MacBook Pro :: Will Not Load Past The Grey Screen With The Spinning Wheel
Apr 13, 2012My MacBook will not load past the grey screen with the spinning wheel of death.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
My MacBook will not load past the grey screen with the spinning wheel of death.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
I 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.......
So all of the sudden my mbp will not boot past the spinning wheel/apple screen. I have not let it try for longer than 15 minutes but I don't see the point. I tried to boot in safe mode(hold down shift) but the bar only went to about 1/3 and stopped/disappeared...so I don't know what to do. This shouldn't be happening after a couple months of light use.
Just for extra info:
I am able to boot into windows 7 via boot camp. Cannot boot from cd or go into safe mode.
A few months ago my 2004 iMac froze as I was simply shutting down the power and attempting to restart. I was not installing any new O/S.Today I attempted two things while booting with the O/S recovery disc-1: (a) I slid the disc in and held down the "C" key while I attempted to power it on. Nothing happened and I continued to see the grey screen and spinning wheel.Â
(b) I slid the disc inside and held down the "ALT" key while I attempted to power it on. Three icons showed up: (a) Hard Disk; (b) Recovery Disc; and (c) Test. I clicked on the Test icon and it took me to a new screen with two options: ( i ) Quick Test and ( ii ) Extended Test. I clicked on Quick Test. The first aspect of the Quick Test (I think it was Airport) went through fine and passed. The second aspect of the Quick Test (Logic Board testing) continued to show "In Progress" for a really long time (about 15 mins.). From that I figured something must have gone wrong with the Logic Board.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.1)
I have a 2008 MacBook which after starting displays a white screen grey apple and spinning wheel Have reset pram Have tried starting holding option when the hard drive appears on screen I click on it and then the up arrow below it this takes me back to the spinning wheel with apple screen I don't have the original CDs that came with the machine
Info:
MacBook (13-inch Early 2008)
My macbook pro doesn't boot beyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel. I used the "Option" button to access the Disk Utility function and run Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions. Should I restart my computer?
Info:
MacBook Pro, iOS 5.1
My Macbook with 4 gb RAM won't boot standard, safe, or Recovery.. All three results in grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel which freezes after a few minutes. It also won't boot a bootable Mavericks usb with install package. I can boot single user mode and also view whats going on in verbose.. I am including a photo of where the script stops. PS: I've already tried resetting PRAM and the SMC has been reset as well.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
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
1: Just wiped drive and re-installed OS X Lion 10.7.3.
2: Upgrade iTunes from 10.5.2 to 10.5.3.
3: Restart, normally & fast.
4: Open iTunes.
5: Close iTunes.
6: Shutdown, and get the grey screen and spinning wheel...30min...1hr...2hr...I HAVE TO PRESS THE POWER BUTTON.
Why? Is it a bug in OS X Lion or iTunes 10.5.3?(mid 2010 MacBook Pro 371, OS X 10.7.3)
Info:
MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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 a grey screen with the spinning wheel at startup and won't go away
Info:
iMac
I have an intel imac - can't tell you much about the details as I can't get any info out of it. I installed snow leopard about a year ago - no issue since then other than occassionally the screen goes black but nothing major.Yesterday, I backed up to my usual passport backup and then today, it froze. I couldn't turn it off or restart at all so resorted to the power button. Since then, I can turn it on, it goes to the grey screen (no blue screen) and I get the apple logo and the spinning clock/wheel. For hours and hours....So, I tried one of the apple support pages and worked through - peripherals, safe boot, NVRAM, PRAM, tried to reboot with mac osx disc (the original not snow leopard) - nothing. Absolutely nothing changes - same old grey screen, apple logo and spinning clock/wheel.
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.6)
I changed the permissions from read only to read and write on my start up HD and chose the change everything inside option to read and write. After I did this, my secondary HD no longer allowed me to use it saying I did not have permission. When I tried to change it all selections were in custom mode and would not accept my changes. Same with my main HD.
I rebooted and the grey screen shows up with icon and no spinning wheel. I tried safe mode...same thing. I even tried booting off my back up firewire drive and got a null sign on the grey screen instead of an apple icon. Booted up from the G5 disk and tried to run utilities permissions repair and it would not do it, gave me an error, "No valid packages". Ran disk repair and it said nothing needs repairing. I then booted up using Disk Warrior and rebuilt the HD's directory successfully, but still the G5 will not boot past the icon grey screen, no spinning wheel. I'm spinning though...HELP, I'm dying here. FYI this is a G5 dual core Cypher running Leopard with 3.5 gigs of ram. The start up HD is 250 gig and the secondary is 500 gig
Hi all, I have two Powerbook G4 laptops. Both have very similar problems. When I try to start up, the grey screen with the apple and spinning wheel appears, but I can't get beyond that. If I walk away for an hour, when I come back there will still be a grey screen with apple and spinning wheel.
I admit I know little about this sort of thing, so I began poking around online for solutions. I tried Tech Tool Deluxe. Inserted the disk and held down "C," but again it never progressed beyond the grey screen with apple and spinning wheel. Most frustrating. Is there any other way of running the disk with the laptop?
Entering the terminal yielded slightly different results on each machine.
Powerbook #1: Once in terminal I typed...
/sbin/fsck -fy
...response was...
disk0s10: I/O error.
Invalid Key Length
(4, 44890)
** Volume check failed
...tried /sbin/fsck -fy over and over, always received the same results.
Powerbook #2: Once in terminal, this appears...
jnl: update_fs_block: failed to update block 1073777488 (ret 5)
jnl: journal_open: Error replaying the journal!
hfs: early jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0)
...and it won't even let me type /sbin/fsck -fy.
I tried plugging both latops into my desktop in target mode. In both cases the target icon appeared on the laptop screen but the hard drive icon never appeared on the desktop screen. I would love to at least retrieve a few files off each machine, if nothing else.
I have a Mac Pro from late 2008 which turns on, makes the startup sound, and remains on the spinning wheel for about 30 seconds before the wheel freezes. I have Windows 8 installed on another internal drive and I can't boot past their version of the spinning wheel, either. I've tried booting off of the install disc (Snow Leopard, which is what the machine is running) and off of a USB stick with a Snow Leopard .dmg on it, neither of which have worked.Â
I've done all the steps to fix a drive error, so I don't think it's that. I've read that it could be a graphics card error; Mine was a GeForce 7300, if I remember correctly.
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I just downloaded and installed Mavericks and was setting up my iCloud stuff after it restarted. It asked me for my Apple ID and it said it couldn't find the server. I clicked forgot password and I'm now at a screen with the gray spinning wheel.
View 1 Replies View RelatedSo I'm aware I have to reformat my Mac.... That's not my biggest issue here. My issue is I lost my snow leopard OS X while I moved and want to know if I could buy the $30 disc cuz I have everything BUT my OS X disc unfortunately.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)
Okay well, to start off, I got my MacBook from a distant family member who got a new one so they let me have their old one. They got it from a pawn shop so I don't have the disk that we got the OS from but it hasn't had any issues UNTIL NOW. I need to use my laptop for a homework assignment. Everytime I turn it on it'll just stay on the loading screen, I left it for 4 hours yesterday and it still wouldn't work. I reset the (insert acronym here) thing already, the thing where you press control, option, P, R keys at start up. because my assignment is on the laptop and it's due tomorrow.
Info:
MacBook Pro
My Macbook Pro (2008) was upgraded to Lion 10.7.2 before I bought it used. It's always been slow and after a little while it won't boot up properly, it only gets as far as the apple logo with the spinning wheel underneath.
I've have used Recovery HD and Disk Utility to repair/verify the hard drive and after the repair it still won't boot up past the apple logo. I downloaded OSX Lion 10.7.4 (client combo) update onto an external drive but I can't install the update when using Recovery HD. I've tried mounting the existing hard drive onto an external drive, but I get an error mesage immediately.
There are only a few folders I need to take from the existing hard drive in the Macbook Pro. What can I do to either access my hard drive or get it to boot up properly? I have a retail copy of a Snow Leopard DVD that I can use. I believe I might have saved Lion onto a DVD a while ago, but Apple seems to insist we intall by downloading the latest Lion? Basically I need to access the hard drive without erasing the data.
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
I have been using lots of software - indesign, photoshop, illustrator as well as other programs at the same time and my laptop started to slow down. I then tried to force quite pages and it wouldn't work so I had to force shut down. It then would not turn fully on and was on the grey screen for a long period of time. It eventually came back to homepage after about 30 minutes but did not fully load. It now wont go past grey screen and has a bar at the bottom.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
My wife has a Macbook with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (Macbook4,1). I am trying to replace the original SATA hard disk (160 GB) with an SSD. I have two SSDs here with me:Â
1) Intel 320 series, 160 GB
2) Crucial M4, 128 GBÂ
In both cases, after replacing the hard disk with the SSD, I am unable to get the Macbook to get any further than the "Mac sound" and grey screen.Â
In my first attempt, I cloned the original disk to the SSD on another computer, verified the data got on there OK, and installed the SSD into the Macbook. In subsequent attempts, I just formatted the SSD to see if the Mac would recognize it at all.Â
When the original hard disk is installed, and my Snow Leopard install DVD is in the DVD drive, during the boot, I can hold down the option key and get a boot choice of booting from the hard disk or the DVD. With either SSD installed, when holding down the option key I get no choices at all, it just sits there (it does access the DVD for a few seconds but then nothing).Â
I have another 160 GB "regular" hard disk here as well and when I install that I also get the choice to boot from the hard disk or the DVD (although booting from the hard disk does not work since it's a hard disk from a PC).Â
combination of Macbook and SSD, installing into the hard drive bay? I've seen many posts from people who have had success putting an SSD into their Macbook so I am assuiming it's possible.Â
Some more information about the Macbook:
Boot ROM Version: MB41.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.31f1Â
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I purchased my Macbook in 2008, roughly July.
My fiance unknowingly shut down my macbook in the middle of start up. Before that it was running perfectly fine, I had no issues. After my fiance stopped the start up, the macbook won't turn on. It'll load up to the grey loading screen (example here)... It doesn't make much noise as it starts up either. I have all original discs that came with the macbook, if that helps any.Â
Info:
MacBook
I was having trouble submitting an assignment on the American Military University website. After I finally submitted and verified my submission was successful, Finder popped open a window, without being prompted, with a specific part of my "private" folder showing. In the info window it showed that I had read only privleges, but that a user named "wheel" had permissions. Thing is, there is no such user. I am the sole user, and that is not my user name. I panicked, thinking I was being hacked, and moved the entire "private" folder to the trash. It was over 5 gigs. I had to input my admin password after dropping the folder in the trash. Then, my system froze. Now I can't get past the grey boot screen with apple logo and spinning wheel.
I've tried zapping PRAM. I ran disk utility from both the install disk and the startup disk for live verify. NO errors found. Still won't boot. I tried safe mode, and got a status bar below the apple logo but it vanished before filling completely and then the MacBook just continued to hang there spinning the wheel without a status bar. Tried rebooting while holding shift-command-v and got to watch as the computer tried to boot in safe mode, but I got the following messages before the darn thing just began to hang there again:Â
getaddrlinfo(): node name nor username provided, or not known
getaddrlinfo(): node name nor username provided, or not known
getaddrlinfo(): node name nor username provided, or not known
getaddrlinfo(): node name nor username provided, or not known
launch_msg(): Socket is not connected
launch_msg(): Socket is not connectedÂ
Info:
MacBook Pro 13.3", Mac OS X (10.6.6)
Today I was using my MacBook 2008 aluminum, and I ran out of battery so the system shut down the computer to save the files. I plugged in my computer to start it up but the screen turned grey for a while. I shut down my computer and turned it on and it started up to the grey login screen but it won't let me boot passed it. I have tried to get passed it in safemode but it did not work. I have tried to repair my hard drive and my permissions and reinstall osx lion but it didnt work.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.1.x)
I sure hope your day is faring better than mine...To try and make my new issue easier to follow and to save face as I feel like an idiot, permit me to explain in bullet format:
First things first: I was running 10.6.8 SL on my 2006/7 model MacBook pro 15.4 w 2 gig sdram, right now I'm running nothing. When I turn on Mac it goes to grey screen and I see a folder/?/apple symbols rapidly interchanging on screen. This occurred after trying to use TM for my first time as I deleted some items I shouldn't have. In time machine all seemed kosher until the first attempt said not enough space on hd so I decided to only click on sys folder in TM. this was where prefs and files were accidentally deleted from after all. The kicker is my Mac still functioned I just noticed my HD no longer had a name, and a few other issues were happening, but I could access and open files, go online, etc... Post time machine none of that was possible! I tried first putting SL disk in but wouldn't read it, so tried restarting w disk in drive. HUGE ERROR on my part. This is where the grey screen desc above took its place. I looked on iPhone and have followed all available suggestions but have come to realize at some point I must have in error created a firmware Pw. I tried entering it but the lock simply stays put (when I attempted one of many fixes to my problem listed online). So now I'm left not knowing if whatever happened messed w my firmware pw or if I somehow chose something diff as pw but I highly doubt that. In any case, I have all of my life locked into a useless box now and I had thought this is why I bought external and used time machine. I've come to loathe TM. it's not as simple as I had thought otherwise none of this dshould have occurred. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I reset or altogether delete firmware pw, and best way to reinstall.
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Went to turn on my Mac book pro 2011 or 2012 and it went to the grey loading screen with an apple, spinning gear and a loading bar. Once the loading bar completes my Mac book just turns off. It just keeps doing this, I tried to do a safe boot, but once it was done that it turned off and continues to do this circle of grey screen loading than turning off.
Info:
MacBook Pro
MacBook pro wont boot up. I followed steps posted on other threads:Â
1) command r
2) repaired hard disc (there were 3 errors, now all fixed)Â if I try to restart, computer still doesn't boot past the grey screen. Â
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I had been using my MBP running Snow Leopard to play movies and music through a TV/stereo and brought it with me when I moved to do the same, but now it won't start it. I kept it asleep as I brought it on the plane, then when I got to my new apartment, it was frozen. I shut it down, then tried to turn it back on but it get stuck in the grey loading screen with the Apple logo.Â
I've tried starting in safe mode (it will bring up the safe mode loading bar, then that disappears and it gets stuck on the normal gray loading screen).I've also tried resetting the SMC and NVRAM.Â
Then, I tried to start it up from a friend's OS X install disk (but it came with his MacBook from the same era, so idk if it only works for MB and not MBP), but that doesn't work either (selected it as the startup disk by holding Option when booting up, then selecting it. It then goes to what it does normally except it will turn itself off instead of gettting stuck.)Â
I don't know what else to do. I'm assuming something is seriously broken. I'm hoping it might just need a reinstall or maybe a new hard drive, which I could do if it's not too expensive.Â
Info:MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.4/2.2 GHz), Mac OS X (10.6)
My computer died last night with each application not responding. I couldn't shut down normally so I held the power button to turn it off.Â
Next morning, I tried to boot the MacBook Pro and the boot process stalled at the grey screen with the Apple Logo and spinning wheel. I let it go for an hour and there was no change on the screen. Based on Apple's desk I ran Hardware diagnostics (extended with looping disabled) and got the following errorÂ
4HDD/11/40000000: SATA (0,0) Â
The screen shot is belowÂ
I ran this again with standard testing (no looping) and standard with looping and all gave the same results.Â
Info:
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
The colorful spinning wheel has been stuck on the screen for 2 days now. I can move the cursor around but the wheel never goes away.....I don't know what to do
Info:
MacBook, iOS 5.0.1