Blue screen and spin wheel on start up

Right, typing this on iPhone and was a nightmare
To find the place to per this....
This morning went to turn on 17 inch 2009 mbp and stays on blue screen with spinner Jen flocks and refreshes blue screen and spinner every 10 seconds... Managed to restart in safe mode with disc.... Went to repair disk permissions and in red gives me the following: "error: the underlying task reported failure on. It."
Right someone tell me what is going on and instructions how to fix this and recover my data please.... I'll be checking From iPhone and hopefully typing to minimum please.
Many thanks

Update: when I click on either the repair or verify buttons after selecting the hard disk in utility it fives the red error message as describes above, however, when I click the verify icon at very top left it takes a minute to verify then reports in green "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK". ... Don't know if that helps anyone with a diagnosis?
I'll look forward to any sort of help anyone can supply, thanks!

Similar Messages

  • Blue screen and spinning wheel at startup

    I had permission problems (locked time machine drive) so I did a full time machine restore.
    Did the restart after the restore.
    Machine won't reboot.
    I get 'bong', apple logo on grey screen as per normal.
    Then blue screen and spinning wheel for approx 7 seconds
    Then blue screen and black pointer for approx 2 seconds
    The blue screen spinning wheel / black pointer repeats.
    Also can't start up from Snow Leopard DVD.
    I get exactly the same scenario.
    I have held down the power key at got the tone.
    Still won't start.
    HELP!!!!!
    It's an Imac (white one) 1.8Gig Dual with 1.5 gig of ram.
    Running Snow leopard.
    I can see my disc over the ethernet; it is still there as it was sharing with my other machine.
    Not sure if this helps me at all?
    Cheers

    Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
    Do the following:
    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 the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.
    If you cannot boot from your installer DVD on the iMac, then you can try connecting to your other computer via Firewire cable and use Target Disk Mode to boot and install from the other computer - Transferring files between two computers using FireWire

  • Blue screen and spinning wheel at shutdown

    since a few weeks my Mac mini won't shut down properly.
    The blue screen with the spinning wheel does not go away.
    Once I left the Mac on over night while shutting it down. In the morning there still was a blue screen and spinning wheel.
    This happens not every time but more and more often.
    I repaired the rights und checked the volume with the harddrive-tool (don't know the english name of that tool). No change.

    Since last Friday (3/18), the exact same thing has been happening to me on a Mac mini (2010), only every time. I have searched and search since then and have not found a resolution online.
    I have zapped the pram/vram, repaired permissions and verified disk in Disk Utility. I uninstalled the ONLY app that I added before the problem.....still no success.
    When I boot up in Safe Mode, I can restart/shutdown. So at least it may not be a hardware issue.
    Any ideas would be MUCH appreciated!
    Message was edited by: peteranton

  • Mac won't boot, starts with white apple screen and spinning wheel. Also has grey loading bar which disappears after loaded then stays at white apple screen.

    Mac won't boot, starts with white apple screen and spinning wheel. Also has grey loading bar which disappears after loaded then stays at white apple screen.

    Hi cybertoof,
    Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
    It sounds like you're seeing a startup issue with your Mac, it's booting to a gray screen with an Apple logo. Try the suggestions in the article linked below, they will resolve most issues related to starting up your Mac.
    Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
    I hope this helps.
    -Jason

  • Macbook Pro 10.6.8 won't shut down. Blue screen with spinning wheel.

    it's an 15 inch macbook pro. since I bought this computer was working fine about last year. Somehow, start of this year, the problem begins. Everytime when i opened microsoft word 2011 on mac or Photoshop cs5, and quit the software as normaly. When i try to shut down the blue screen with spinning wheel apears. this spining wheel is endless. But funny thing is that after use other software such as games, web browser (safari) etc. and quit them. when i shut down there was not a problem. only word 2011 for mac and adobe photoshop cs5. Any solutions?

    Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
    ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
    ☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
    Step 1
    Select "system.log" from the file list. Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes) in the search box. Note the timestamps of those log messages, which refer to the times when the system was booted. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the last boot time when you had the problem. Post the messages logged during the time something abnormal was happening. That time might be before or after the boot.
    For example, if the problem is a slow startup taking three minutes, post the messages timestamped within three minutes after the boot time, not before. If the problem is a system crash or freeze, post the messages from before the boot time, when the system was about to crash or was failing to shut down. In either case, please include the BOOT_TIME message at the beginning or the end of the log extract.
    Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.
    If the log doesn't go back far enough in time, scroll down in the Console file list to /private/var/log/system.log.0.bz2. Search that archived log, and if necessary the older ones below it, for the same information.
    Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
    Step 2
    Do the same with kernel.log.
    Step 3
    Still in Console, look under System Diagnostic Reports for crash or panic logs, and post the most recent one, if any. In the interest of privacy, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

  • Mac Air locks on startup with grey apple screen and spinning wheel

    when I start my MacBook Air all I get is the grey screen with the Apple and the spinning wheel. This screen does not change. Ive shutdown and allowed to charge overnite with no success. Does anyone have any suggestions?

      Grey Screen and spinning wheel at startup
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11044
    Repair Disk
    Steps 2 through 8
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
    Reinstall OS X
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10763?viewlocale=en_US

  • Imac has white screen and spinning wheel and will not boot up---after lion install

    imac has white screen and spinning wheel and will not boot up---after lion install

    Please read Gray screen appears during startup.

  • Why do I perpetually see a grey screen and spinning wheel?

    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.
    (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.
    Can anyone help me as to what could be done? I appreciate everyone's answer in advance. Thank you.

    Thanks to anyone who read this. I solved the problem in a convoluted manner. It appears as is if the hard disk had some issues and I ended up formatting and re-installing the O/S. Thankfully I had a back up that wasn't too long ago.
    Cheers.

  • Macbook powers up, but remains at blue screen with spinning wheel

    I've had my macbook for about a year and a half now. Today I noticed it was running extremely slow every once in a while. I also noticed a faint beep while using the laptop. I decided to turn the computer off for a little bit and and then started it back up. When I did this, the usual blue screen came up, but with a blinking file folder icon instead of the usual apple icon. I tried restarting it since then, and it just displays the spinning wheel upon start up and nothing else. Any advice?

    Welcome to Apple Discussions!
    See first if your Mac is under a return/exchange program:
    http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/
    If not, attempt to reset the PRAM:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
    and SMC:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
    If none of these help, is your data backed up?

  • Hangs on grey screen with spinning wheel at start up

    Power Mac g4 running tiger hangs on grey screen with spinning wheel (the wheel keeps going tho!) tried resetting the PRAM, PMU, changed the little battery thing on the main board, and starting from tiger dvd and os 9 dvd, dvds just keep ejecting. also tried starting in verbose and safe modes, still the same problem.
    I can however access the hd through a network.
    any ideas
    Thanks

    The only thing I know is to buy one. Not much help here. I have a collection of OS disks I bought to go along with all the Macs I've had and still have.
    You said already that you had reset the PMU, but did you do that according to:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1939
    If not, then this may help. The PMU seems to be a miracle part of the OS. You could then plug the HD back in and a miracle will happen. I've read several threads where people kept doing this and all of sudden everything was cured. I think the last one I read, the person recommended holding in the button for at least 15 seconds and then releasing it. I just go by the Apple tech sheets.

  • Imac intel won't restart, I get gray screen and spinning wheel then shut off

    My imac intel only restart after running disk utility, otherwise I get a gray screen with apple logo and spinning wheel then after about 2min it shuts off.  this all started after a power outage.  I have tried everything that I have read online to fix this, it seems doing a clean install is last resort. Does anyone have any other options for me?

    nessman wrote:
    I have tried disconnecting the periperals, restarting in "safe boot", resetting the pram and I tried starting up in single user mode.  It will only start up if I start up from the original gray 10.4 start up disk and run "repair disk"....I get errors including "The underlying task reported failure on exit".  I then eject the disk and restart and it works fine but if I have to shut down or restart for any reason it's back to the gray screen.
    Your system profile confirms you are using OS 10.5.8.  Boot up from your OS 10.5.x install dvd.  Use the "repair disk" setting.  If you get the same error, then run Apple Hardware Test from your original system dvd.

  • My Macbook Pro shows the apple and spinning wheel at start up but won't continue startup. Any Help would be appreciated.

    My Macbook Pro shows the Apple and spinning wheel at startup but will not continue the startup. Does anybody know how to get past this, so the computer continues to startup?

    Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
    Step 1
    The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.   
    There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
         a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
    b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
    c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
    Step 2
    If the startup process stops at a blank gray screen with no Apple logo or spinning "daisy wheel," then the startup volume may be full. If you had previously seen warnings of low disk space, this is almost certainly the case. The easiest way to deal with the problem is to boot from an external drive, or else to use either of the techniques in Steps 1b and 1c to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.
    Step 3
    Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
    Step 4
    If you use a wireless keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, replace or recharge the batteries. The battery level shown in the Bluetooth menu item may not be accurate.
    Step 5
    If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
    Step 6
    Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
    Step 7
    If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
    Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
    Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
    The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
    When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 6.
    If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
    If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
    Step 8
    Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
    This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
    Step 9
    Reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
    Step 10
    Repeat Step 9, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a Time Machine or other backup.
    Step 11
    This step applies only to models that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery: all Mac Pro's and some others (not current models.) Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery, if there is one, is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a boot failure. Typically the failure will be preceded by loss of the settings for the startup disk and system clock. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
    Step 12
    If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

  • Stuck at grey screen and spinning wheel

    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?
    Vetaut

    Please carefully read Gray screen appears during startup, Apple will tell you how to trouble shoot the issue. I suspect your HD has crashed, not a big deal if you have been backing up. However if you haven't then you're probably about to learn a lesson on why backup is critical.

  • My imac has a gray screen and spinning wheel and will not start up

    my imac has a gray screen with a spinning wheel but will not start what does this mean?

    Probably a damaged or failed HD. Please read Gray screen appears during startup on how to troubleshoot and what to do.

  • My MBP 15 inch can't switch off (freeze at blue screen with spinning wheel)

    Whenever i try to "shut down" my MBP, it will freeze at the blue screen with the spinning wheel (that keeps spinning like 'eternally')! Any idea how to solve the problem?
    I tried booting from the installation disk and repairing disk with "disk utility" but to no avail. Have also tried repairing disk permissions... Any idea how else should i tackle this problem?
    Currently i can only switch off my MBP by holding the power button (forcing it to shut down)...
    Please help Thanks!

    Launch the Console application by entering the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search, and select "system.log" from the file list. Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes) in the search box. Note the times of the log messages referring to boot times. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the time of the most recent boot when you had the problem. Look for error messages in the minutes before that time, and post them here -- the text, please, not a screenshot. Edit out excessive repeats, if any. Do the same with kernel.log.
    If the logs don't go back far enough in time, scroll down in the Console file list to /private/var/log/system.log.0.bz2 and /private/var/log/kernel.log.0.bz2. Search those archived logs, and if necessary the older ones below them, for the same information.
    Also in Console, look under System Diagnostic Reports for crash or panic logs, and post the most recent one, if any. For privacy’s sake, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if present (it may not be.) Please do not post shutdownStall or hang logs -- they're very long and not helpful.

Maybe you are looking for