Why can't I boot past a vertical striped screen?
I've got an A1226/A1260 MacBook Pro. (I'm not sure which; the label has faded.) Maybe 18 months ago I dropped it on its corner and the display cracked. It was a small crack that wasn't extremely distracting, so I didn't fix it. (Apple was going to charge $1300 to fix it.)
About 6 months ago the display went out. When I tried to boot it, the display showed vertical light green and grey stripes on both sides of the display and dark green and black vertical stripes in the centre. So I decided it's time to replace my display.
I replaced the LCD screen which unfortunately is a Chi Mei display. I also replaced the hard drive because I wanted a larger hard drive. There are no problems with it. So currently it has a new 750 GB HDD (unformatted) and a new Chi Mei display, all installed correctly, but I still get the same error.
I can't load past that screen to the HDD, to the CD drive, or to the firmware. (Using Command-Alt-O-F). I have reset the PRAM, I believe (Command-Alt-P-R). Can't think of anything else to do at the moment. Is there another part I should replace?
Likely irrelevant: The old HDD is currently in a cheap MacBook and works fine, although it is 100% full.
Possibly relevant: I tried booting to the CD but couldn't. I was able to eject the CD by holding down the left mouse key during bootup.
Likely relevant: It powers on and off nearly instantly when pressing the power button. It does not require me to hold it down. It also sounds the startup chime regardless of the method of startup (CD, HDD, or Firmware). I haven't tried target mode, as there's nothing on the HDD. I have an iMac G5, a 2009 MBP, an Intel Core Duo MB, and an HP Touchscreen desktop (iMac style); so I don't know if there's anything I can use as an external display.
Photo below (hopefully):
Is this a good question?