Unable to start-up my 2009 15in- Macbook Pro

[Rokkan Stein]

Hey all,

I've recently come into a problem concerning my Macbook Pro.

I've had the laptop for 4 years now, going on 5, and after 4 great years it has finally flopped on me. I'm planning to buy a new laptop but before I was able to move over a few more files that I had not backed up yet, I was unable to boot up my computer.

I currently have Lion installed and have had issues with speed ever since I upgraded but that's the price of using old and new tech together I guess. For the last 3 or 4 days, my computer has had extreme issues with speed and on numerous occasions, would crash, or just get stuck loading, one time I waited an hour to see how long it would hold. It was rather sudden for this level of slow to occur as it had been doing fine for awhile. Anyways, I had another crash this morning and did a hard reboot again and the laptop became stuck at the loading screen (Grey background, apple logo, I assume there's a name for it). I tried a few hard reboots, but it stayed the same. I moved to safe boot, but still stayed stuck. I tried to verify and repair the disk using the original install disc, but I was told the disk was fine. I tried to go to the single user mode to do the /sbin/fsck -fy and I said it modified and then the disc was okay. But upon rebooting through the menu I was greeted with the same issue. I currently redid the fsck process (modified again) and did a safe boot, though I honestly do not have much hope that it will work. My last option is to use the install disc to try to go back to a previous backup using time machine, or if that fails, just wipe with the install disc, though I am unsure if it will recognize the backup (Using an external hard drive formatted to use time machine backups).

I'd like to avoid the process of using the backups as I have some new files I'd like to try to save that were not in the most recent backup, but I can live if I don't get them. I'm also slightly worried that I received a virus some how, but I'm hoping not.

If anyone has any last ditch efforts I could try, it would be greatly appreciated. I can supply any additional information needed.

Thanks in advance

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

It does sound like the HD is failing, and I defiantly do not believe this was virus related.

I'm planning to buy a new laptop

Possibly go ahead and buy the new Mac + an external caddy then once you have set new Mac up put old HD into caddy and plug, you should be able to see all files on it and copy/ take off the ones you need.

 

[Rokkan Stein]

Hi everyone,

To anyone who might read this, I ended up re-installing with the original install disc and was able to get back on to Mac, though I lost all of the previous data that I had not backed up. Unsure still if it will continue to let me access the HDD in this, but it kind of confirms that installing Lion probably put too much stress on the computer this last year.