I have an iMac G5 stuck on the gray screen with spinning gear. I woke up to it being stuck on a blue screen, then force quit and now it's stuck on gray with spinning gear.
View 2 RepliesEverything was fine until this morning when i came into work, started up my Macbook as usual from sleep mode. was able to use OS X for a little while, had to leave to go onsite so i locked my screen (i use sizzle keys and made Command + L to lock my screen to the log on prompt). as soon as the cube spins to the logon screen, BOOM, all i see is the solid light blue screen just sit there. i walk away and 5 minutes later, it's still on there, can't recover or go back to my desktop, so i force shut down (hit the power button, and attempt to reboot the OS X. then thats when it all gets bad. Everytime i boot into OS X it just sits there with the blue screen and flickers back and forth with the gray gear wheel spinning and so forth.
Ok, so next check, i go to boot into my Boot Camp partition into Vista. no problems, was able to boot in my boot camp partition without any problems (im typing this in boot camp at this moment.)
So far i've been able to boot into my Boot Camp and the OS X Restore Disc without any problems.
I booted into the OS X boot disc, and ran Disk Utility, ran the perrmissions check and the disk check and both fixed problems aparently on my OS X partition. went to boot back into OS X, blue screen.
So now i do the PRAM and NVRAM reset doing Command+Option+P+R and again booted into OS X. blue screen.
Booted into Safe Mode (Safe Boot) took awhile, but again. stuck at blue screen and if i press any keys or move the mouse, the grey gear spins for like 10 seconds and just goes back to the blue screen. and the process goes over and over again.
(later on this afternoon) I even ran FSCK to check the volume for problems. "it appears to be OK"
The good thing atleast in this situation is that i can access my OS X partition in Vista (via MacDrive) without any problems, so if having to reload my previous Time Machine backup (which stupid me forgot to back up my system over 60 days ago ) or having to just Archive my OS X and reinstall it, that will have to be my final choice. But i don't REALLY want to have to do this all over again if at all possiable.
I started this topic on the Garage Band forum because I was having trouble with Garage Band '08 when my computer crashed and will not restart afterwards. Garage Band was crashing 2 out of every 3 attempts at recording, and I would have to use Force Quit to escape and start over. Then, while I was in the middle of a very complex project involving Garage Band, iTunes, Finale (music notation program), and Microsoft Word, the computer froze up and I hit restart, thinking that would solve the problem. Big mistake - the computer has not been able to restart since then. I have a late 2005 G5 power mac with 1 GB of memory, 230 GB hard drive (or something like that) and no additional gizmos installed, running OS X 10.4.4. I had upgraded to iLife '08 a month or so ago and have had problems since with unusual crashes and freezes, especially involving Garage Band '08.
When I boot, I get to the gray opening screen with the gray apple logo and the spinning gear (is it really called an "intergalactic frisbee?"), and no further. The fans come on (and begin to ramp up to a huge noise after two minutes or so), the white LED light comes on steadily. I've disconnected all peripherals except my keyboard and mouse (Kensington USB keyboard and Logitech Mouse, both of which seem to work OK still). I can use the keyboard to open the CD/DVD player, and I can start the computer with both the Apple Installer disk and with Disk Warrior 4.0. I've repaired everything I can find with both programs, verified everything available, used Disk Warrior to examine corrupted files, and removed all the .plist files that it said were broken and could not be fixed. The only thing I can't find is that it says I am missing a "tmp" folder in my HD/private/ folder, which I can't seem to locate on the directory on Disk Warrior. Both programs say that all my hardware is fine, and that everything else is OK too. Puzzling. I removed the battery and tested it (it was OK), replaced it, and reset the PMU button on the motherboard even though I know all you have to do is unplug the back for a few minutes or so.............
My MacBook pro freezes at start up at the gray screen with spinning gear. I did a firmware update yesterday and this happened upon restart. MacBook pro purchased new early 2011 lion
Info:
MacBook Pro, iOS 5.1
I Have a MacBook pro 17" 2009 with OS 10.7 Lion, I was doing the updates in the middle of the updates give a error and say you need to restart, Now, when I restarted it is showing gray screen with apple logo and spinning gear and is not moving beyond that (even after 3 hours).I tried Resetting my mac PRAM and NVRAM, nothing, I tried Safe Mode, I tried verbose mode(command V) and is show me this,The system bootstrapper has crached: Trace/BPT trap: 5. I don't have originals cd I lose them when I move.and Lion I'm download from app store I don't Have DVDÂ I don't care about information on my mac, I backup everything daily. I just want to make it work again.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 17" 2009
All I get is the blue screen and a recurring spinning gear. What should I do?
Info:
Mac, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Airport / Time Machine
I have a very old IMac which I purchased back in 2005, and has been working fine. I have left it in storage about 1 and 1/2 years ago. Just now I try to restart it, the screen is forever stuck in the grey screen with the spinning wheel. I tried many times off-on, hold down the apple function key but none worked. I no longer have the rebooting CD with me. I wonder whether the computer can still be saved? I have already backed up the contents so it doesn't matter if fixing the computer requires me to delete all my old files. I think it's tiger or earlier that it's using.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.4)
Gray screen spinning wheel. How do I get it to start?
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Ernestine123
My 4 month old Macbook Pro suddenly shuts down with a blue screen and a spinning gear(like on the start-up) thats lasts for like 10 seconds. Could you suggest anything I can do? I've already tried resetting PRAM, SMC, ran in safe mode, and repaired permissions but nothing works!The last thing i remembered doing before this happened was a 7-pass Free Space Erase.
View 8 Replies View RelatedHas anyone exoerienced upon startup the Grey Screen with the Apple Logo, Spinning Gear and a Progress Bar? This is a sudden issue which just started and delays my startup to 4/5 minutes. My system worked fine till recently when this issue appeared: MacMini 2009(late) OSX(Lion)!
Info:Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 128GB SSD, Data Doubler 750GB Drive
My early Intel iMac (2006) won't shut down - gray spinning wheel and blue screen for more than 2 hours now. Can I safely turn it off with the power button? (I'm a little paranoid after a bad experience doing that with my MacBook Pro).what I should I do then?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.7)
My MacBook Pro (The oldest one, I believe) won't start. After OS X 10.6.5, it will sit at the grey screen with the spinning gear. Safe boot does the same. Verbose mode shows it stuck at "vmnet: netif-vmnet8: Adding protocol 2." I can boot off the install CD and single user mode
View 1 Replies View RelatedA friend of mine brought over his 14" iBook G4, 1.33GHz, 60GB HDD and 1.25 GB RAM. The problem with it is that upon start-up, the grey screen with the apple/turning gear comes up, then after a few moments a blue screen will appear, though no box showing the start-up process. I've run a few basic diagnostics on this, including the lovely disk utility (which did nothing), I've run fsck, zapped the PRAM, etc, no success as of yet. At one point, I received a screen with alternating folders, one showing the smiley mac face, the other folder with a flashing "?". I cannot replicate this for the life of me. I have attempted to acquire files via TDM, though am not able to see the hard drive despite using 2 different laptops. Possibly the firewire cable itself is spent, though it's brand new! Here is where I become increasingly frustrated: I ask my friend for the boot disks as the ones for my own 12" iBook don't work (for whatever reason). He tells me that he loaded Leopard this summer (currently running 10.5.2, no updates loaded since), then proceeds to bring over boot discs for a MacBook...:headdesk: To begin with, it seemed like the HDD was fried, however, after running disk utility (and not hearing any negative sounds), it does appear that the HDD is fine. I'm thinking a kernel panic, though not sure how to resolve these.
View 11 Replies View RelatedShut down computer last night because after restarting it would not open.  A little gear-looking circle just spins round and round. Started up computer this morning and it's the same situation . .gear circle just spins around.   I know the battery is fully charged. Â
I'm using a different computer to write this. Â
I have a IMac that suddenly can't move past the grey screen, apple logos, and spinning wheel. I have used the OS system disk to repair the Macintosh HD, the app stated that the repair of the volume was successful, but in trying to use the HD to restart, I am still stuck with the spinning wheel. What should I do next, or what am I doing wrong?Â
Vetaut
Info:
iMac
i have an ibook g4, and was using it just fine the other night, then when i came back to it a few minutes later it had shut off completely. now when i boot up, the computer freezes at the spinning gear startup screen or at the blank blue screen immediately after the spinning gear. it will boot in single user mode, but it won't boot up with my os x install disc. does anyone know any unix i could try to use to get my mac up and running again, or has anyone had this same problem and knows a fix for it?
View 8 Replies View RelatedMy intel imac 24" running mac osx 10.5 (i think, most recent one) has become stuck at the grey screen after the apple logo on a restart with the spinning gear going. This happened after restarting after using in windows mode, which I have done many times before. I have tried various things like PRam thing and disconnecting power for a while with no luck. I can start up pressing alt and get into windows mode (which I am in just now). I can startup and press c off the CD in which I have run the disk repair thing that says all is well. I tried repair permissions and it came up with some kind of error ending. I have also tried and archive install which only goes to about 5% and then tells me there is an error with installing certain files in the mac hard drive.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI have a new imac. I was stuffing the web, tried to upload a picture, the website locked up, so I hard booted my iMac. Then when it came back on, and I get is the start up sound, and a gray screen, nothing else. Its been 5mins now!
View 2 Replies View RelatedMy iMac won't boot up fully. It stays stuck in the gray screen with the pinwheel spinning, then after about 5 minutes just shuts itself off.
Info:
iMac (20-inch Late 2006)
the screen it got stuck on was white, gray apple sign spinning circle thing
and i left it there for more then half an hour with no progress. I did a hard shut off, and waited for about an hour and tried again. This time i waited for an hour, and still no progress. what should i do?
Info:
iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
I have a 1.83 Ghz MBP with 512 mb of RAM (lame I know). The other day someone was using my computer to burn a CD on iTunes when all of my programs began failing. On instinct I rebooted my computer to solve the problem. Alas, now I cant boot past the grey apple screen, and the gear is spinning away. Saddest part of the story is that I had time set aside to back up my computer the day after this happened . Anyway what is the best thing to do from here? I haven't made any moves to fix it yet really, so what is the best thing that I can do to try and get my files back?
Information:
MacBook Pro
Mac OS X (10.4.10)
Grey Screen, Spinning Gear
When I was working on my MBP last night I noticed the computer slowing down, then a sheer black wash went over the screen and a prompt saying I need to manually power off and then power on the computer with several different languages below. When I did that the computer made the on sound, opened up to the apple logo in the center and the spinning gear below. But its stuck there! I can definitely hear the laptop running but it hasnt budged for the last 12 hours.Â
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.0.x)
I think my hd went out. I have a G4 dual 1ghz (pretty sure, can't see it right now) mdd, os 10.411, and it froze up so I did a hard restart: hold the power button for 10 seconds till it shuts off. When I turned it on the next time it would not boot up. Gray screen withe the spinning wheel of bars like it is thinking, searching, and longing to start up. Booted from the install cd to access the hd, but it acts like it wants to install the os fresh.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a 1st generation macbook pro running snow leopard 10.6. I've been trying to install windows xp, vista, or 7 using bootcamp but for some odd reason i cannot boot into the cd. I put the cd in and made sure the macbook is reading it (which it is because the icon shows up on the desktop) before i hit "start installation". the laptop would restart but it doesnt boot into the cd, it just goes right into the gray screen and stays there while i hear the cd spinning. I've installed windows xp using this method but that was about 4 years ago, for some reason the hard drive died on me so i have to do this whole process over again. I dont recall having this problem either.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI apologize for the long message but I want to be as detailed as possible. My MacBook (purchased early 2006, white 13", upgraded to Leopard about a year ago with no problems until now) will not boot past the grey screen and spinning wheel. Here' are the list of 6 steps I've followed so far and still is not working. Oh, and I do not have any peripherals attached to my MacBook:
1. Reboot in Safe Mode: tried pressing down the Shift key before the powering up sound AND after the sound. Could not get into Safe Mode. Did this several times, holding the Shift key for as much as a minute or two. Nothing but grey screen and spinning wheel.
2. Reset NVRAM/PRAM: CMD+R+P+Option: Computer restarted but still goes into Grey Screen, spinning wheel and stays there forever.
3. CMD +S: I read this online. Gave me a black screen with a lot of information, but I don't know how to read the computer jargon, let alone know what to do with said info. 4. Disk Utility Repair Disk : Inserted my Leopard install disk. Went to Utility Disk. Performed a Repair Disk and I did get two error messages, something related to id 70000452 should be id 70000450 ( I'm sorry to say I cannot remember the exact error messages). But it showed as repaired. When I did a 2nd Repair Disk, I got the message that the volume appears to be OK. Turned off and on again, nothing but grey screen and wheel.......
I closed all programs and restarted my imac..that is 15 minutes ago...the little gear is still spinning 15 minutes later and hasn't restarted...should I just power off?
View 2 Replies View RelatedTried all the tips I can find but no joy. Able to boot in safe mode but nothing else. Can't use Lion Recovery and unable install Snow Leopard from disk as it gets stuck on the gray screen again.
Info:Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have Mail and have two imap google mail accounts linked to it. One account is running completely fine but the other account has a gear like icon and it just wont go away. Its not trying to send anything out at all. But that icon just wont stop. Its taking a small amount of internet speed with it too.
View 1 Replies View RelatedMy MacBook Pro froze up on me this morning and I was unable to shut it down normally.
No keys were working and so I forced it to boot by holding down the power button until it turn off. However, upon start up I'm stuck at the apple logo with the spinning gear.
I've tried safe mode - safe mode progress bar starts and then goes back to spinning gear. I don't have a copy of the OS on disk but I have my whole computer backed up to my time capsule.
I installed VM Fusion and when I restarted my Mac all I get is a blank gray screen, no Apple logo, and no spinning gear.I tried to boot from the original DVD, but that ended with a gray screen as well.
Info:15" MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10), iPhone, iPods, Airports, etc.
