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Model A1286. Released February 2011 / 2.0, 2.2, or 2.3 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Processor

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MacBook not booting, goes to a white screen then blue screen

I have some precious photos of my first dog on this laptop, who meant the world to me, I am most concerned on trying to recover those photos, recovering the macbook would just be a big bonus! So if anyone knows how to transfer the storage a few tips would be so greatly appreciated!

I'm sorry for the awful title, I am just generally very confused at the situation. Purchase the laptop early 2011, and used until late 2015, the battery was replaced once during that time period and I had no other issues with the laptop. I swapped to a MacBook Pro 13' and the laptop was not in use from late 2015 to today.

Flash forward to Wendesday, I found the laptop, charged it and tried booting it up. Instead of it booting up, it wouldn't. I tried an apple hardware test by pressing 'h' at startup and was told that the battery was a hardware issue.

Today I received the equipment needed to both change the battery and upgrade the RAM. After performing both upgrades and then booting the laptop I was greeted with the startup sound, the apple logo on a white screen, then the apple logo on a white screen with a pinwheel, then less than 30 seconds afterwards the screen turns dark blue and every ~15 seconds the screen flashes to a bright blue for less than a second then reverts to the dark blue.

On Wendesday, when I tried to charge the mac, it would not hold a charge and the light indicator was green. Today, it is holding a charge and I can power on and keep the laptop running without being plugged in, and the light indicator was orange.

Thank you so much for any help in advance!

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1 Answer

Hold on here! You've gone to far! While you may need a new battery and wanted to upgrade the RAM. The root problem still remains!

So lets backup do we want to salvage your pictures? Or fix your system?

To salvage your pics you could try setting up your mac into Target Disk Mode and connect your Mac to a second Mac. Press the T key when you power your system. If the system doesn't get to target mode you'll need to get a SATA to USB adapter cable so you can connect your hard drive to another Mac system after taking it out.

Reference: How to Boot a Mac in Target Disk Mode

Drive adapter: Startech 2.5" SATA to USB adapter Follow this IFIXIT guide to remove your drive: MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Hard Drive Replacement

To fix your system we'll need to get it into diagnostic mode: How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac. Let us know if you get an error and what it is.

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2 Comments:

I will pick up the supplies necessary to get the photos today, as for fixing the mac I ran the hardware test and received this error. Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error. 4xxx/4/40000005: "Battery"

Thank you so much for your help!

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I don't doubt your battery is in trouble given the error. But, we don't know if the battery is the only issue or the something more.

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Jason Kellman will be eternally grateful.
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