I have an old Macintosh II that someone gave me. It powers on but when it gets to the gray screen right upon startup, it hangs there and never shows the "?" Anyone knows why it does this? What can I do about it? Thanks.
Macbook Air, Rev A. Worked like a charm for 1.5 years.Upgraded to a Rev c SSD and gave the Rev A to the wife.She installed NOTHING.Within a few weeks it started running VERY slow. I'm talking 2 minutes of beach ball per click.I use Disk Utility to check the drive. No problems of any kind.
Rebooting would take -- and I'm not exaggerating -- over an hour. First it would sit with a grey screen for 5 minutes. Then with an apple logo for 10 more. Then with the little spinning circle for 30. Then the desktop background would show up and sit for 20 minutes, etc.
Was gonna upgrade to Snow Leopard so what the heck, backed it all up and installed Snow Leopard. To my surprise, it instaled Snow Leopard on top of the old OS -- it kept all the files around so no need to restore from backup.
Speed problem SOLVED!Then a few weeks later the same problems.This time I check the drive AND run the hardware test. No problems.I ERASED the entire drive. I installed Snow Leopard.All is good for a few weeks.Then the problem came back a 3rd time.
I go to reinstall a 3rd time and Snow Leopard doesn't even acknowledge that there's a hard drive in the machine! And when I look in system profiler it says there's no drive of any sort. Yet it will reboot and run... just VERRRRRYYYY slowly.
I'm ready to replace the drive with a Runcore SSD or some such other device but I want to be sure the problem is the drive and not some other aspect of the hardware (motherboard, RAM, etc.)Anyone ever seen this? Anyone have any ideas as to how to investigate, solve, conquer, save myself from madness??
A friend of mine has a black MacBook and it stopped working. When I switch it on there is just a grey screen with the Apple "doing" but then nothing happens. I tried some key combination to reset the NVRAM but it didn't help. The MB was purchased around 2 years ago with the Apple Care extension of + 2 years so it still should be covered by Apple Care. My questions concerns the Apple Care since I don't know how it works: - my friend says that he just bought the Apple Care extension when he ordered the MB and that"s all. Does it need to be somehow "activated" so that the MB is covered ? He has the Apple Care box but he never opened it. - Does he need the MB order bill to make Apple Care work ? - The MB was purchased in France but he's now in Germany. Can we just bring it to a Apple store here?
I have the 2.53ghz with 4gigz of Ram MacMini from Xmas 2009.A few of you know that I had been trying out different SSD's before finally jumping on with OWC 60gig SSD. I've had it for about 2 months now and it works great except I've recently been having my computer freeze and the beach ball of death appears constantly when on Safari and sometimes iMovie. After shutting down the computer manually, sometimes booting up will leave me at the grey screen for minutes before i shut it down and wait maybe 30 mins before i fire it up again, which usually works 9/10 times.
I also noticed the beach ball delaying certain processes like loading Safari or a webpage. For example, I have my OWC External hooked up via FireWire800 with just my music and videos, however occasionally if im browsing thru websites or loading a program it'll cycle the external and have the beachball as if trying to load something before proceeding. It is more an annoyance than a problem.
I ran disk utility on all my drives as well as the Apple Hardware Test CD to see if maybe my Logic Board was the problem. I did the general test as well as the indepth test, both show negative signs of a problem.Can anyone shed some light on what could be the problem?Should I put the factory drive back in and take it to Apple to run their diagnostic test?Could the SSD be failing? (I could RMA it, but didn't know if its an Apple issue vs OWC)
upon startup i see a gray screen, the apple logo, and spinning gears. Then the apple logo turns into a circle with a line through it and stays that way forever. I call apple support. They got me to run disk utility by booting from install disk. Then running repair disk and repair permissions. Then boot into safe mode and computer works fine...for a few restarts then does the same thing.
Last week when starting my Mac Book Pro I was faced with a gray screen. On start up the it won't boot fully. Turn onGray Screen with apple logo - loading bar and wheelOnce fully loaded it turns itself off..I have tried control R to do a reinstall of the OS, however it won't let me complete it saying Apple account does not match (yet there is no login for this).
I was using my computer normally, it started to move slowly, so I properly shut it down. After leaving it off for a few minutes, I started it up again. However, every time I press the power button, it comes on and there is just a blank gray screen. No folder with a question mark on it, just a blank gray screen.
I have installed smartvoip app, i cant to sign in, but when i connect to my univeristy net it is working but when i come to my hostel it doesn't work, it says server timeout, try again later.
my mac book pro is giving me a blue screen, some days ago it gave me a message that the desktop has too much files how can i get it opened is there any shortcut that i can open my desktop?
I'm trying to setup my Mac Mini but get the grey screen with folder/question mark and I can't tell if the chips have been swapped. The brand is unfamiliar and my place hosted some creepy hackers while I was in the hospital. I'm still finding mysteries.
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.
Had to force quit a number of applications to shut down computer, restarted it but froze on opening. Shut down with the power button and now it won't get past Gray screen with rotating dial (thingy)...tried the safe boot option but this seemed to get stuck after identifying some issues.
I click on the hd hard drive and change the settings to no one can read or write now I had problem to open the computer as soon I start it became gray screen so I re-stall the software and as soon I back up the computer is asking me the password I type it and can't enter after keep asking me the password is wrong
i changed the name of the hard-drive for other reasons, and i guess i must have somehow erased the two which show up in the login box. And, i cannot locate the disks.
Info: MacBook Pro, Other OS, no start up disk to be found
I recently upgraded to Lion on my MacBook Pro but it didn't sit well with my compuer. It became sluggish and would take forever to load applications, pictures, music, movies, etc that only took SL a few seconds at most. I decided to downgrade back to SL so I put in my Install DVD (version 10.6.6) and tried to format the hard drive so I could start new. However it would not work with the CD, so I continued looking around online and I came under the impression that if you erase the hard drive it will allow you to start new (in my case, with SL). However now I get a gray screen with a folder with a question mark.
I do not have my files backed up through Time Machine.
My Powebook G4 12" (model A1010) during its start-up phase remains stuck on the "initial gray screen" without displaying the apple logo. However, I can access the system through the console provided by Open Firmware.Â
I would like to ask you what could be the problem and where such problem may reside (hard drives, memory, main board, etc).
IT does this every time, but when I do command and r or other such keyboard commands, it goes I the recovery pahe with no problem. Whenever I tried erasing the iMac to reset it, it said the disk was locked.
Info: iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), April 2008 model
I have a Rev A 12 inch Powerbook - 867 mHz, 640 RAM, 40 GB hard drive. The machine's always been reliable and has performed great over the years. I bought it the last week of July, 2003.
Yesterday, the Pbook was shut down, and I press the on button so it would boot up. Almost immediately, the hard drive makes a loud, whirring noise. The computer advances to the gray screen with the Apple logo, but it doesn't get past that point and the noise continues, as if it's a car engine that just won't start...
I'm going to take it to my local Apple Store in the morning, and hopefully the data, including my nearly 22 GB of music, can be saved. Any thoughts on how to get my computer working again? By the way, it's the original hard drive installed. Hopefully this is enough info to generate some ideas, I'm stumped.
I have a much loved ibook G4 14" (late 2004??). It has just died. Well, in so much as it won't boot up. The ibook either gets as far as the apple grey screen and hangs, gets to the login screen and hangs, actually loads up finder etc and hangs or none of the above. Sometimes flashing red, blue green black.
After lots of research online over the past few days I tried the following: I have tried safe mode (not working), starting the command prompt screen (single user and verbose modes), started open firmware, and tried booting from a CD. Nothing works as the boot gets so far then hangs. I have flashed the PRam, resetted the NVRam, and have stopped short of opening up the case to dismantle it!
I just really want to access the hard drive now. I have tried Target disk mode and linked the ibook (pressing T) via firewire to a PowerPC G5, but the G5 doesn't recognise the ibook. System profiler on the G5 shows the target mode connected and working fine via firewire, just the icon for the ibook/target doesnt mount on the G5 desktop so I cant access it.Currently the boot freezes within a couple of minutes.I tried the hardware test CD that came with the ibook years ago, I have also tried booting from an OSX Panther CD. I'm assuming they would be bootable.
I forgot to mention that in linking with the G5 in target mode, a disk that I put in the ibook drive appeared on the G5 desktop as an external drive, therefore I wonder why i cannot see the actual ibook drive mounted. The CD drive works as it mounted on the G5.Does the ibook have an actual PRam battery that can be replaced? Maybe this is an issue?Am I able to actually remove the hard-drive and access it as an external drive somehow?
on startup, macbook pro showed flashing gray folder with question mark, but no startup. After several retries, now shows circle with diagonal diameter, and still no startup. worked fine yesterday.
Last week or so my Mac (10.3 or 10.4, I think, was the model.) froze up while I was surfing the web. I clicked all over the place, let it sit for fifteen minutes, and came back to find nothing had changed. After shutting it off with that little button on the tower you're not supposed to use to shut it off (but it was frozen, so..) and leaving it to sit for another five or six minutes, I came back and turned it on. That's where I had issues. It only boots up to that gray screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel that means it's loading (lies. It never does. I thought it might just be slow so i left it like that for an hour; came back, still there.), and then it just stays there.
Now, I looked on the web for some suggestions and tried the stuff here: [URL] and went some other places that told me I needed some system CD that I don't have. Also, I looked on here and found someone with a similar problem (computer froze, turned it off, turned it on, got stuck on screen with apple and spinning wheel), and they told them to try something with the CD. They didn't have one either, and no one really commented after that. Does that mean I'm seriously up a creek with fixing my computer? I've left it unplugged for a few days at a time, too, just in case it needed some serious cooling down time, but nothing happened then, either. I'm not very computer savvy, but my Mac's future looks pretty bleak.
Unfortunately I bumped the switch on the power strip that my Mac Mini (1.42ghz G4, OS X 10.3) is plugged into while it was running. Now it won't boot up. All I get is the gray screen with the gray apple logo and the spinning wheel but no OSX.