I have an old PowerBook G4 that my son uses for simple stuff. One day the screen went dark gray (not powered off) and it won't boot. When I try to boot from a Tiger disk, I get what appears to be a kernel panic. I don't get any strange startup beeps
View 1 RepliesMy MacBook has suddenly gone dark. It charges fine and the battery lights show there's charge. The screen is very dark when powered up? When I turn the brightness down fully, then go to turn it up the screen lights up for a second then goes again?
View 6 Replies View RelatedI'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 RelatedAt 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 RelatedI 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 RelatedI 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.
So I've got a powerbook G4, thats 8 days past its warranty. Conveniently, it now won't turn on. It won't wont boot from CD. If I turn it on, I get a gray screen that usually just turns my computer back off, if thats not the case I get a screen that shows the finder icon and a question mark and then turns off.
All it will do is boot into open firmware mode. Currently the install disc is inside of it and I've tried booting the cd using "cd:, bxi" and "dir hd", and it can't open both. Does anyone know how to wipe the HD, and start the installer using firmware? Otherwise, I think I'll have to take out the harddrive and plug it into an external case and then wipe it.
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.
View 14 Replies View RelatedI recently have been having start up problems, when I would hit the power button I would sometimes hear a healthy startup and everything would boot up and then I just get a black screen and you can still tell it has power. I would start and restart untill it would boot. Now the only way the machine will start is if I unplug the moniter cord and plug it back in then it will start.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI dropped my mac powerbook from a couple of feet and now the backlight wont go on...everything else seems fine just really dark screen...dont know what to do...is that expensive to fix?
View 2 Replies View RelatedLet me first apologize for this being very similar to one other topic in this section. However this is exactly what is happening to my computer and no one has answered the other guys thread ( similar to my post - agentphish - posted 01-19-2007, 08:19 AM).
I have searched through 50 of 77pages in this particular forum and my eyes are bugging out. Could someone please give me advice on this matter.
First, about 1 month or so ago I started noticing that in the bottom left and right corners of my screen, about the size of a nickel, it is a lighter color than that of the rest of the screen. It is hard to notice, but I do.
Now, I have recently begun to experience a large round dark area, just slightly smaller than the diameter of a CD in the lower left hand side of my 2 year old powerbook.
It only manifests itself when the computer has either been asleep or turned off for a period of time (typically the longest for me is a few hours during the day that it may be off or at most a period of overnight while I am sleeping)
It seems as though after 5-10 minutes it goes away presumably as the pixels are "warming up" or whatever it is that pixels do.
I recently noticed a dark corner on my iBook's screen I am not exactly sure what it is It does not show up when there was a white screen from a movie playing in fullscreen Anyone have any ideas??
View 2 Replies View Relatedtrying to boot in Leopard my Mac Pro will get the the gray loading screen with the "loading circle" and just sit there forever. Than after a bit it will just stop and the whole computer can shut itself down. I just installed the 8800gt upgrade kit last week, and have had no problems at all for the past week. The only thing that changed that may be related is the 8800GT XP Driver. I installed the latest beta driver for it under XP in boot camp because it wasn't working properly with the default boot camp drivers. So I can correctly boot in the XP via boot camp, but trying to boot in Leopard it just hangs at the gray loading screen.
View 15 Replies View RelatedI posted this in the emac forum, but since it concerns the OS....thought I'd also post here. have an older emac 700 that used to work, but now when I try to boot ...after the apple screen with spinning wheel I get the gray screen of death. I have tried lots of things, including reinstalling OS from a retail purchased 10.4 dvd. THe OS install *looks* like it is working until it goes to reboot at the end, & then hangs again. I have also tried booting off a firewire drive, again, hangs. I know that there are boot cmd-v or -s options that give readouts of what's happening, but I don't know how to pause the process & whatever messages of relevance may be present near the end disappear quickly when the screen turns gray. In the process I have also zapped the pram/nvram.....& have reset the pmu button. I'm at the end of my rope, as I'm all out of things to try. As for what I was doing when the whole thing went south on me.. I was playing with a newer Belkin usb wireless adapter & trying to find the right driver. I downloaded the Zydas zd1211 driver set, but inadvertently unpacked the 10.3 version instead of the 10.4 (which is what this emac has). It went into auto reboot & that was that.....gray screen of death. Coincidental? I dunno. I just include the detail.
View 1 Replies View Relatedlast 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!!
I have an Intel Mac Mini that I use with a Viewsonic DVI LCD. My problem is that the gray boot screen doesn't ever appear. The computer starts up, but the display doesn't come on until I unplug the monitor and plug it back into the mini, then it comes on and I see the login window. Anyone have any tips for me? I've tried the cmd-opt-p-r, and resetting it via plugging in the power while holding the power button, but to no avail.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI am running Snowleopard on a 24" white imac bought in 2007. My system has been somewhat temperamental for a few weeks, crashing out on me when waking up and generating random artifacts onscreen during use. I noticed also that the hardrive recently renamed itself as "EMI Boot" when booting using the option key (although it worked fine). Now, when booting, the apple logo appears, followed by the spinning wheel and a blank gray screen. Then nothing. The same thing happens when I try to boot using a mirrored backup drive or a separate bootable drive with a different version of OSX. The imac drive will, however, launch using a MBP in terminal mode without problem. I have run Diskwarrior and fsck on the drive. No difference. I've tested the RAM using memtest in single user mode. RAM seems OK. I dont have the original installation disks, so cannot run the diagnostics.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI've googled this and looked here, and while there are many similar stories none are exactly the same as mine so I thought I'd post here. So, I was going to install the Windows 7 RC on a 2006 iMac intel Core Duo, which has a dead optical drive, so I was planning on using an external like I do for everything on this machine. After the restart to install Windows, I got a folder with a question mark, and figured that the iMac couldn't do the installation from an external drive but since it was looking for a disk got confused. I then hit the power button thinking that I'd just boot back into OS X until I found a solution, but when I hit the power again I got not even an inquisitive folder. Just a grey screen. I tried key combinations but nothing even seemed to get recognized. For example, the PRAM re-set combination did not get to a second chime, just the one chime and the grey screen. Command C did make the external drive spin (with an OS X disk in it) but nothing other then that. And Command D with the original install disk in did spin as well, but I got no further then that chime and grey screen I got every time. I don't expect miracles of course, and I want to know how to fix this. This machine is out of warrantee, and if it needs an actual hardware repair I'd rather find out what it needs and do it myself then have someone else do it. I know I can, and it is cheaper that way. And of course if there is a simple software fix I'd much prefer that.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI 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.Â
Info:
PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.8)
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.
I'd been noticing recently that my mini would periodically give me the gray screen of death when I'd boot it up, but after holding down the power to shut it down and restarting everything would be fine. I didn't think too much of it. I just moved out of my old place and into my new place and now my mini is doing it much more frequently. I just hooked it up for the first time since moving and I had to do the shut down/start up process three times before I got into OSX.
Then I shut down OSX just to try it again... same exact results. It took three restarts to be able to boot up again. Does anybody know what might cause something like this? The only thing I can think of is that maybe something is up with the RAM. I did upgrade the RAM to 2x2 gig of OWC memory a few months back, but never saw anything like this happening. When the computer is running I haven't noticed any strange issues.
My wife's macbook will turn on, it stays on the gray screen with the apple. After a while it will just shutoff. I have tried removing the battery and holding down the power button for 5secs but did not work. I also reset the pram and also did nothing.
View 1 Replies View RelatedLast 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.
I have a four year old Macbook that's not in the best of shape, but it hasn't failed me like this before.. ever.
I installed a new security update yesterday morning along with the new iTunes, and it worked alright for most of the day.
Around 10:30 or so, it just shut off.
I tried to turn it back on and was faced with the gray apple logo and the horrible spinning icon.
I've tried booting it up in safe mode, verbose mode, and even resetting the PRAM, and nothing works!
It eventually did go to a blue screen after maybe three or four hours, (I fell asleep so I'm not sure) but it still wouldn't let me do anything.
I have an issue with selecting (restart). If i choose restart after a software update, from the apple drop down, or when i select the drive in startup disk in preferences, it will boot into a gray screen with ? mark. if i choose (shut down) from apple drop down menu and then start up from the power button on the air, it boots up with no problem. I have checked with the SSD maker and i have the latest firmware I cannot use the old HD to see if it is a drive issue. Its dead.Â
Info:
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7)
My computer will not boot. Will not even get to the gray screen.
Info:
MacBook Pro
Last week my macbook pro started have gray or blue screen problem, it won't boot all the time I turn on, instead I will turn into gray or blue screen and won't do anything else, the OS is to the latest version, and if it start normally it goes blue or gray screen everytime I use final cut pro, I mainly use this mac for editing videos, I try everything like safe mode, I even format the hard drive but the problem still there...
View 5 Replies View RelatedI 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.............
I 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 RelatedMy 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