Boots to Apple logo, then grey screen for eternity

There's a glimmer of life, so I'm hoping that this computer can be salvaged. This is a first generation Macbook Pro, so it's getting on in age. However, I haven't heard any physical symptoms of failure (hard drive and fans sound like they're fine), so I'm hoping there's something I can do here. What happens with various boot methods:
OS X, normal: I get the Apple logo, then it goes back to a plain grey screen. I can leave the computer sit for hours, and it'll get warm like it's trying to do something yet never goes anywhere
Windows XP normal (boot camp): the images below tell the whole story there. Can the lines or codes be used to diagnose the problem? The ati2dvag error (plus the way the screen looks) makes me think video issues?
Windows XP safe mode: gets stuck loading one particular file.
OS X, safe: I CAN boot this way! I can complete a "repair permissions" task; verifying disk comes up saying that everyething is okay.
Is there anything I can do while I'm in Safe Boot that will let me help try to diagnose this problem? The first time it happened, I tried an SMC reset and was able to get back into to OS X normally. But the problem has returned, and numerous attempts at an SMC reset have proved useless. Thank you for your help!

Take the machine in for service. Nothing we can do.

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On my macbook pro 2011 the laptop boots past apple logo then the screen goes grey i think my graphics chip may be broken ?

The reason i think the graphics chip may be broken is because it worked right up until i disabled automatic graphics switching forcing it to use the dedicated graphics. I have tried resetting the PRam and the Power Management but nothing work and im well out of warrenty so this is likely to cost me a fortune at the apple store :S. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jordan

I don't know the policy in the UK? (just a guess from the lingo) In the U.S. Apple has a flat repair rate. had a 15' lodgic board replaced (twice, first was bad) Hard drive,led back lighting, and the keyboard for $330.00. It s my kids and I did not want to spend the $$$$ if I could avoid it. It also cme with a 90 day warranty. You might want to check if something like that is aavailable to you as well. By the by the MBP was a 2008 and after the repairs ahs been flawless. Cretainly would not hurt to check, unless you have wagons of quid to toss around.

Computer boots with Apple logo then goes black

So my MacBook Pro boots up withe the Apple logo then goes black as if the it is set on the lowest dim setting, you can just barely make out the icons on the screen so it is booting into the log on screen. I tried brightness, I tried holding down shift, you get a flash of blue then goes black. I tried the startup disk it starts up and goes black, you can just make out the outline of the language selection on the startup disk.
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1. Try doing a Parameter RAM reset - hold down apple/option/p/r keys at start up and wait for three chimes before releasing the keys.
2. Boot holding down Apple/S and don't let go until you see scrolling text.
When that stops and you see a root#: prompt enter
fsck -fy
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If it fails first time, at any time, or finds and fixes a fault - run the command again and keep doing so (some fixes can take several passes) until it says "Appears to be OK" then enter
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My mac book pro does not start properly. It goes past logo then grey screen I cannot access my

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See if you can run an Apple Hardware Test:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257
Note an error free AHT is not definitive.
If addition to the possibility of a RAM problem, the vertical stripes on the blue screen is not a good sign.
Ciao.

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I was browsing Youtube when the entire Macbook Pro (2009) froze up. After a couple of minutes, I forced a shut down and now when I try starting it back up it just displays the apple logo against the grey backdrop with the loading circle just going around and around.
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That's called a Gray Screen issue and it could be caused by multiple factors.
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Yesterday the computer started to boot up as usual with the 'boot chord', Apple logo, then the screen went black, and started over again. This time it successfully booted and ran normally for the rest of the day. This morning, it never gets beyond the boot process; i.e. start chord, Apple logo for several minutes, then black screen and the whole process repeats over and over again. Front panel status LED is on and steady. I tried 5 different boot disks (internal HD, two external SuperDuper clones, a DiskWarrior DVD and the OSX 10.6 install disk and the results were the same. It is still under extended warranty, but I can't afford the downtime for Apple to repair it. Any idea what might be wrong? Any thing else I might try to get it going again?

Hopefully the Time Machine backup is intact and the computer will continue to work with it connected (requires a 3rd party eSATA RAID controller card). Assuming all the hardware works, I am unclear how best to restore the app's from the TM backup.
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Macbook Pro (2011) froze while working, forced shut down, now won't turn on. Grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel for hours. Help?

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If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, and it's not already backed up, 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, you can skip this step.
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2. 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.
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Mac won't boot, Grey bar appearing at the bottom of Apple Logo then shuts down

Hi,
I'm using a Late-2011 Macbook Pro and it is running on OS X Mavericks. One day, my laptop just shut itself down and when I turn it on, it won't boot. It just gives me a grey progress bar under the apple logo then shuts down. I tried accessing the DU and tried verifying and repairing the disk but I am unable to copy my files to another drive. It gives me an input/output error. I am not very tech savvy and I badly need my files. Please help!
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My mackbook pro suddenly freezed and when I swiched off and on again, a grey screen appeared with an apple logo then a loading circle underneath, and after a few hours, a blue screen appeared. What shall I do with this?

What operating system version, and do you have any backups of your data off the machine? TimeMachine? Option Key bootable clones? Storage? DVD's?
A reinstall of the operating system may be in order as a last resort, so if any of these steps on these links get you into the machine, make sure to backup your personal data (Music, Pictures, Documents, Movies) off the machine to a non-encrypted powered external drive regular storage drive (not TimeMachine as it might be corrupted too) and disconnect as soon as possible.
Good Luck and report back all what you tried.
Also report what change occured before this tragedy happened, was there a Software Update? A EFI firmware update? Etc.
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS3148
more:
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8963.html
To boot off the 10.6 install disk, hold c or option key while the disk is in the machine.
To boot into 10.7 Recvoery mode, hold the command and r keys down while booting.
To use Safe mode, hold down the Shift Key while booting.
Other assistance
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
https://support.apple.com/kb/ht1782
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

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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

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Mac Pro 3,1 Stuck on Grey screen for 1 min during boot

I have a Late 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 and have started experiencing a very slow boot up. The computer gets stuck for over a minute on the initial gray screen after the first boot chime. Once the apple logo finally appears the boot goes normally. Once running it seems OK. The shut down seems normal with a grey screen for a few seconds with the "clock" logo.
Symptom:
After the chime I see a blank gray screen for in excess of 1 minute, it used to last only a couple of seconds.
Once the dark grey Apple logo appears the boot goes at normal speed
I have a number of different hard drives with older systems and booting from each of then gives the problem - so it does not seem to be system/disc related
Two partitions (Mavericks and ML) are on SSD's installed on a Sonnet PCIe Card and showed the same problem as the spinning hard discs.
I tried: (following a trawl of the bb's etc)
I repaired permissions and repaired all discs for all my boot partitions (10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9) using the appropriate Disc Utility
Zapping the Pram - this was very strange as I had to keep the cmd alt P R held down for around a minute before the second chime occurred, the time of the grey screen stays stuck
Resetting the SMC
Booting in Verbose Safe Mode: Again I had to hold the Alt V down for a minute on the gray screen before the screen went black and the text appeared
I looked on the console log but could see nothing obvious, additionally from the verbose safe mode boot the text log seems to start from when the grey screen disappears. The time stamps show the boot finishing in well under the minute I wait.
Any suggestions you may have are very welcome.
Regards
Dave

Thanks The Hatter for that information. The blank gray screen is now lasting 3 mins before the Apple appears. When I restarted the system log is as below. As you can see there is just over a three minute gap between the shut down and the boot, indicating to me that it is not something in the system software after the boot but a problem at the very start. It does look like it could be something to do with the hardware as you suggest. I have verified all the discs with the disc utility and they report as OK and their SMART status is also OK. I have disconnected the external drives with no change so I will now have to do a thorough check and systematically remove the internal ones but that will have to wait for the weekend.
I have Mavericks on the Samsung 840 Pro and ML on a Crucial SSD (Crucial_CT240M500SSD1 Media) on a PCIe card. The Mavericks install I think was an upgrade, not a clean install done quite a while ago. I only noticed the problem this week when I re-booted in an ML to run some software not compatible with Mavericks. I have made a system back up as a precaution to an external disc just in case my main drive is dying!
There are some firmware updates for both the SSD discs that I have not applied these yet but I will leave them out of the mix until I have tried simplifying my configuration with a single disc.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local shutdown[952]: reboot by _spotlight:
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext loading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext unloading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local shutdown[952]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1429650566 934799
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext autounloading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kernel requests now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local Mediatap[297]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection interrupted
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local Mediatap[297]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection invalid
Apr 21 22:13:02 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1429650782 0
Apr 21 22:13:04 localhost syslogd[18]: Configuration Notice:
ASL Module "com.apple.appstore" claims selected messages.
Those messages may not appear in standard system log files or in the ASL database.
Apr 21 22:13:04 localhost syslogd[18]: Configuration Notice:
ASL Module "com.apple.authd" sharing output destination "/var/log/system.log" with ASL Module "com.apple.asl".
Output parameters from ASL Module "com.apple.asl" override any specified in ASL Module "com.apple.authd".

My G4 Apple PowerBook will not boot further than pale blue/grey screen displaying "flashing file symbol / flashing ?"

My G4 Apple PowerBook will not boot further than pale blue/grey screen displaying "flashing file symbol / flashing ?"
Last previous action: Used Firewire cable and "Target Mode" to copy files from G4 eMac to the PowerBook.
I worked from the eMac to the PowerBook, making the PowerBook the "Target". Files seemed to transfer OK. Won't boot from InstallDisc. Holding down T on startup results in Target mode screen. I have a G4 iMac and a G4 eMac. Can I use either of these with Firewire cable to boot-up my PowerBook ?
I'm new to using this Communities & Forums Help. Can someone please help me to get going again ! ! Thanks for your time. Graflood

Hello,
It sounds to me like the PowerBook is stuck in target disk mode.
It's expecting the iMac/eMac to be there when booting. Seeming it's not attached, it will show a flashing folder.
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Boots to Apple logo, then grey screen for eternity

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