Blue screen on MacBook after new hard drive

willbear · Mar 18th, 2012, 02:37 PM

I'm really hoping someone can help me.

Last week after attempting to run a software update on my MacBook, it completely froze. After attempting to restart, it wouldn't get past the blue screen. It would change from two different shades of blue but no logo or anything, just the changing shades. I tried PRAM and SMC reset, safe boot, hardware test, reboot from the install disk, I tried to repair and verify the disk as well as reinstalling to no avail. I finally took it in to future shop (only place I could take it in this small city) and got a new hard drive installed. Unfortunately I didn't have an external to back it up. Lost everything.

All was well until this morning, I was trying to open an email when it froze again. Couldn't force quit or anything. So I tried to restart it again. Same thing as last week but a little different. This time I got the blue screen with the apple logo and swirling icon (?). I tried all of the above again. It wouldn't let me do a hardware test. I still couldn't Verify the disk. This time I tried restoring it from time machine ( learned my lesson there). After that the screen changed to blue with a folder with a question mark. I tried to completely reinstall, but it didn't give me a option to choose from.

I don't know what else to do other than get another hard drive? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. What could be causing two hard drive failures in less than two weeks?

It's a MacBook 13 inch aluminum LED backlit widescreen notebook, 2.0 intel core 2 duo.

GlassOnion · Mar 18th, 2012, 03:42 PM

I would suspect a faulty hard drive cable. Is the machine still under warranty ? If so, bring it back in. You should have a warranty on the hard disk replacement job so you could suggest them to test the hard drive cable.

pm-r · Mar 19th, 2012, 12:33 AM

It sounds a bit strange, and GlassOnion's suggestion is a remote possibility, as is another "failed" HD, and from your description it sounds like an OS software glitch.

As you at least have a TM "backup", so maybe try a full "nuke & pave" and a clean install using your Mac OS install disk, and then maybe some TM file/data recovery.