MacBook Pro - will not start

[Teejay]

I have been given a MacBook Pro which refuses to start, I just get a no entry/stop sign. I am new to Mac and have only ever used PCs. I have tried Cmd-R-Option, I used the disk utility and tried the first aid option, it said the operation was successful. I restarted it and ended up with the same screen. I repeated the process and used the Reinstall macOS option. It download for ages and then installed. Once restarted it went back to the white screen with the no entry/stop sign.

I have no disks and can't think of a next step. Is it possible to download the OS to a USB stick and start the laptop this way? The OS is Catalina.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-Which exact model MacBook Pro?
-The Recovery tried to download and install Catalina, correct?
-Do you have access to another Mac, as you can create a bootable installer with DiskMaker X Pro

The prohibitive symbol you are see is telling you that it cannot find a version of macOS to startup from.

C

 

[Teejay]

A1278
Yes Catalina
No, but I can ask around. Unfortunately, I live in a very remote rural area, so not a great area to cast my net.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks.

A1278 would be one of the following:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) is the only one that can run macOS Catalina, so I assume that is the model you have. You can check the complete model name by entering the serial number here:

Check Your Service and Support Coverage

That MBP originally came with OS X Lion 10.7.4. If Catalina won't install, you could try installing Lion using macOS Recovery by starting up using Shift-Option-R. Command-R starts macOS Recovery and will install the latest version of OS X/macOS that was on the Mac.

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery

If Lion installs, you could always upgrade it to Catalina later.

Maybe that will work,

C

 

[Teejay]

When trying that the OS it tries to load is Catalina. I've tried it three times now with no success. Is there a way to reformat the whole drive and then attempt to reload the OS?

 

[Teejay]

Hi Cory,
If I bought a new HDD and put it in the MacBook, would it then let me download the operating system? Are the utilities available this way or are they stored on the original HDD?
I hope this makes some kind of sense?