Apple Macbook 13.3" Laptop-Black 2008 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo will not boot up and instead I get a grey screen with a folder and a question mark over it.

My Apple Macbook 13.3" Laptop-Black 2008 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo will not boot up and instead I get a grey screen with a folder and a question mark over it.  I've tried Option key, and Control S keys and it still will not boop up.  Can anyone help?

If you are running Snow Leopard:
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
If you are running Lion or later:
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
     Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
                 if possible because it isthree times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

  • My MacBook Pro will not boot up. I just get a grey screen with a "no entry" symbol and a spinning time icon. Any ideas as to how I can get over this issue?

    Hi, I tried to start my MacBook Pro are 2 weeks and all I get is a grey screen with a grey no entry sign and a spinning timer. I have tried a reboot with shift cmd and v and it seems to be looping and referring to an external device. Only the power is attached. Can anyone provide advice on how to get past the grey screen? Many thanks.

    Does the system automatically back up data?
    No.
    As you can getto the Recovery partition, you can at least verify your disk using Disk Utility. If it reports that repairs are needed, you can try to repair but I've found that nearly 100% of the time repairing the disk inevitably FAILS. You should be prepared to, 1) buy a new drive for your machine and, 2) buy a good (see here) enclosure for your damaged drive to try to recover data.
    After you get everything fixed, use at least two backup methods to keep your data secure. See Most commonly used backup methods.
    Clinton

  • 17 MacBook Pro is not booting up. Won't get passed grey screen with Apple wheel spinning below.

    17 MacBook Pro is not booting up. Won't get passed grey screen with Apple wheel spinning below.

    You may be having a hardware problem that you cannot resolve on your own. Nevertheless...
    ...hold down the command and R keys whilst booting to try to get to your Recovery partition. If you can, use Disk Utility to try to Verify your boot drive (usually named "Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). If the verification fails, try to repair your hard drive. If everything appears to be OK, restart.
    If you can't get into your Recovery partition, your problem is likely hardware related. If so, keep your appointment and see what the Apple techs have to say.
    Clinton

  • My MacBook Pro will not start up.  I only get a grey screen with the spinning wheel.  No blue page appears and the grey screen remains.  Tried starting with the Shift key but ineffective as well.

    Can't get my MacBook Pro to start up.  Have shut it down several times and tried restarting but all I get is a grey screen with the spinning icon.  Apple Support online suggested starting with power button followed immediately with the shift key.  Same results.  Also tried power button with shift key, command, and V.  Black screen appeared instead with lots of data language but still no starting.  This final page was suppose to result in an internal system check and restart but nothing happened and the black screen remains.Where do I go from here?  Scheduled for the Genius Bar tomorrow but would like to resolve this beforehand.

    You may be having a hardware problem that you cannot resolve on your own. Nevertheless...
    ...hold down the command and R keys whilst booting to try to get to your Recovery partition. If you can, use Disk Utility to try to Verify your boot drive (usually named "Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). If the verification fails, try to repair your hard drive. If everything appears to be OK, restart.
    If you can't get into your Recovery partition, your problem is likely hardware related. If so, keep your appointment and see what the Apple techs have to say.
    Clinton

  • Macbook Pro intel core duo, will not boot to anything.

    Greetings, I am currently having issues with my MacBook Pro.  I get the flashing folder with the ?, but I can't boot to any of the startup utilities.  I have tried all that I have read about on other posts, such as, trying to boot with the C key held down (it just gets to the folder ?), booting to disk utility didn't work ( held down keys and it went to the folder ?), I also tried getting to the hardware test, by holding D and having the applications disk in.  And still everything I try gets me to the flashing folder ?.  Also I do have the CD's that came with the laptop and tried to install from the mas os install CD and still get to the flashing folder ?.  The reason it started doing this was because of this......  I had boot camp installed and was running dual boot with windows 7, then I had deleted the mac osx on the drive so I would only be using windows 7.  I wanted to reformat the drive after this, but had a hard time finding out a way to actually do this, as the MacBook unlike PC's, doesn't have any BIOS, and at that time didn't know all the key commands to use at startup.  So I downloaded a program from the net that can run at windows start and delete the HD before the computer fully boots windows 7.  So after I deleted the HD I could not install any program or start any of the mac utilities at startup, and I did the PRAM reset, still everything that I try it gets me to the flashing folder ?, in the end.  Could I have deleted all of the startup utilities when I wiped the HD?  If so how can I get these back on my MacBook pro if I can't get the MacBook pro to read any files or start up utilities?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    UPDATE: I found a way to download firmware, I thought that it could be the reason I get the flashing folder with ?, because maybe I somehow damaged the firmware on my computer when I did the reformat.  Alas I followed the directions to re-install the firmware and still I get to the same flashing folder.  I used FirmwareRestorationCD1.4  I think it is the one I needed for my model, MacBook Pro 15"  intel core 2 duo, and comes with osx 10.5 leopard I think, the OSX CD is stamped 2008 for 15" MacBook Pro.  I can't check the properties of my MacBook because it has no programs on it, but this is what I think it is from memory and deduction.  Well now I guess I have to ask the question, is the firmware the programs installed such as disk utility, and recovery mode?  I need to read more I guess, and also I thought I needed to take the 1.4 off the end of the FirmwareRestorationCD in order for it to work, but the instructions for making and using the firmware CD is a bit vague.  Another factor in this to make things more difficult, is that this computer is my second computer and it's a PC laptop, so I used a program download from the net to write .dmg files to disk, it's called Transmac, could this be another fault in my creation of the CD?  I am out of ideas again as to what I need to do to get mac OSX back on my computer,  I am still a bit new to the way macs work, so I could definatley use some advice.  thanks.

  • My MacBook has a grey screen with a folder and a question mark in the middle what does this mean?

    My MacBook has a grey screen with a folder and a question mark in the middle what does this mean?

    It means a valid system cannot be found. You need to reinstall OS X.
    If you have Snow Leopard:
    Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
    1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
    If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
    Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
    If you have Lion or later:
    Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    Repair
    When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
    Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
    OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
    OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
    OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
         Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
                     if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

  • Macbook Air - White/Grey Screen with a folder and a question mark

    Out of the blue , my macbook air stopped starting up and strted to show me a white/grey screen with nothing but a folder and a question mark . After searching on the internet for solutions and trying to reset my PRAM setting , it still wouldn't boot up . I opened up disk utility and going through internet recovery , I ran the first aid verification on my MAC OS X Base System and it said that it found no problems . I can't restore or erase by the way and i really wouldn't erase my files as I have very important files on my mac . Moving on , I tried to reinstall OS X , but apperently it needs a disk to install OS x on and since none appear , I tried using an USB . After creating a partition and erasing everything on my USB , not happy about that  , it wasn't big enough for the OS . So now I am basically stuck in the mac white screen Limbo .
    Any sort of help would be fantastic and please do keep in mind that this is a macbook air and I do not have a place to put DVDs into . All I have read on different forum pages didn't help so i decided that it would be a good idea to create my very own thread . I am not very sure about the Mountain Lion version ,but I am not very sure that it matters .

    Out of the blue , my macbook air stopped starting up and strted to show me a white/grey screen with nothing but a folder and a question mark . After searching on the internet for solutions and trying to reset my PRAM setting , it still wouldn't boot up . I opened up disk utility and going through internet recovery , I ran the first aid verification on my MAC OS X Base System and it said that it found no problems . I can't restore or erase by the way and i really wouldn't erase my files as I have very important files on my mac . Moving on , I tried to reinstall OS X , but apperently it needs a disk to install OS x on and since none appear , I tried using an USB . After creating a partition and erasing everything on my USB , not happy about that  , it wasn't big enough for the OS . So now I am basically stuck in the mac white screen Limbo .
    Any sort of help would be fantastic and please do keep in mind that this is a macbook air and I do not have a place to put DVDs into . All I have read on different forum pages didn't help so i decided that it would be a good idea to create my very own thread . I am not very sure about the Mountain Lion version ,but I am not very sure that it matters .

  • I just did a software update from Apple for my Mac Book Pro and it crashed severely. Now it will not boot-up. I had the fading down screen with a message saying to hold down the on Button to reboot but it will not, it starts up with the same massage.

    It also comes up with some and more of the info below, whatever it means?
    Panic CPU 0 <Panic>
    Unable to find perform kext scan:
    Debugger called <Panic>
    Can’t perform kext scan:
    SD process name corresponding to correct thread
    MAC OS Version:
    Not yet set.
    What do I do, can anyone help me?
    I also updated a Mac Mini and iMac with no problems.

    unfortunatly i had no Backups.
    You should make sure to correct that as soon as possible.  All computers, regardless of make and model, are ticking time bombs.  Hard drives can die at any time, leaving you with an inert chunk of metal that may still contain your data, but in a form that is totally inaccessible without paying thousands to a company that will disassemble the drive in a clean room and read what data they can off the platters.
    I wonder why should that happen. It was a simple update. Why should an update ruins all my works and my computer...
    It is not the update itself, but the fact that you had corruption in your hard drive's data structures, and writing the thousands of files required by the updater worsened that corruption, damaging the system in the process.  These problems can be avoided by repairing your hard drive with Disk Utility prior to installing any system update.  Most likely, Disk Utility won't find anything to fix, but when it does, you'll be glad you did it before installing the update!

  • When I turn on my MacBook Pro I get a grey screen with a folder icon and a question mark. I can't the computer to boot up.

    What do I do when I power up the computer and get a grey screen with a folder icon and a question mark?

    vickyfromosseo wrote:
    What do I do when I power up the computer and get a grey screen with a folder icon and a question mark?
    Read this: A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac

  • My macbook pro will not boot. It gets the grey screen with the apple until the bar is half way across and then shuts down. The only screen I can get to is in safe mode and I don't know what to do with that

    my macbook pro will not boot. It gets the grey screen with the apple until the bar is half way across and then shuts down. The only screen I can get to is in safe mode and I don't know what to do with that

    Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

  • My MacBook Core 2 Duo will not boot up.  In safe mode I see keychain problems and Mach 1102.

    My MacBook Core 2 Duo will not boot up.  In safe mode I see keychain problems and Mach 1102 and it keeps circling through the same error.  Also the screen is so faint (pressing the F1 and F2 keys don't do anything).   I got this from a friend and he didn't have any of the original discs.  Any suggestions?  From what I've read it's a problem with a recent update.  I've never had a Mac so I'm trying to learn and fix it. 

    I just had an issue like this. I was able to boot up with an external firewire drive, although it was a lot of trouble. I think doing an option boot finally worked; holding down the option key, I eventually got to see the firewire drive was bootable, and booted from it.
    I put the thing in verbose boot mode (command - v , I think; but please look it up. I have no Mac books at work to check). In verbose mode, you could see that the hard drive could not mount; the OS tried to do fsck, but it failed around 2/3 of the way, and the CPU was halted.
    I was occasionally able to boot normally, but never in safe or single user modes; these do a disk test first, which invariably failed.
    I could see from the system and console logs when I managed to get the firewire boot going that there were repeated errors trying to access drive s03, the internal SATA drive. The logs on the SATA drive showed huges numbers of errors. At a wild guess, for some reason a lot of sectors went bad all at once. There had been a some erratic behavior before, but I'd put that down to the single processor G5 problems. (these were non video related, just freezes).
    Applecare wanted me to carry the huge thing into the local Apple store, but I persuaded them to just send me a replacment hard drive, which they did. The new one works perfectly.
    PowerMac G5 1.8 SP (late 2004), 1.42 mhz 14 iBook   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   both with 1.5 GB Ram

  • My macbook is stuck on a grey screen with language select and every time i click english it brings me back to the same gray page what do i do?

    My macbook Pro is stuck on a grey screen with language select and every time i click english it brings me back to the same gray page with language select what do i do? Also i dont have enough monet to go to the apple store to get it fix and another thing this happen after i tried to factory reset it without the disck uising coomans i found on youtube.Lastly befor doing the comands my macbook would open any applications and the finder would just blink on and off on the dock.
    Heres the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5e5thk0O9o

    Shut down your computer and disconnect all peripherals (keyboard & mouse if pertinent) from your computer.  Now reboot.
    If the Mac starts up normally, shut it down again and then plug in one of the peripherals (keyboard or mouse first) and start up your computer again.  If it does so successfully repeat the process, adding one peripheral at a time until your Mac acts up.  At that point, disconnect the last peripheral you added, reboot your Mac and search the peripheral vendor's website for an updated driver. 
    If no driver exists or the problem remain after installing the new driver, try a different cable or a different port on your Mac.
    If none of the above works, again disconnect all peripherals from your Mac, hold down the "shift" key to start up in "Safe Boot" mode. 
    If the Mac starts up correctly, restart without pressing the "shift" key.
    If your computer still does not start up properly, shut it down and restart it while holding down the Apple+Option-P-R keys; keep holding "all 4 keys" down until you hear the startup sound "twice."
    If none of the above work Disconnect all peripherals from your computer. Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
    Select your language.
    Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
    Select Disk Utility.
    Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
    Click Repair Disk.
    (If Disk Utility cannot repair, you will need a stronger utility (3rd party) - Diskwarrior or Techtool PRO)
    Restart your computer when done.
    Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751 and restart your computer.
    Remove any 3rd party ram.
    Reinstall Leopard - This will install a "fresh" copy Leopard without archiving old system files but leaves the rest of your files in place.
    If you still want to restore your computer to factory level...
    Start up from your install disc, go to Disk Utility and select the disk and click erase - to securely erase data click Security Options and Erase Free Space which will entirely wipe your disk, overwriting it with zeros so that no data is recoverable.
    To restore read the instructions in the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard - Installation and Setup Guide  PDF

  • MacBook Pro won't boot at start.  I get a white screen with a blinking folder with a question mark in the middle. Any ideas?

    MacBook Pro won't boot at start.  I get a white screen with a blinking folder with a question mark in the middle. Any ideas?

    Read this article...
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  • Can the monitor be fixed on an iMac if it goes black (2006 17-inch, intel core duo)?

    Can the monitor be fixed on an iMac if it goes black (2006 17-inch, intel core duo)?

    Apple consider this product vintage so they won't perform any hardware service on it. You may have to look towards 3rd parties.

  • Since my macbook pro is an intel core duo but not a core 2 duo, I cannot upgrade to Yosemite.  So... what OS X can I upgrade to with this computer?

    Since my macbook pro is an intel core duo but not a core 2 duo, I cannot upgrade to Yosemite.  So... what OS X can I upgrade to with this computer? Thanks for the input.

    Intel Core Duo is a 32-bit processor, so the latest Mac OS X version you can install is Mac OS X Snow Leopard -> http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
    You are running Mac OS X 10.6.8, so you are already running the most recent Mac OS X version for your computer.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Populating a ComboBox from DB query

    Hello – I have created a ComboBox to allow users to choose a category as a filter for a products catalog. The list of categories is returned by one of the functions of a ColdFusion CFC I'm using in the app; it has been tested and examined in the debu

  • Consolidation for SAP BPC

    HI Gurus, I have gone through the documentation provided by SAP  for  SAP BPC Admin document which  just talks about the various business rules available for consolidation. Can someone o explain in brief the sequence  steps that one needs to follow f

  • Can I run OS X 10.6 on the latest Mac Mini?

    I am in the middle of a Digidesign Protools ver. 8.05 audio project running on a  Mac Mini (2007 vintage) and it has become less than reliable (Combo drive has died, sometimes no 'chimes' and just grey screen... doesn't boot). I am looking to replace

  • My iTunes freezes and crashes whenever I try to burn a CD

    It hits about a quarter way through the progress bar for preparing the playlist to be burned, and then iTunes freezes and quits every single time. Help?

  • Xbench 1.2 result... slow HD Random write and read

    Hello, I ran xbench 1.2 on my MBP 2.0/7200RPM HD, and have the following slow read and write. Do you think this is normal? uncached write 0.71MB/sec [4k blocks] uncached read 0.56MB/sec [4k blocks] ???