MacBook showing crossed-out circle on startup

SoxFanInPdx

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
3,246
Portland, OR
Late 2011 MBP. Started it up this afternoon and the crossed out circle showed up. I ran the internet recovery and couldn't access the main hard drive. So, this defeats the purpose of using my backup from an external drive as well. Tried, but no luck. Anyone else experience this issue? Possible solutions other than getting a new drive?
 

derekson

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 26, 2010
6,243
Did you try to see if disk utility from the internet recovery was able to see the drive to try to do repairs at all? That'd be your best bet to see if it's recoverable or if the drive just needs to be replaced.
 

SoxFanInPdx

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
3,246
Portland, OR
derekson said:
Did you try to see if disk utility from the internet recovery was able to see the drive to try to do repairs at all? That'd be your best bet to see if it's recoverable or if the drive just needs to be replaced.
Yeah tried that. No dice. Looks like I got an SSD purchase to make. Possibly more RAM as well. Any suggestions?
 

ShaneTrot

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Nov 17, 2002
6,403
Overland Park, KS
SoxFanInPdx said:
Late 2011 MBP. Started it up this afternoon and the crossed out circle showed up. I ran the internet recovery and couldn't access the main hard drive. So, this defeats the purpose of using my backup from an external drive as well. Tried, but no luck. Anyone else experience this issue? Possible solutions other than getting a new drive?
It's either one of two things, your hard drive or the hard drive cable. You have an external drive, take your hard drive out and see if you can boot from your external drive with your old hard drive installed in there. If you are able to boot from your hard drive in an external enclosure, it's your hard drive cable which you can order from iFixit. I have fixed both in this type of MBP.