Macbook Wont Start Up

[Joe]

I've been frustrated all day so maybe somebody here can give me some advice. I have an older Macbook, and a few weeks ago the screen froze. I held the power button to turn it off, but when I tried to restart it, it would get to grey startup screen and either freeze or shut down. Eventually after a few tries using verbose mode, I got it going.

Ever since though, every now and again, it would freeze, but again, restarting it in verbose mode seemed to work. That is, however, until this morning.

Same basic setup, screen froze, tried to restart and it wouldn't, but now nothing is working to get it started.

I have tried verbose mode but it freezes and shuts off. I have tried safe mode but it wont load. I've tried single user mode but nothing.

In verbose mode, it generally gets to DSMOS has arrives before freezing. Occasionally it will go further.

Does anyone have any idea a. what is wrong with my computer or b. how to get it started?

 

[Kaveman]

Failing Hard Drive will cause this symptom the verbose restart runs through a self fix but soon it fails again.

I hope you have a full and current backup.

 

[Ozzie]

You don't say what OS you are using. If you have been running Time Machine to an external disk you could get a replacement hard drive and follow the replacement instructions, which are quite simple. Or you could get a replacement HDD and transfer your OS and all your data to it before installing it. I did this recently using Disk Utility and its worked out really well. I bought an SSD disk and my old MacBook with OS.10.7.5. is going really well -boots in 1/3 of the time.