Try to replace hard drive but never boot up again!!!! HELP!!!!!

Yesterday I tried to replace the hard drive on my MacBook White Unibody. I bought the laptop August this year. I took off the back cover, and everything went well before I got off the hard drive. There are 4 screws on the side of the hard drive, which need T6 screwdriver to take off. I tried Wal-Mart, Target, Bestbuy, Sam's Club, nothing works, so I bought a T6 screwdriver online. I put the original hard drive back into the laptop, waiting for my screwdriver.

After everything is assembled, I started up the system, and it automatically lead me to the safe mode and the keyboard seems locked on "Shift" mode. I used an external keyboard to type the password and log in. I tried to reinstall the OS so put in the installation CD and put it the primary start up option.

After restart, the computer apears a grey screen and then an Apple icon shows up on the screen and then the spinning icon. After about 1 minutes, a clear dark screen comes down and shows instructions in few languages with Japanese as the last one:" You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button until it's complete shut down. Then push the power button again." Something like that.

I did so, and the computer remains in this infinite loop. I tried to take of the RAM and reinstall them again, not work at all. Anyway I didn't try to put only one RAM there and see what happened. I guess I'll do that later today.

I didn't see any wrong in my steps. So anyone with any ideas how I can get my laptop working? My CD is still in the laptop. I tried almost all the combinations of keys, nothing is working. Just the infinite loop I mentioned before.

Hope you guys can give some help or suggestions!!

Really appreciate it!!!

 

You could've easily went to your local hardware store and picked up a T6 driver. Home Depot, Lowes.....etc.

 

The clear screen that comes down, is a kernal panic, that happens when there is a hardware problem.

 

Thank you. I'll try that.

yep, I googled that's a kernal panic. Question is, which part of the hardwares is wrong. I didn't see any possible problems. Either RAM or hard drive or the keyboard?
Really have no idea.

 

I would take the back off again and make sure you didn't unseat anything or disconnect any cable you didn't mean to - and make sure the SATA connection is firmly on the hard drive.

If it still won't play nicely, you could put the drive in an external enclosure, connect it with USB and try booting from that (hold down the option key at boot).

Ideally you should do all this sort of work after you've earthed yourself and in a relatively static-free situation. (Google 'electrostatic discharge prevention')

Another tip is to hold down the D key when you do a reboot, this performs a hardware test.

 

Thanks for that.

I found out that I was using another guy's mac os installation CD, as thoses CD has serial numbers so that's problem.

But now, it keeps me entering the safe mode and I can get out of it.

The keyboard is not functioning normally as the "Shift" key is locked on so I can only type capitals. Do you know why is that? I try rebooting or reinstall the MAC but nothing works. Really weird....

 

Here's one of the best Mac troubleshooting guides I've ever seen - start from number 6.

 

If you can pick up a OSX disk version 10.6.3 The reason why I put the version number in there is because sometimes older install disk do not have the updated drivers on them. When you put the disk in hold "D" and it will run a diagnostics on the hardware.

 

Thank you guys for these.

I've sent my computer to the university computer repair center. Hope they can fix this problem. Otherwise I'll send it to Apple to see what they can do.

Thanks anyway.