Hi all this is my first post on your forum and I'm hoping someone can help me or guide me in the right direction.
I have in my hands a 2012 Macbook Pro retina model which is running os x 10.8.2 my problem is that it will not boot via any method it just gets as far as the Apple logo then the little spinning wheel starts and freezes shortly after.
1. On a standard boot it is in a continuous boot loop. Chimes - apple logo - wheel freeze- reboot prior to resetting the NVRAM it would follow that sequence and display a message that it shutdown because it encountered a problem.
2. Safe boot displays progress bar then switches to gear and freezes for ever
3. Restore freezes the same as above.
4. When I boot and am able to select the restore volume same thing and I have also tried booting from a USB stick with 10.8.2 on it. same just freezes at the gear.
5. I've tried a net boot and although it went and allowed me to select my internet connection once then went on to freeze after doing the NVRAM reset now all I get is a flashing world and then a 0/ symbol at the end.
6. About the only things I can do are boot in single user mode and also verbose mode. I have checked the disk in single user mode and it reports no problems.
7. I have also run the built in AHT and it shows no problems
This Mac has 8 gigs of ram onboard and a ssd there are no other 3rd party devices attached.
anybody have any ideas on how to get this thing to run LOL thanks in advance.
When you boot in verbose mode does it actually boot to the desktop?
Unfortunately the symptoms you describe sounds like it might be bad RAM, unfortunately the RAM is soldered on the logic board. Then again the symptoms also describe a bad processor. If it won't even boot from a USB stick, there is some kind of hardware problem.
Okay, rereading your post, on your #1 item, would the machine shut itself down? If so it might be a bad hard drive, if the OS finds a problem with the hard drive on boot it can't fix it will just shut itself off.
If you want to really test the hard drive, if you can boot to the recovery partition go to disk utility and do a Security Erase, move the slider one or two clicks past Fastest, it writes one pass or more of zeros to every block on the HD.
For the heat issue try the link below first. Scroll down a bit for instructions on resetting the SMC. If you think it's heat let it cool down afterwards.
I asked before, (there's a method to my madness ) can you boot from an external USB drive.
Or you can put another machine into FW target disk mode, connect the FW cable, hold down option key on the flaky Mac, and boot from that target disk drive?
) can you boot from an external USB drive.
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