This is my very last ditch effort to revive my Macbook Pro. I don't want to waste anyone's time on here, so I made sure to exhaust every other option available to me via online tutorial videos, and other forum posts. I have tried everything I can think of.
I was working as usual on my MBP last week, when it all of a sudden froze. This has happened upon occasion before, and was always just a case of holding down the power button and restarting. However, on this occasion, upon restarting I got the dreaded "prohibited sign". At start up, it just hangs on the white screen with Apple logo, that changes to a circle with the line crossed through it.
This is where I began troubleshooting and trying anything I could find online. At first, I was determined to save the info on my hard disk - but I exhausted all those options and eventually even tried erasing the disk, reformatting, and doing a fresh install. I've tried several ways of doing that, and the fresh install always fails near the end.
I tried to make this report as concise as possible, but due to the flurry of frantic work I put into it, following dozens and dozens of online help tutorials, I can only remember the order and feedback on each method to a degree. I can tell you that other things I looked into included turning Encryption off, turning SIP off, and running a bunch of other Terminal diagnostic tools. I should have listed the error messages but I have no method of copy/pasting on the broken machine - sorry. I saw some errors along the way in reference to Tree Nodes, I think it was an invalid B-Tree node size.
I guess the only thing that I personally can think of at this stage, with my limited knowledge, is to buy a brand new internal hard disk and try a reinstall on that. At this stage, I am not optimistic about anything working. It's either that or its time for a new (refurbished) MBP...which I REALLY can't afford right now.
Sorry for the lengthy post - thanks for any help anyone can offer. If I've already tried it, I'll let y'all know, if I haven't - I am willing to try anything!
Thanks, Steve.
I was working as usual on my MBP last week, when it all of a sudden froze. This has happened upon occasion before, and was always just a case of holding down the power button and restarting. However, on this occasion, upon restarting I got the dreaded "prohibited sign". At start up, it just hangs on the white screen with Apple logo, that changes to a circle with the line crossed through it.
This is where I began troubleshooting and trying anything I could find online. At first, I was determined to save the info on my hard disk - but I exhausted all those options and eventually even tried erasing the disk, reformatting, and doing a fresh install. I've tried several ways of doing that, and the fresh install always fails near the end.
- I've repetitively tried SMC, PRAM, NVRAM resets.
- I've ran Disk Utility from Recovery Mode and attempted to repair the internal drive. Initially it allowed me to repair the main drive, but when I clicked "show all devices" etc and tried to repair the container volume, it always failed.
- I tried various Terminal related options, such as running Disk Repairs via Terminal
- I tried Target Disk mode, but unfortunately despite ordering both Firewire and Thunderbolt cables, my other older MBP can not run a compatible OS to interface with my broken MBP's disk.
- SATA Cable. I've been struck before by the infamous 2012 MBP Hard Drive SATA cable issue. I successfully replaced it a few years ago (I also had a dodgy screen, and a few years ago also successfully replaced it with a new one). When I replaced the SATA cable previously, I made sure to insulate it nicely with some electrical tape, to try to prevent it happening again in future. Upon examining the cable, it looked pretty pristine. To be on the safe side, I tried swapping the SATA cable of my older working 2009 MBP. Again, the same issue, the Prohibited Symbol upon start up.
- Via Terminal, I accessed trial versions of iBoysoft and Disk Drill software to scan and recover my internal HD. Neither of these options worked. I allowed them to "prepare scan" for up to 4 or 5 hours, and they never even seem to initialise the scan properly. They both seem to stick on a pre-scan preparation phase - where they can not scan any files for recovery.
- At this stage, I just wanted a working MBP because I use this for work, and I am now days behind schedule, working with the machine for hours each and every day. So I went for destructive methods. I had the idea in the back of my mind that although the disk will be formatted, I can attempt to run the file recovery software when I get the machine back up and running, to see if it can find any files from pre-format. I do have a backup of work files, but it is almost a year old, and there is some current files I frequently reuse that I would really like to have back - asides from the usual sentimental stuff of family photos etc.
- So I then started erasing the internal disk completely. Formatted it as suggested on all tutorials online. Mac OS Extended Journaled, GUID partitioning. If I am understanding this correctly, when I do this, there is a partition made for the new OS installed which is a container disk volume in APFS, or are converted to so in the process of reinstallation?
- Once formatted, I always run First Aid again and make sure all is coming back clean and clear.
- I have attempted several times now to reinstall an OS on to the machine, each time it fails. Firstly, I did the standard recovery mode boot up, then from the Utilities menu offered, I clicked Install OS. After several long hours installing Mojave, it would always fail to install at around 90%
- I then attempted to reinstall Mojave again using a bootable USB drive using the dosdude Mojave Patcher. Again, this failed near the end of installation
- Finally, last night, I tried for a second time using Internet Recovery. I'd tried this in an earlier attempt, and again, as Mojave was approaching the end of installation after many long hours on my sub-par connection, it failed.
- I began using an Ethernet cable for direct connection to my router, to make sure that isn't a factor, as it seems to have been for some people.
- I reformatted and ran internet recovery one last time last night, and this time I used the command shortcut to reboot the mac to install the base level OS that it supposedly shipped with - which started a download for Mountain Lion. This actually gave me a glimmer of hope, as I really though installing the earliest version of OS onto a clean hard drive would work.
- I opened COMMAND+L to show the log as it installed. Over the next few hours, it worked its way through installing just over 400 "Chunks". I checked on it time to time while it did this. The last time I checked it was nearing the 400 mark. I think just before it reached there, I heard the MBP restart. So I ran over to it and all I seen on the screen was a prompt to install Mojave, again. Without knowing what else to do, I presumed this was part of the full re-install, and it was automatically updating, so I proceeded. Again, it towards the end of the Mojave install progress bar, it failed.
I tried to make this report as concise as possible, but due to the flurry of frantic work I put into it, following dozens and dozens of online help tutorials, I can only remember the order and feedback on each method to a degree. I can tell you that other things I looked into included turning Encryption off, turning SIP off, and running a bunch of other Terminal diagnostic tools. I should have listed the error messages but I have no method of copy/pasting on the broken machine - sorry. I saw some errors along the way in reference to Tree Nodes, I think it was an invalid B-Tree node size.
I guess the only thing that I personally can think of at this stage, with my limited knowledge, is to buy a brand new internal hard disk and try a reinstall on that. At this stage, I am not optimistic about anything working. It's either that or its time for a new (refurbished) MBP...which I REALLY can't afford right now.
Sorry for the lengthy post - thanks for any help anyone can offer. If I've already tried it, I'll let y'all know, if I haven't - I am willing to try anything!
Thanks, Steve.
