect) AppleCare. Thanks for the help.

I'm guessing this condition with the drive going into a read only mode is intentional, to protect data that otherwise might be lost. Is this a possible scenario?

 

[Weaselboy]

There is no encryption on the drive. There was no option in disk utilities to unlock the drive. We're going on the assumption that the drive has gone into bookend mode. He's taking the MacBook in under his (still in effect) AppleCare. Thanks for the help.

I'm guessing this condition with the drive going into a read only mode is intentional, to protect data that otherwise might be lost. Is this a possible scenario?

Nope... there is no such feature. Sounds like a dead drive as you suspect.