MacBook Pro :: Can't Start Up; Stuck At Gray Screen- Started W/ Skype
Apr 21, 2012
my mom's Macbook Pro can't start up. it gets stuck at the grey screen w/ the Apple logo and spinning pinwheel every time. nothing else is plugged into the laptop aside from the power cord. Â
here's what i tried already, but to no avail:
 - Reset SMC
 - Reset PRAM
 - Hold shift while starting up... nothing happens. So can't start in safe mode
 - Used install disk to run Disk Utility diagnostic: Ran into a bunch of Disk Permission errors and fixed those. Nothing wrong on the Disk itself.
 - Held Command-S while starting up and typed "fsck -fy". Got "File system was modified" at first. Ran it again and got clean bill of health there
 - Held "d" while booting, ran the hardware test and it checked out fine.Â
after all of the above, tried waiting for it to restart for 15 minutes and still same spinning wheel. Â
this all started when a Skype update couldn't install, so i got rid of the current Skype. then tried downloading the new Skype. after it supposedly downloaded fully and it was automatically processing in the download pop up window (e.g. something about "writing", "image", etc.), it got stuck and froze the computer for at least 5 minutes. at that point, i help the power button until it turned out. then this started..
PS: not sure if this has anything to do w/ the problem, but after this happened, i tried to use Disk Utilities to make an image onto an external hard drive and it gave me an "operation timed out" error.Â
PPS:Â she has the following specs -
Hitachi Hard drive; partition Map Scheme: GUID Partition Table
Tried 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.
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.
When booting up on my Mac Book Pro side it gets stuck on a gray screen and wont boot even when in safe mode. I have cleared the P/Ram and still have acces to the partioned windows side on the same computer. How should I procede to get my Mac OS running again.
So my girl friend was using my IBook G3 and shut it down normally she says. We then went to turn it on and we will hear the chime but then it will get stuck on that first gray screen, nothing else comes up, no spinning no nothing. Hard drive is not making any different noise, I just don't know whats up.
Last weekend, my white Macbook was requiring a software update to 10.5.8. So I said, go for it and let it restart. That's when the trouble happened.
It began to restart but just stuck on the gray apple screen with the gear circle thing spinning. I tried several times to restart, but it never worked. I did all the things I knew to do (boot from DVD and run disk utility to repair permissions, zapped PRAM, ran it in the fsck thing; Booting in safe mode wouldn't work). So I booted from my backup and used SuperDuper to rewrite my boot drive. (I guess I should point out that when booting from my backup, I was able to access all my files on my internal HD, it just wouldnt boot). After doing that revert thing to 10.5.7, everything worked fine.
So then I tried to update again this weekend. Same thing happened. I've tried the same steps. I can still get to anything I've added to my regular drive since my backup and all that. Just won't boot from that main drive.
So I have a MacBook Air, 2008 I believe, running Mavericks....Â
Today it decided to get stuck on the gray startup screen with the Apple and never ending rotating circle. I have sifted through TONS of articles and discussions and tried various things including:Â
- Holding Shift+cmd+V to do a safe boot while seeing the progress and a disk0s2: i/0 error is at the bottom.
- Holding down Cmd+R on start, then Reinstalling OS X Mavericks: would act like it was working, then would just revert back to main OS X Utilities window.
- Repair disk: cannot repair, instructs me to backup my files, reformat the disk and restore.Â
Well I have tried duplicating the main disk image with an external hard drive, and that won't work because it says the disk won't unmount.Â
I cannot find any way to backup my files before I resort to erasing the disk. The disk cannot be repaired, nor will it unmount. I unfortunately don't have an old backup to restore it to. Any way to backup my disk in its current state, then enabling me to erase and restore the disk? Or any other options that would work?Â
Well gang the problem has been resolved by starting up while pressing command V. Worked like a charm. I don't know why the "genus bar" folks did't try it but it worked...I'm just saying.
Info:MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.3), in safe mode QT,Iphoto,photo booth
i have a macbook pro 15' late 2011 and it stopped booting. The apple disappear and the. It get stuck in a gray screen.I saw on the web that it would be possible to apply a software fix, disabling the video card. IN my country a new macbook is about 3.000 usd, so buying a new one is not an option for me.Â
Info: MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), Macbook pro late 2011 15'
Everytime I start skype while in windows, the computer crashes and I get the blue screen... I think it has to do with the sound drivers, because when I'm using msn messenger also in windows suddenly the microphone mutes itself.
I tryed updating the realtek drivers with no help, updated skype, no help, I uninstalled the realtek drivers and the laptop did not crash anymore but I had no sound, any advice like for example how to get the microsoft drivers to work on the laptop without using realtek??
For whatever reason with the microsoft drivers,I think the sound is trying to come out of the digital outlet, I can see the ligth inside the jack, but nothing comes out of the laptop's speakers...
first i'd like to give you a few pieces of information on what was going on before I restarted my mac. 1. My mac is a 13'' late 2008 mb with 2gb of ram (running leopard). 2. I JUST had my hard drive replaced due to a failure. 3. Before i restarted my computer i was having several "system extenstion" errors and when i tried to repair i recieved the message 'Underlying task reported failure on exit.' At the time, i was also trying to install Adobe CS5 Master Collection trial and i couldn't get past a password screen. This also prompted me to restart. Once the computer began to restart, it began updating boot caches. This was taking a very long time so i walked away from the mb. When i came back i realized the battery had died and when i plugged it back in and tried to get it to boot, it would get to the gray screen with the apple and the spinning logo underneath. But then it simply reboots.
I've tried restarting the pram. I've tried rebooting in single user mode (cmd + S) and got to the point where i could rebuild the tree (fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2) and that did it's thing for about ten minutes and it didn't fix the problem. I don't have my install disk but apple is sending me a new one and will be here by friday.
I was browsing with safari reading email from my msn account when safari failed to load the page. I then decided to do a force quit. Usually, when I hit command option escape, it will show me the programs then show which program was not responding, this time, it did not say that Safari wasnt responding. After waiting for at least a couple of minutes, I decided to restart the Mac by pressing on the power button to shut down. When I powered up after a minute, the gray screen with the apple in the center appeared and the cursor was forever spinning. After waiting, I decided to shut down again and then tried to zap the PRAM. This did not work so I shut down again and tried to reset the SMC.
I bought a used MBP (early 2011) with OS X 10.6.8. It's been running just fine, but last night moving files the screen suddenly went black. I rebooted and it will come up to a gray screen and then sit there. The fans start revving up and it gets really really hot. Of course I haven't done a backup recently, so I need the information on the computer.
I am trying to install windows 7 on macbook air, through an external DVD drive, since USB didnt work for me. The DVD is detected and ounce I click start windows installation, the system boots and gets stuck at the gray boot screen with the apple logo. What is causing this? how can I solve this?
For several weeks, my black MacBook (2008) has been acting odd. Certain applications won't open, and when I attempt to open them, the computer makes a quiet clicking noise, like the drive is failing. Last week, when trying to boot it, the thing just wouldn't. Stuck on the grey Apple logo screen. Assuming a hard drive problem or failure, I ran the tests. I ran Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard install disk, checked & repaired permissions, checked & repaired disk. All okay. I ran the Apple Hardware Test from the install disk that came with the computer, using the test that runs for an hour or so, and all appears to be fine. The computer won't boot into safe mode. I've tried flashing the PRAM. I doubt I could achieve much through target disk mode, as I've already run Disk Utility. What's left to do? Something doesn't add up here.
Tried everything, the shift key at startup, the c key at start up, with the disk installed, disk is brand new no scratches. Gray Screen still on, no movement of the optical drive or HD apparent Is my HD screwed ?
Info:MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Allright so my girlfriend accidentally spilled a drink on her macbook the other day. We thought we had cleaned it off and everything was fine. We were mistaken. During normal usage the computer crashed so we restarted it and are now greeted upon startup with a gray screen and a gray application folder with a question mark on it flashing repeatedly. What is the course of action guys? I'm not computer whiz and I'm wondering if we can fix this ourselves without having to take it in for repair. And FYI she does not have apple care
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
after my six year old daughter dropped it(on hardwood floor).
I tried this:
<command> <opt> <p> <r> Letting it chime 4 times. But, no luck - it just sits there witht the gray screen/dark gray apple logo and that thing twirling around like it's thinking.
check that I've left it on and it has now worked its way to the blue screen. Cursor shows up and the twirling thing is gone(as are the little clicking noises inside like it's actually trying to do someting).
Now you're really going to let me have it. I don't have any of my original disks.
Guess I should take it to the Apple store and see what they say(no applecare).
I was running Tiger(latest version) and the ibook G4 is a 1.33 with 768mb of ram if that matters.
Luckily all my photo's and music are on my powerbook and mac mini.
I started up my 24" iMac today and it just got stuck on the grey screen before the apple logo appears. I reset the PRAM and I tried using the OSX disc and holding down C. I got to the disk utility and it freezes. I am stuck using my bottom of the line laptop untill I can work around this.
I just purchased Windows 7 to dual-boot on my brand new 2010 MBP. After I installed Windows 7, I inserted my MacOSX Snow Leopard install DVD so I could install the drivers. A message came up saying "This installation isn't compatible with this computer". So I restarted my computer and when it was booting up it gets stuck at the grey screen with the apple logo and rotating wheel. After a while a grey curtain comes down with a Power Icon in the background and a window saying "You must restart your computer" in a variety in languages. I tried restarting and the same screen comes up every time. I've tried all the boot key commands such as holding shift. But each time it doesn't recognize it and proceeds to the grey screen of death. I'm completely stuck here and need help ASAP. I would like to do a hard reset on my MBP, but I can't since I can't boot to MacOSX and when I boot to Windows 7, it runs for about 2 minutes and completely freezes, causing me to force restart.
My wife's 1.67 ghz, 15" Powerbook G4, 10.5.8won't start up. It sticks at the grey Apple logo screen.I started with Command-V and got some text.The text that stood out was: "HFS Runtime corruption detected on Jodie [wife's account], fsck will be forced on next mount"Â
The last thing it said was:"Msg Order First]0 [Level 3] [Read U1D 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode devfs] [Mount Pt/dev] [Path/dev/disk0s3] [FSLogMsgID 2104410583] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
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.
My Macbook Pro is not starting past the grey screen and the apple logo and the rolling circle. I have tried every method and I am desperate to do anything to start my computer even erase the entire disc. I have contacted the Apple store and they told me the cost will be equivalent to $600 to just repair it and no way I will be able to afford it. I am willing to do anything and even erase my entire disc. However, for that the instructions on the Apple page state that 'Insert your Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 installation disc'. However, I do not have my installation disc Is there any other way I can erase the OS system and at least reboot my Macbook?
