Mid 2012 MacbookPro spinning ball of doom!! - FIXED

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Paul
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This has been a great macbook for me for years, upgraded to 16mb and ssd when it started showing its age a few years ago and has been great.

However just this afternoon its started with the rainbow ball and hanging. I've not downloaded anything at all, no dodgy sites etc.

Tried the pmrc smc or whatever its called check, restarted in safe mode, restarted several times, tried to update the catalina update but it hangs at 500mb etc right now am in disk utility and running first aid so am on the wifes macbook air.

Anyone else got any thoughts?
 
I'd be thinking of downloading the original version of MacOs from the Apple website on to a usb stick and doing a virgin reload. I had to do that with my iMac for similar problems. It's been back to itself since.
 
If it won’t boot but is running and since you have access to another Mac if you have the right cables etc you could possibly boot it into firewire mode and access the drive from the other computer for copying off what you need,
 
If it won’t boot but is running and since you have access to another Mac if you have the right cables etc you could possibly boot it into firewire mode and access the drive from the other computer for copying off what you need,
Don't have any firewire ummm wires lol. Im currently downloading 40gb to an external drive via the usb though and it's at 5gb and says 2 hrs to go lol.

crossing my fingers!
 
Don't have any firewire ummm wires lol. Im currently downloading 40gb to an external drive via the usb though and it's at 5gb and says 2 hrs to go lol.

crossing my fingers!
Thought that might be the case, hope it completes! Without looking it up, I think you can connect two Macs with Ethernet or maybe usb.
 
Just trying today as been working long shifts since original message. Tried to reload the os via the inbuilt recovery but it's not having it, Im beginning to think it's a faulty disk but not sure yet, luckily I have a spare external disk and managed to get everything off it I need so will probably erase the ssd and start from scratch.
 
right well been on this all day, must be something physical wrong with the drive as it just stops installing, ended up sorting a usb boot drive simpely hangs as 6 mins remaining then restarts with an error after a while, so new ssd on the way for 60 quid and Ill see if that works. :-(
 
Make a bootable linux USB stick (make sure it formats for GPT, most do by default). Boot it (press ALT before pressing power and select the stick) and do a bit of investigative work. The old drive may be getting corrupt so you could be simply looking at the replacement, etc.
 
Yes, try to eliminate other causes of failure by pointing the finger at the SSD. Do you have an external drive you can put the OS on from Recovery mode.

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and then boot from that drive.
 
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Yup, it will be slow with a modern OSX, but it does show that it’s likely to be the SSD.
 
Update time as the new ssd arrived and just fitted it, however, it's not showing on the list of places to install which is odd so rather than undoing everything I decided to simply get the old ssd that I just took out, plug it into an external caddy and install catalina over that and now it's working. Of course all the programmes need redoing onto it but thats not too big a deal and ive got all my backups.

Dilemma now is, (A) do i put it back in place and use it or (B) use the new one after taking it out and putting it in the caddy first to install and see if I can get it to work.

A puts me back to square one using as a bootable drive but what else could i really use it for as theres an arguement it may fail again and Id rather it did it as a boot drive than a back up drive?

B means I've a nice 500gb drive to use as a back up drive or if I install it then its an extra 250gb space?

Decisions decisions :thinking: :thinking: :thinking:
 
Does the new one show up in Disk Utility when you are trying the initial setup?

I have found MacOS a bit unpredictable in recognising external bootable SSDs when choosing at startup if they are not the current boot drive, don’t know why. That’s not really the same as your problem though:(.
 
It didn't at all so figured I may not have formatted it in the right way, so removed it and put it in the external caddy and it's now picked it up. So, looks like it's installing now nicely so once that's done ill pop it in the mac proper and see what happens.
 
It didn't at all so figured I may not have formatted it in the right way, so removed it and put it in the external caddy and it's now picked it up. So, looks like it's installing now nicely so once that's done ill pop it in the mac proper and see what happens.

That sounds like it is the same as my experience after all :). Mine’s a late 2012 Mini so similar vintage FWIW.
 
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Can you not use Superduper to clone the old one and make the new drive bootable ... then replace and good to go?
 
Can you not use Superduper to clone the old one and make the new drive bootable ... then replace and good to go?

If I’ve understood, both ssd are bootable as external drives just not internally. Does that indicate some othe hardware problem with the MacBook?
 
Can you not use Superduper to clone the old one and make the new drive bootable ... then replace and good to go?
If it was a straightforward upgrade of the disk yes and when i wend from hdd to ssd last time thats what i did, but now this ssd is not booting and hanging in programmes etc so think it's corrupt :-(
 
If I’ve understood, both ssd are bootable as external drives just not internally. Does that indicate some othe hardware problem with the MacBook?
Neither seem to be bootable now so starting from scratch. mac didnt recognise them in the startup disk choice, window was blank ie no choices to make start up at all.

Did run a "verify disk" on the new ssd as internal drive and seemed to say there's an efi error which may be that catalina didn't install correctly which is why im starting again.
 
Aha!!! So, yet another configuration and it seems to be working!

So re installed the os on the ssd as an external drive then REMOVED the old HDD which was in the caddy where the old DVD drive used to be, installed the ssd into it leaving NO drive where the original drive would have been and it's booted and working! Now, I came accross a site talking about the SATA ribbon cable here https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2...uble-formatting-new-ssd-mac-it-could-be-cable and Im thinking now this could be my issue!
 
Hoooraaay! Sounds like you could be right about hardware issue other than the ssd(s). OTOH I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it worked putting it back in the original slot :) NOT that I suggest you do it though, if somethings working, best to leave it alone :).
 
Hoooraaay! Sounds like you could be right about hardware issue other than the ssd(s). OTOH I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it worked putting it back in the original slot :) NOT that I suggest you do it though, if somethings working, best to leave it alone :).

I may try that to be honest on Thursday just to be certain / OCD about it, depends how work is lol.
 
Right, and Im finally posting from my Macbook pro rather than the wifes Mac air! Managed to get the new and old ssds working as boot drives internally after changing the £10 ribbon! Ah well I have decided to use the new 500 as the boot drive and reinstall the 500gb old HDD back in the spare caddy so up from 750gb to 1Tb total.

Now I still have to install photoshop, lightroom etc etc but all in seems Im back to normal and better than spending £1500 ish on a new mbp!
 
Phew! :cool:
 
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