Reviving a MacBook Pro

By Dominic, 6 September, 2023

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Somebody who I won’t name because of privacy reasons for you to have a look. She plugged into power. I would be assuming this is a MacBook Pro 2012, or close to that. It does really heavy, really crazy, looking MacBooks, with the power button on the top right.. I’ve had to minutes Ooty. It’s not the Apple something once it’s the ones with the internal processes. Anyway,, All you need to know is it’s got Intel processor and it’s those big heavy chunky white MacBooks. Anyway, but I’ve been trying to turn the damn thing on for the past couple of minutes ever since it got plugged in. No dice, LOL. I am really confused. This MacBook died on the persons name was doing work. So I would be assuming it’s a storage issue. Note that these were the MacBooks that can you pre-stalled with hard drives not solid-state drives so yeah

Options

Comments

By Brian on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

Sounds like the MacBook in question needs to be rebooted into Recovery mode and possibly have macOS reinstalled.

Try the following (note you "might" need visual assistance):

1. From a powered-off state, press the Power button.
2. Immediately press and hold "Command + R".
2B. Depending on version of macOS you may be asked to select a network (this is where visual assistance "may be" needed).
3. Now you should be on the recovery screen. You can enable VoiceOver here. Please keep in mind that the volume may be very low.
4. Choose the option to "Reinstall macOS".
5. This will not erase anything, just restore system critical files needed to boot and maintain macOS.
6. Let it go through its process, could take a long time (see: Long f**king time).
7. Once complete, you will be on the macOS setup screen, where you choose language, keyboard language, etc, etc. VO works throughout this process.

Again, you will not be erasing anything, just "fixing" the macOS installation.

HTH. 😅

By Dominic on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

That won’t work. It has come to my conclusion, that the hard drive is dead. Furthermore, the computer will need to be opened up and have a solid-state drive installed, which isn’t even worth it any more, The Mac was released 11 years ago. It’s heavy, it’s big, the battery life would probably be awful, and you can only get up to, Catalina.

By Siobhan on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

subject says enough. I still think it's worth looking into if you really want to try to use it. It's not that old.

By Bruce Harrell on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

If the laptop is dead dead dead, no sound or light, then it's a power issue, in which case try plugging it in and leaving it plugged in for an hour or two and then turn it on.

If the issue isn't power, then try using an external bootable drive which, if the boot up is successful, should then enable you to copy the desired content from the old hd to another computer or external drive.

By Siobhan on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

If you can't hear the drive, in a quiet room even boot? Then hearing might be an issue. If it isn't, recycle the piece of crap and be done. If you can, or someone else can? You got somethin to play with/

By Brian on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - 21:07

If its as old as he claims, then it may have an optical drive (see: DVD, etc). You can take it to a computer store, if you were so inclined, and have the optical drive replaced with a after market SSD drive. Those old Macs can be fun to play with if you have the resources. 😎