Archangel768

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Aug 27, 2012
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So my macbook from 2010 stopped recognising my 128gb samsung 830 series SSD. I plugged it into my desktop computer and it sees it just fine so the SSD appears to be okay. I put it back in my macbook and tried booting it dozens of times, a couple of times it actually saw the SSD and booted into OSX and showed the desktop but then just seemed to 'freeze'. I could move the mouse but couldn't click on or do anything. Next, I try putting in the old 250gb hdd that came with the macbook which also appears to work fine. I installed snow leopard onto the new HDD and it asked if I wanted to migrate stuff from an old Mac volume so I plugged into the SSD using a sata to usb adapter and it actually saw it and transferred everything on. Next it wanted to continue on and I let it and it said everything was ready and then I just got a blank grey screen which I could move the mouse over. I left it for a while thinking it might be loading or something but nothing ever happened. I then read something about putting the applications disc in to run some hardware check to see if it could determine a problem.

This is when it gets worse.... I tried to eject the OSX installation disc and nothing happened. I read that holding down eject when starting the laptop would force eject it. It worked... kind of. It came out slightly but then stopped. It wasn't going any further. Trying to push it back in didn't help so I kind of just ripped it out. The macbook still won't boot, and now It won't let a disc in. It'll let me push the disc most of the way and then it'll pull it in most of the rest of the way but then decides to spit it back out partially where it just gets stuck...

SO, is my disc drive screwed? Is there anyway to just get the laptop to boot into OSX? I can live without the disc drive I guess. The most I've got at the moment is the 250gb drive in has the apple logo with a dotted circle loading that keeps going, nothing happens. Keep in mind, this 250gb drive had OSX installed on it, then files from the SSD migrated over onto it and then it wouldn't load into the OS, that's as far as it's ever gotten.

UPDATE: I booted up ubuntu off a USB and that's working so that appears to me to indicate the rest of the hardware is working fine. One thing I noticed is that the wireless isn't working in ubuntu but I'm pretty sure when I was setting up OSX when installed it on the 250gb HDD that the wifi worked so I think it's just a ubuntu thing.
 
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Ah, yes I have replaced many a cable. Luckily a cheap and easy solution! I should have thought of that. For reference, the easiest way to diagnose this is to boot the Mac from the hard drive or SSD while it is attached via USB. If the Mac behaves normally (albeit more slowly) then the SATA cable is the most likely culprit.

SHECS

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Feb 16, 2015
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When running linux on an Apple machine, you'll have to install the drivers for wifi by hand. There's a whole topic on it on the Ubuntu community forum. This is a standard issue for anybody running linux on Apple. The Broadcom networkcards used by Apple are not standard recognized items on linux. Part of the problem is that incorporating the drivers in de distributions is difficult when Apple won't deliver specifics on them. Therefore one must discover which card was installed in the machine and use the manufacturer's firmware for it. Really it is not that hard to get it working, it just takes a bit of time to get there.
Furthermore, have you tested your machine using the Apple Hardware Test to see what was causing the major malfunction before?
Have you thought about booting the MBP using the Command-Option (ALT)-R function to boot it into Internet Recovery and restore the last known MacOS installation by just installing a new version? Do you make regulare Time Machine back-ups? Have you tried to Restore that through the Recovery?
There's a whole lot of things you can do to restore the machine to it's originals. One thing though, when restoring a time machine recovery after a new install of MacOS, try restoring data only and unselect all options regarding programs and program settings, as well as machine settings. After all: you don't want the same settings causing the problem in the first place, to be put back onto your machine, right?
 
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BadAsAl

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Does it boot without the SSD attached via USB? If you left that in it might be trying to boot from that instead of the HDD. Sounds to me like the OS on the SSD got corrupted but the data is fine. If you are still wanting to work on it let us know (I know this thread is a bit old now)
 
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Archangel768

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Aug 27, 2012
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Okay so it's an old thread but I thought I would update for anyone curious. I ended up having to replace the cable which connects the SSD/HDD to the motherboard and now it works perfectly. The disc drive however appears to have died but a replacement dvd drive seems to be working. The laptop is now running High Sierra and Windows 10 without any problems.
 
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BadAsAl

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Ah, yes I have replaced many a cable. Luckily a cheap and easy solution! I should have thought of that. For reference, the easiest way to diagnose this is to boot the Mac from the hard drive or SSD while it is attached via USB. If the Mac behaves normally (albeit more slowly) then the SATA cable is the most likely culprit.
 
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