SPOD on startup, older macbook pro.

[Kevin Geloso]

Hi, my girlfriend's MacBook pro from 2009/10 has become unusable for no discernible reason. One day last week we turned it on and up came the dreaded SPOD, after many restarts and letting the battery completely die and recharge we have not been able to do anything with it. Sometimes we can login but it will start pinwheeling when trying to open anything (finder, opera, settings, ANYTHING).

It's running snow leopard and has never given us any problems until now. It's not being used for any heavy duty tasks, mostly just Netflix and YouTube.

We can't even find out how full the hard drive is because it will freeze before we can get to that info.

I can't think of any reason why this would have started happening. There was new wifi at home the day this happened and it started after trying to connect to the new signal. In my head that should in no way affect the laptop itself (I'm a PC guy though)

Please help!

 

[honestone]

First of all, are you making backups to an external device?

Secondly, have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs? There are some excellent freeware and commercial products that can assist you with that.

Third, how are you making posts here? Are you using another Mac? If not, do you have access to another Mac (possibly a friend has one)?

 

[Kevin Geloso]

there are any backups from years ago but none from recently, same with any disk maintenance. Good to know there's freeware for that but at this point there's no way the computer would be able to install and execute something like that. Im posting g here using my (android) phone but I have friends with Mac's that I could use.

 

[honestone]

No backups and no disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs is not good. Neglecting to do that can easily lead to many issues, including yours.

IN any event, let us know your exact Mac model, and the exact model of your friend's Mac. Depending on what ports both machines have, there is a possibility that his Mac can try and "fix" your Mac.