OS X :: Cannot Boot Past White Screen / Recovery Software?
Mar 4, 2009
When I woke up this morning, I went on my macbook (which had been running overnight) and everything was running sluggish. I'd switch between programs and it would hang there for a couple seconds. So after closing all the software and it still doing that, I decided to restart. It wouldn't shut down, and eventually I had to force a hard shut down. When I turn it back on now, it won't go past the white screen. Nothing I've done will make it go anywhere. Holding down option only makes a cursor appear. I tried a tip I read about holding the power button down until the light flashes, and that hasn't helped either.
I've plugged the drive into my XP machine, and it doesn't show up in explorer, but does show up in disk utility. I installed the program TransMac that is supposed to let you access Mac formatted drives, and while the drive shows up in there, when I try to get to it, it says Error reading Mac Disk. So basically, I'm pretty sure the drive is failing. Now I need to know what I should use for recovery software. I've never had to recover a mac drive (I've been a mac convert for less than a year), and any file recovery software I have is for NTFS drives. So what software can I run on windows to recover a Mac formatted drive?
View 11 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Jun 24, 2009
I've searched this problem on google for the past hour or so and have had no luck whatsoever. I have an Ibook G4 14" and I think it's like 1.2 CPU. A while back the Ibook stopped working and left me with a grey screen and finder icon with flash quiestion mark. I searched the net for a solution for that and what came back was that I had a dead harddrive. Okay fair enough, I've just replaced the drive with the working one from my Mac Mini, i repeat the WORKING drive, I know it works. So I start up the Ibook and hear the chimes, the screen flashes black white black and then stays on white. I have reset the PRAM and eject disk works but no other key commands, I cannot boot from installer 10.4 cd (a new one I bought, not the bundled one), I can't go into target mode as I have no firewire and leaving it alone for a while doesn't help.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Mar 31, 2012
My Mac book pro will not boot past the whit apple screen.
Info:MacBookPro, iOS 5.0.1
View 1 Replies
View Related
Aug 30, 2006
At work, we have a 17" G5 iMac from back before the iSight was put in. We're an Apple shop, so we have the new iMac actually on the floor for people to try out. The old G5 this thread is addressing is up on a shelf, but we want to turn it on as a display model. We plug a temporary mouse and keyboard into it, but the machine never gets past the white Apple screen with the "I'm thinking" animation. After a minute or two, the fan turns on full blast, but the white screen remains without any signs of moving on. What is our problem?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Aug 20, 2014
Why won't my computer go past the white loading screen and how can I fix it?
Info:
iMac
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jun 11, 2007
I have an iBook G4 1.07 GHz 30 gb 256 RAM with Panther. It was working fine until my HD got close to being full. Now I can't get it to boot past the Apple screen. It will either freeze there, or move on to the blue screen and freeze before the progress bar enters. I want to re-install Panther but I can't get any CD to boot during startup by holding "C", including the Panther OS CD, the Hardware Test CD, or the Tech Tool CD. I am able to boot to single user mode, where I type fsck -fy, and I recieve no errors with the hardware. I had this issue beore and my HD had to be replaced by Apple.
View 6 Replies
View Related
May 31, 2012
My Mac mini won't move past a white screen with apple logo in the center. What should I do?
Info:
Mac mini
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jun 21, 2014
I am aware there are others threads of my problem however they date back years ago and after trying their solutions it still does not work.
After using Time Machine to restore my hard drive from a backup, I can't get past the white loading screen with apple logo after system restart during restore process. Ive gone into disk utility and repaired hard drive - it's fine. So I know this is a software glitch. I've also tried resetting SMC & PRAM (whatever those mean). No success and i cannot get past the white loading screen.
I'm running Mavericks (latest) on a late 2009 iMac
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 13, 2009
last night i changed the permissions on my macbook to stop my files being shared. now when i log in i cant get past the grey boot up screen. i was told its because of problems created from changing the permissions. i booted up holding shift and nothing happened i booted up in in verbose and it says theres no posix_spawnp("/usr/sbin/mDNSresponder", ...) over and over i booted up with cmd+s and got If you want to make modifications to the files
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw
If you wish to boot system exit. I dont want what to do here, Im afraid to start messing with it. I really need to get the files in my HD, I'm doing finals right now!!
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 24, 2010
My mac was shutting down and it took sooo long (blue screen with the spinning loader). I never experienced this, cause normally the dock would vanish and my mac would shut down instantly. But this time it kept showing a blue shutdown screen, so I decided (after about 2 minutes) to hold the power button and force a shutdown. The next time I booted the mac it showed me the gray boot screen, with the spinning wheel and a gray loading bar, which I think is indicating a firmware update or something that has to do with my forced shutdown. But the bar gets to about 1/8 and then vanishes. The spinning wheel stays, but nothing else happens. It just hangs and keeps spinning forever.
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 16, 2009
I hardly ever turn off my Macbook unless i need to - I just close it and use it whenever i need to. I let the battery run dry as Apple suggests to do every now and again, and turned it on the next day. It started to boot and took a little longer to get past the grey apple logo and loading circle and then froze on the blue screen. I can control the mouse, but every few seconds it changes to a darker blue, cursor disappears but returns after a second or two. I've tried:
- Booting into safe mode (Same thing happens)
- Booting from CD and repairing permissions (Said everything was ok, same thing happens when I booted)
- Single user mode (used some commands from an Apple page and restarted)
I can however boot into windows perfectly fine, which leads me to suspect it's a corrupt log in item. I'd like to know for sure it's not a hardware problem so I don't have to take it into an Apple Store.
View 8 Replies
View Related
Mar 5, 2010
I have one of the old blue PowerMac G3 computers, and I kept getting a kernel panic, so I reset the RAM and now when I start up the computer, it stops at the apple screen without even spinning. I've tried booting it in single user mode, and for some reason it doesn't make a difference what keys I hit while turning on the computer. It still boots to the apple screen.
View 13 Replies
View Related
Apr 1, 2012
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:
1) Intel 320 series, 160 GB
2) Crucial M4, 128 GB
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
Some more information about the Macbook:
Boot ROM Version: MB41.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.31f1
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
View 1 Replies
View Related
May 26, 2012
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:
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 connected
Info:
MacBook Pro 13.3", Mac OS X (10.6.6)
View 1 Replies
View Related
May 28, 2012
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)
View 1 Replies
View Related
May 30, 2012
I have a mirror door g4 power pc that had been having some issues with not turning on, and after testing the power supply, it failed miserably. We placed a refurbished power supply in it from a company in New York and the computer was working wonderfully. I went on a cruise last week and went to turn the computer on for the first time in a week and a few days. The CPU turns on, the unit chimes, the fan turns on and the computer starts to boot up, but it won't boot past the gray apple logo screen. Actually, the first few attempts to boot it resulted in a blue screen with gaint apple logo and spinner; it wouldn't advance further. After several restarts and resets, I got it to come up into the normal gray screen. On several attempts it wouldn't boot further than this. On two occasions now though, it has moved past the gray screen to normal operation (it takes about an hour for it to get to that point though) but with some kind of errors. I get the side bar, but the gray panel on to with "file" ect is gone and my HD icon never comes up. The icons on the sidebar do not respond when clicked. The computer will not boot from the OS X disc.
Info:
PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.8)
View 1 Replies
View Related
Nov 23, 2007
I'm trying to repair a Powermac G5 (dual 2.0, the first model I believe, with a new Radeon 9800 graphics card) that won't boot and I'm having some problems that I can't seem to diagnose.
The machine will boot to the openfirmware prompt or target disc mode and will show the 'OS not found' icon if left to boot from the HD (which has been wiped). If I try to boot from either the included restore disc or a retail 10.4 DVD I've tried it will show the boot screen with the Apple logo on it but no spinning status indicator underneath. It just freezes on that screen. Once it showed the status indicator but it just continued to spin for about 30 mins, at which point I gave up. Same issue if I try to boot the hardware test (except it freezes on the hardware test loading icon rather than the Apple icon). The superdrive appears to work as it is accessible in target disc mode.
I've reset the SMU and reset the PRAM via the keyboard shortcut. The one thing that leads me to think it's a firmware fault is that when I run the 'reset-nvram' command it gives an OK, but when I then run 'reset-all' it freezes rather than rebooting. Any ideas anyone?
Information:
Powermac G5 Dual 2GHz
View 19 Replies
View Related
Nov 24, 2010
So bare with me I want to be thorough so hopefully someone can help me out. My MBP (08) will not boot past the grey screen. The wheel just spins infinitely. I've read about it trying to figure it out.
1) I tried to boot from the install disc, when I do there are weird diagonal lines and the thing is unreadable.
2) I hooked it to my Mac Pro in target disc mode. I was able to get some of the information off, but it would eventually freeze up and freeze the finder on the Pro. It wouldn't verify the disc in disc utility. It would freeze if I tried to repair the disc.
3) It won't boot in safe mode or single user mode (CMD + S)
4) I tried removing the ram and switching it and using only one stick of ram (to make sure it wasn't a ram problem).
5) I tried to boot without the battery
Needless to say I am a bit frustrated. My applecare is long gone and there is no apple certified repair place anywhere near here. I've also noticed the thing is very hot. If nothing else I'd like to have an idea of what I should be expecting from the repair place.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Dec 30, 2010
I'm trying to resurrect an iBook (translucent white case, 14.1 LCD) that was long neglected, so not sure on its past service history. The following do NOT work: - won't boot up past the gray screen with Apple logo and spinning gear icon (just hangs) - same problem if I try to boot from install DVD ("c" or using "option" then selecting DVD) - same problem with safe boot with "shift" - reset PRAM It will connect via firewire target disk mode to another computer, and I used that to completely wipe the disk and do a clean install of 10.5. When I tried booting into single-user mode (cmd-s), it fills about 2/3 of the screen with normal-looking messages, but then hangs after this (no keyboard response): Got boot device = IOService... [various other stuff] BSD root: disk0s6, major 14, minor 5 I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions? The machine is old enough that it's probably not worth the diagnostic fee of the local Apple shop. Since I can't get it to boot, I can't even run TechTools.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Feb 6, 2008
At the tech dept we have this G4 that refuses to boot past the grey screen with the rotating wheel. The logic board has been replaced, we've removed all sticks of RAM save 1x512, we've tried a known working optical drive, replaced ribbon cables (optical cable was frayed on one end) No dice. Option booting works, but once we select the DVD we can't boot from an install PPC CD either, it just gets stuck at the grey screen. We also have a tech HD inside that the computer does not boot from either.
View 3 Replies
View Related
May 1, 2009
I recently required a Power Mac G4, and it was working fine, albeit a bit slow but I just assume that was because there's too many files on it, but that's another story. I shut it down before I left work, when I came back in the morning it was just the grey screen with the apple. I reset it, still no response. I reset the PRAM, nothing. I tried to boot in Single user mode, nothing. I tried to boot in verbose mode, nothing. I force ejected the CD and put in an OSX disk one from my laptop, asked it to force read by restarting and pressing "C" and still nothing. I am not sure if a cable inside has been jarred lose.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jun 2, 2009
My imac will not boot past the blue screen. It crashed whilst loading a new application which I downloaded from the mac website, had to force a shutdown as it wasn't responding, and now it will not boot no matter what I try. I have searched for answers on the forums but my mac will not respond to any keyboard commands even with the installation dvd inserted. I don't get the startup chime anymore either.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Jul 17, 2010
I was given a PowerBook G4 15" today. I need to fix it, but I can't find out what exactly is wrong. I've used MROOGLE and I can't find any problem quite like what I'm experiencing. In my case, the laptop will turn on, make the chime, and stay stuck on a white/grey screen. No apple, no spinning gear, no nothing. Just a blank white/grey screen. However, when I insert the Leopard DVD and hold down "C" the apple appears as well as the little spinning gear. That goes on for a few minutes. BUT, after those few minutes are up the small gear still spins, but the Apple logo is replaced with a prohibitory sign (like what you would see on a non-smoking or no parking sign) and it sticks there and sometime says that I need to re-start my computer. The same happens with the Tiger disk. Also, when I place the Leopard or Tiger disk in the SuperDrive and hold down "option" so that I can boot OS X from the DVD, I click the little continue arrow and nothing happens. I've reset everything there is to be reset, and I've opened up the computer and re-seated everything that could possibly be re-seated. RAM, HDD, all connector cables, etc. There isn't any visible physical damage inside of the computer either.
The most recent thing I've tried was to boot off of a PPC-specific Ubuntu disk. It does some stuff and lets me run the kernel, but after that the computer gets stuck on a black screen and does nothing at all. I'd really appreciate it if you all could offer some advice as to what may be wrong. All suggestions and ideas are welcome too.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jan 9, 2009
I have just finished moving my G4 Sawtooth from one house to another. I shut down my machine properly at the one house carefully moved everything over and re-attached the peripherals. Fired up the machine and was greeted promptly with the Apple boot screen and spinning thingy. Then it spun and spun and continued to spin some more. After about 10-15 minutes my desktop backgrounds appeared on the dual monitors, but then sat there like that and no finder ever appeared. After waiting about another 5 minutes, I shut off the machine by holding down the power button. I waited about 10 seconds and powered it on again. Same thing, but this time it just sits at the grey Apple boot screen with the thingy spinning forever. Then I noticed something unusual.
I could hear one, or both of the internal hard drives park the heads and spin down like it was going to sleep. I hadn't noticed that before, but presume it was doing it all along. Meanwhile the computer kept spinning away on the boot screen. I thought, great my drive has crashed and burned. So I removed it and attempted to mount it on my G5 using an external ATA-USB adapter. It mounted without a problem and I was able to see and copy all of the files. So then, I took a spare drive I had with a valid bootable OSX Leopard install and put it into the G4. Fired it up and lo and behold, the same problem. The drive spins up, the machine shows the apple boot screen and keeps spinning the thingy, then after a bit of time the drive parks the head and spins back down. I'm stumped and would like some assistance in resolving this problem. Any suggestions? Oh, and yes, I've tried reseating all cards and memory and disconnected all peripherals.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Oct 4, 2009
I am trying to reformat an iBook for a friend. Everything was running, but, there was no chime on boot. I logged into the machine, and was checking files and folders when it locked up. It actyally locked up while trying to run Microsoft Word. It now boots to a grey screen the the little "spinning" thing, and then, instead of going to the login screen, it just turns blue. It will NOT boot into Safe Mode, it will NOT boot to the iBook Install CD, I just get the same blue screen using both methods. I used Command-Option-P-R without success. I booted to Open Firmware and typed reset-nvram without success. I don't know what else to try. I am copying her files right now by booting into Target Disk mode, but, once I get that done, I still won't be able to boot the install disc to get the system wiped and reinstalled. What else can I do to correct this?
View 7 Replies
View Related
Mar 5, 2012
MacBook pro wont boot up. I followed steps posted on other threads:
1) command r
2) repaired hard disc (there were 3 errors, now all fixed) if I try to restart, computer still doesn't boot past the grey screen.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
View 6 Replies
View Related
Apr 14, 2012
I am having a major problem with my MacBook Pro and it just wont boot past the apple loading screen at all I have tryed al lot of ways to fix this and it just wont work It does not go into safe mode, it does not boot from cd, the PRAM thing wont work, verbose mode or the comand + s mode wont work I tryed clean install but it wont boot from dvd, also it will not boot in any other way It was working perfectly last night and i just shut it down and it does not work know.
My friend was also trying to install Lion from his account but the .dmg for it did not open so we quit and that night i used it for my essay and finished and then i turned it off and next day in the morning it don't work
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
View 5 Replies
View Related
Nov 23, 2007
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.............
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jan 8, 2011
My iMac won't get past grey screen, I've tried holding down c. I've tried holding cmd+s. I've reset my PRAM etc, I've put back in RAM it came with, and when I turn it on I just get grey screen, apple logo and the spinning thing! Updated it to new snow leopard OSX 10.6.6 and it has a DVD in the drive and I can't even get that out! What can I do?
View 12 Replies
View Related
Jun 3, 2010
One minute my computer was fine, the next it froze. I did a hard reboot and now it won't boot past the blue screen, but I can move my mouse. Any idea what to do?
View 8 Replies
View Related
