Macbook hanging on startup

[Jayhawk85]

Mine is the first gen white 2.0 ghz core duo Macbook. About 2/3rd of the times I startup the Mac gets to the grey screen and plays the startup noise, and then hangs. It plays the startup noise over and over in an endless loop. The first time it happened I just let it go thinking that it would boot up eventually, but after about 15 minutes I just shut it down. When this happens now I just hold down the power button and do a hard shutdown, and then turn it back on and it almost always boots up normally.

Anybody have any ideas? I called AppleCare (which I still have) and they said that I'd have to send it in for repairs. I was in the middle of a project for work and couldn't send it in then, and now I am wondering if I should send it in before I upgrade to Leopard or if upgrading to Leopard will fix the problem. I'd appreciate any of your thoughts. Thanks.

-Andrew

 

[pkoch1]

I'd repair your disk in disk utility or with disk warrior first. Then I'd see if installing Leopard did the trick.

If you are already installing Leopard, why not back up your hard drive, wipe it completely, then install Leopard and replace your files. That could help your problem big time.

 

[TheStu]

It is possible that OS X forgot where it's boot volume is, so repair disk permissions in Disk Utility, then verify and repair (if necessary) the disk itself. Finally, go into System Preferences and make sure that your hard drive is checked as the startup volume.

 

[Jayhawk85]

Clean install of Leopard fixed it, thanks

I did a nuke-and-pave on my Leopard installation and everything seems to work fine now. Much faster than before in fact.