MacBook Pro 2009 running Lion crashed during reformat and now is bricked

[dave_or_did]

I was reformatting our MacBook Pro (2009 running Lion) ready to sell, but during the installation of Lion the system totally shut down randomly part way through and now when I load it up, a warning exclamation mark comes up, with 'apple.com/support -2100F' underneath.

Is there anything I can do to recover the machine? I'd erased the hard drive using the Drive Utility before reinstalling the OS so I'm not bothered about saving any data. I just want a working machine that I can sell.

Thanks

David

 

[honestone]

Without knowing the exact model, it seems like your machine has a Firewire 800 port. If you have another Mac (or know someone who does), and it has a Firewire 800 port, get a Firewire 800 cable, connect the two machines, boot the one that is working, and then boot yours in Target Disk Mode by holding down the T key while your machine boots up. Your Mac's hard drive will appear as just another hard disk in the good Mac's desktop. You can then use whatever Disk maintenance and repair tools there are on the good Mac to do some analysis and repair of the drive inside your machine. In fact, the ideal scenario would be if the good Mac has a better disk maintenance program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro on it. Hopefully, the drive inside your machine is OK. If the hard drive is bad, though, you could be out of luck.

 

[dave_or_did]

Yeah it does have a firewire port and I do have another Mac so I'll give that a go. I don't have one with the same operating system, but hopefully I can still get it to work.

I'm out of the office until Wednesday (it's a work Mac we're selling), but I'll report back if it doesn't work.

Thanks

 

[honestone]

Sounds good. It should make no difference which OS the "good" mac uses.