Help with MacBook

[DocGreen]

Sitting in front of my first Mac... I've been sitting here for about an hour now and I already want to hang myself.

I can not, for the life of me, get this damn thing to boot to any of my discs...
I want to boot it into Parted Magic to test the HDD with gSmartControl.
I also want to boot it to my Win7PE disk which has Memtest on it.

I've tried a number of key combinations at startup as instructed on Apple's support page (see here), but none of them do anything. I've restarted this thing like 50 times now and each time I end up right back in OS X.

Someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong before I run screaming into traffic!

(The computer is a MacBook Pro A1150, Core Duo, with OS X 10.5.8)

 

[altrenda]

Holding down the option key until you see the spinning gear will show what bootable media are available.

You can try Onyx http://onyx-leopard.en.softonic.com/mac for the 10.5 version,

Oops, Onyx isn't bootable. http://www.onyxmac.com/how-to-use-onyx-for-mac.html But you say you can get into OS X?

 

[compnet]

Does the keyboard work? Option brings up the boot menu and c boots to cd

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

You havent really told us what you have tried, or why it was checked in.

 

[JustInspired]

We run into an awful lot if them that simply have a bad optical drive so they won't boot from anything.
After a couple of tries we usually plug in our trusty USB one and off she goes. Have you tried an external one?

 

[FremontPC]

Doc, does the drive work ok in OS X?

I think I have an old core duo around and as I recall, I used 11.10 to boot it. Give it a shot and if no go, I'll try it again on mine:

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/11.10/

Use the Desktop AMD64 ISO

 

[DocGreen]

You havent really told us what you have tried, or why it was checked in.

Yeah, sorry bout that. Was REALLY tired last night. It came in because ever since the customer installed Carbonite, the computer has been INCREDIBLY slow... like 20 mins to boot, 15 mins to load a webpage, etc. (Though I haven't seen any of this slowness myself.)

We run into an awful lot if them that simply have a bad optical drive so they won't boot from anything.
After a couple of tries we usually plug in our trusty USB one and off she goes. Have you tried an external one?

The Parted Magic CD refuses to read at all, even in OS X (tried several copies). The Win7PE disc reads in OS X as a foreign OS disc, but still won't boot.

I've tried several different boot-key options... I can get it to list available boot devices but it only ever shows the HDD. I've also tried selecting the boot device in OS X under system preferences. There it lists the HDD, Network boot, and Win7PE... but chosing the CD doesn't work here either.

I'll have to try a USB tonight.

Is the optical drive supposed to be noisy when inserting/ejecting?

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

It came in because ever since the customer installed Carbonite, the computer has been INCREDIBLY slow... like 20 mins to boot, 15 mins to load a webpage, etc. (Though I haven't seen any of this slowness myself.)

That should be a hint right there.

But anyhow, assuming you don't even have a retail 10.6 disk on hand, this thread is like trying to tell someone how to remove Phillips screws with a claw-hammer. Even if we do get the machine to boot to something you may have that will boot it, you have no clue or resources on where to go next.

But to throw you a bone or a hint. If you really want to test the drive and can't boot it, the drive doesn't necessarily need to be in the machine.

 

[altrenda]

To echo what Anonymous Mac Tech has said before, if you even think you are going to work on Macs you should invest in a Snow Leopard retail disk, around $30 on Amazon.

And a good tip on having an external drive, the Superdrives aren't so super and often need replacing.

 

[FremontPC]

I believe you can get that Snow Leopard disk from Apple for ~20 + shipping.

I don't think the Core Duo has a dual layer DVD drive to read it though, so you'd have to put it on a USB drive or use an external dual layer drive.

I might be wrong.

 

[FremontPC]

Doc -

I dug that MacBook out and it is indeed an A1150, but I was incorrect about booting from the 11.10 Ubuntu distro and of course the AMD64 isn't going to work on the Core Duo which is a 32 bit chip. Must have been thinking about my iMac.

I'm going to give it a shot with Linux Mint and I'll let you know how I fare.

 

[DocGreen]

Thanks for the help!

If all else fails, I'll pull the HDD & RAM and toss em in a PC for diags... but that would miss any problems with the board/integrated peripherals.

Any good tune-up tools for Mac?

Side note: I'm not getting into Mac repair... at least not yet. I'm only looking at this one as a favor for one of my best customers. She's fully aware of my inexperience with Mac's, and knows that if I can't handle it I'll be referring her to someone who can.

 

[DocGreen]

...But to throw you a bone or a hint. If you really want to test the drive and can't boot it, the drive doesn't necessarily need to be in the machine.

I was actually planning on removing the drive regardless... until I saw how that was accomplished, lol. Not a problem really, just an annoyance I was hoping to avoid.

 

[FremontPC]

There doesn't seem to be a boatload of tune-up stuff for the Mac and little in the way of freeware. Some more seasoned Mac techs may correct me on this.

Here's a SMART utility you can take for a test drive, may obviate the need to boot Linux:

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

Seems there was another that was indeed free, but you had to go through some contortions to get it. I just used the one listed above.

Disk Warrior is a favorite, but I really don't see that many Macs, so I haven't invested in it myself. Usually the Disk Utility in the Utilities folder straightens things out well enough (think Chkdsk). Aside from that, uninstall stuff that's no longer needed, run System Update, track down the odd app that causes slowdowns/crashes, keep an eye on the hardware, check Console in the Utilities folder like you'd check Event Viewer in Windows. I really get more "how to" or Windows/Mac questions than actual Mac OS problems.

 

[FremontPC]

Linux Mint w/Mate x86 worked fine. After it loads, click on Menu and then "Disks" (Manage Drives and Media). Select the HDD in question, then on the right upper area of the window you'll see a set of gears. Click on that and you'll find a link to the SMART data for the drive.

 

[trevm999]

I haven't had a problem using Parted Magic, and if it's not even recognizing the disc, I'd think there is something wrong with the drive.

The hard drive does sound like a good place to start, Onyx is a great free tool for tune ups. Booting to safe boot is good too. I like disk warrior a lot, but if this is just a one time thing just use disk utility. I can also vouch for Smart Utility.

And don't forget the good ol SMC and PRAM reset