MBP 15" Does Not Boot On First Attempt...

[Mayo]

Our MacBook Pro 15" (pre-unibody) routinely does not boot-up on the first attempt... But it always boots on the second try.

Any ideas what may be going on?

[jchuzi]

Have you tried resetting PRAM?

[Mayo]

Thanks for reminding me!  I will give it a try...

[Mayo]

Nope... It didn't work.

[krissel]

When you say won't boot, what happens? Anything?

Do you have anything externally connected? Remove and try again if so.

Is the drive selected as startup in prefs?

Can you remove some of the RAM and test with a single stick at a time?

[Mayo]

The Apple logo appears and the little thingy spins and spins on a pale gray background... The blue screen does not make an appearance.

Nothing is connected to the MBP.

I just turned it on to check the startup drive setting; the MBP successfully brought up the login screen, so I suppose one could classify this glitch as "intermittent." But starting-up usually requires two attempts...

Its internal drive was not highlighted but there were only two options: the internal volume and a "network volume."  On my iMac when I check the startup drives the internal drive is highlighted. So I chose the internal drive and locked the preference setting for good measure.

I can remove RAM and see what happens...

[Bruce_F]

You might try resetting the SMC on your MBPro.

QUOTE

When should the SMC be reset?

You may need to reset your SMC only if you encounter issues that directly relate to one of these symptoms:

Fans on high or system throttled when the system is not warm.
Battery is not charging when it should be.
LED on portable Mac's power adapter behaves incorrectly.
Display/keyboard backlight adjustment does not work properly (for example, erratic behavior or no response) in response to ALS (Ambient Light Sensor).
SIL (Status Indicator LED) behaving incorrectly on Macs that have a SIL.
Incorrect response to power button press.
Incorrect response to portable's lid open/close.

[Mayo]

I reset the SMC; I'll report back if it worked or not...

Nope... It worked fine 2-3 times and then stalled again. The next time it booted-up as it should.  Weird...

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

Its internal drive was not highlighted but there were only two options: the internal volume and a "network volume."

I assume you are talking about the Startup drive pref pane. If that is so, it may indicate some kind of corruption that is keeping the ROM from seeing the actual installed System. Can you run a disk utility on the drive from the iMac or a bootable purpose-built DVD?