Brand new MBP will only boot to blue screen

Help!
Worked fine for about an hour or two and then completely locked up. I had to do a forced shutdown to get it to turn off.. But now it will only boot to this weird blue screen with just a cursor.
Any ideas?

Actually, for a brand new machine a clean install is not a bad idea.
The original disc images are copied in bulk. The tiniest little glitch can cause later problems. It really doesn't add that much time to the initial setup process and you can also discount it as a cause if the problem re-occurs.
You should not have to do a clean install again.

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My iMacG5 will only boot to white screen, gray apple and spinning gear. Help?

My iMacG5 will only boot to white screen, gray apple and spinning gear. Help?
Also not totally sure if it's an Intel based computer, but that's what I recall. Any way to check, since I can't get to About This Mac window?
It's running on OSX Leopard 10.5.4
First symptom = running slowly - then it kind of froze with color wheel spinning - thought a forced shut down would help - help power button til off, then white screen, gray apple and spinning gear.
Have tried...
1. Turn off the computer by choosing Shut Down from the Apple menu, or by holding the power button until the computer turns off.
2. Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
3. Wait 10 seconds.
4. Plug in the power cord while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button on the back of the computer.
5. Let go of the power button.
6. Press the power button once more to start up your iMac.
Then try booting from your install disc again.
- No change
And...
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo
appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
- The fan just got louder.
Thanks for your help.

You need to do an Erase and Install or an Archive and Install depending on whether the hard drive is OK or needs to be reformatted.
Start by booting from your Leopard DVD. The rest is just following directions.
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) 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. Now restart normally.
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. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Brand new iMac will not boot, just make's funny "bonk" sound.

I have a brand new iMac (Intel, 20-inch flat panel). Just out of the box. Ran through set-up wizard. Used firewire to transfer files from an old CRT iMac. All was good for about an hour.
Tried to empty the trash. Finder says Trash was emptied, but, if I open the Trash, the 50-odd files I just deleted are still visible! If I try to select one, its icon immediately disappears. Hmmm....
I decide it's time to restart.
Upon restart, computer will not boot.
I push the power button. I hear the startup chime as usual. Screen lights up gray. But no apple logo on the screen. There is a long pause. Screen remains gray. Computer then starts making a soft "bonk" sound every 4-5 seconds. (Kind of hard to describe the sound, just imagine clipping the very first fraction of a second of the normal Mac startup chime, and repeating it every couple seconds.) This continues indefinitely.
If someone has experienced this, or has advice, please let me know your thoughts. Feeling rather bummed. Thanks in advance!!!
iMac Intel 20-inch 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Boot from the Install Disk 1
I cannot boot at all (see my post above). The
machine just sits there with a blank gray screen.
I appreciate the article link, though. I've already
read it and it will make a great reference for the
future, provided I can get back to a place where this
iMac actually runs.
Since you're new to Macs, I'm sure you don't realize that while your iMac is sitting there with only a gray screen, you can insert/push in "Install Disc 1" - and it will be accepted. Then press and hold down the power button until iMac shuts down. After waiting a few seconds until everything has settled, press power button and immediately upon hearing the usual Mac startup tone/chime/chord hold down the "c" key until you see the spinning progress indicator below the Apple logo. It will boot to the DVD, you will be able to use (from the Utilties pull-down menu) Disk Utility to "repair" the hard drive directory, then you will be able to quit the installation process, choose Startup Disk from that same Utilities pull-down, and restart your iMac:)

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I just picked up a brand new mac mini a couple of hours ago and right from the start, it asked only for a language perference and then after that having been selected, promply went straight to the OS X Utilities screen.
I cant seem to get it out of this mode. And because I do not have an internet conncetion set up on it, I can't, for example, re-install anything or restore or...
It's basically a boat anchor right now.

Startup holing the Option key and see if the Startup Manager will allow you to select the Macintosh HD.
see > Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume
If not, then return it for either a full refund, a replacement system or help.

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I am Mac savvy and this has never happened to me. Prior to this happening, I called Apple Tech Support because I could not use their Mac Migration feature to move my info off of a G4 running 10.4.11. Tech support could not help either as wireless, ethernet and direct Firewire attempts yielded no Migration results. I finally had to pull the hard drive out of the G4 and hooked it up to the new iMac. Everything seemed to transfer except when it was done the contents of what I just copied thru Migration was nowhere to be found. That is when I started experiencing the slow-flash blue screen phenom and is where I am stuck today.
I am ready to take this thing back. In all my years I have never had a problem like this with an Apple product. Any help or insight will be appreciated.

ONE
Paul has given you good advice in that I would reinstall the OS from the supplied disks to get your computer working properly.
TWO
Then re-install your old programs (only those you really need since they are likely PowerPC, not “universal” Intel programs) from their original disks.
THREE
If you have the user data from the old drive backed up, then hopefully you can restore your user data to the new drive or buy an enclosure and access the old data as needed (which is what I did when originally migrating from a Power Mac G5 to the iMac (late 2009).
Alternatively, if step ONE is problematic and your machine is defective, you can likely return it to Apple within 14 days (or whatever the law is in your country) for a replacement or refund and purchase a new iMac just released today. Steps TWO and THREE still apply in this case.

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The present status is that my ibook g4 will no boot past the spinning wheel screen which hangs for a few minutes and then goes to the "Mac OS X" screen with the progress bar.
My first goal is to back up all of the data. I have a second IMac. Plus, I just purchased an external 500 gig hard drive just prior to when the error started. FYI the error started when I was going through the install process of the backup program supplied with the external hard drive. The program just asked me to restart the computer and that is where we are now.
The second goal of course is to fix the start-up issue. I have tried a number of the suggestions in previous posts including the following the install disk utilities to repair the disk.

I am having the exact same problem. I was just surfing the Internet this weekend and it completely froze and now it won't boot up. I no longer get a grey screen, at boot up, it goes from black to blue and then it hangs at the blue screen.
I have a TimeMachine and a Retrospect back up of my data but I can't boot to the Leopard Install CD which would let me restore my data.
I have tried just about everything, including booting in firewire target disk mode and connected to my old clamshell iBook G3. I was able to access my files, and I even reinstalled Tiger (couldn't use Leopard because it's not compatible with the G3). So there is a fresh copy of 10.4 running on my iBook G4 but it still will not boot up on its own.
No idea what to do at this point, but I would suggest not reformatting as it really didn't seem to help.

Ibook is restarting itself and will only load a blue screen

so a couple weeks ago i was having issues with my ibook and safari..safari would keep on freezing and or quit on its own..i thought my software was out of date so i went and got Tiger...when i went to install tiger i was unable to use the upgrade and the archive and install feature, thus leaving me with erase and install...so after deleting my hard drive and installing tiger i ran into more issues with my ibook...ive been trying to do software updates but half way through the download it will freeze up thus making me force quit the program and download...then my ibook would only load the blue background of the desk top but not the icon for the hard drive or any of the things on the expose..in attempting to get into disk utilities the ibook would reset itself...finally, when i tried to start up in safe mode i was only able to get to where you type in your password and no further than that...after hitting enter the password window would just open again...with all this being said..can anyone help me with this issue?i am fearing that it could be the mother board or even the hard drive but about two years ago i had my mother board replaced...so i duno whats going on

Some iBooks (like mine) had a separate disc with the Apple Hardware Test--others had it on one of the install discs but I'm not sure which one. It sounds a lot like you might have hardware issues of some kind since reinstalling the OS didn't fix the problem. I am assuming that you don't have easy access to an Apple store where someone at the genius bar could possibly help you come up with a diagnosis. Also, I am assuming you actually erased your hard drive rather than deleting it as you said in your post.
You might want to check and see which discs you do have and determine what is missing. If Apple itself did the last repair and did not return the disc, you could talk to Apple Customer Relations and explain your situation and see if they would send you a replacement disc, as it really should have been returned. If it was done by someone other than Apple, you can still probably get a replacement but there will likely be a fee. And if you do by chance have the AHT, by all means run it.
Otherwise, you will have to appeal to the more knowledgeable and experienced members of the forum for help, but I believe you will still need the original install discs. If you have another Mac, there may be some other approaches that can be tried, but I personally have not ever done this so I can't really help with that.
Good luck!

IBook will not boot - blank blue screen

I am a bit desperate and clueless. My iBook G3 500mhz OS10.3.9 will not book. When I was doing the latest update for security and QT it crashed. Now, when I start it I gets stuck on a blank blue screen. I tried to boot it from the panther 10.3 install CDs but no luck. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

maxit,
many thanks! the problem when i boot into safe mode and prompted for user name and password, it is not recognized. i keep getting a message of incorrect password and don't know how to get around it. this all started during the latest security download.
frustrating...

I have a 2005 g5 2.5 2g ram will not boot up ,blue screen with folder with finder icon question mark. have tried to boot from dvd disc by holding down ckey but all i get is apple logo and fans start running really fast.have tried hard drive in identcal g5

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had the same result on other g5 blue screen finder folder with question mark. i put the hard drive in the bottom bay of my g5 after and ran disk repair said disk ok .reparaired permissions tried hard drive in top bay again but with same result.
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My Internal HD became corrupt and it would not boot up so I installed My osx onto a new HD via usb and then inserted into my macbook pro but it wont boot up. It will only boot up if i connect via usb how can i boot it as an internal HD?

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Shootist007 wrote:
If the system won't boot from the new drive the OP bought and install OS X on it it certainly won't boot from the original drives Recovery HD partition.
Sorry genius.....but if the Recovery disk shows up that means the disk cable isn't bad. Could be he did have a screwed up HDD and when he put the NEW HDD in (after putting the OS on it via USB) the computer didn't reconize it and therefore didn't boot the OS. Just maybe right genius? Don't rush to criticize someone's recommendations until you realize other possibilities. (I did say "if it does")
Thank you

Is it dead? will only boot off the OS disc or in safe mode.

Hi there!
Is it dead? will only boot off the OS disc or in safe mode.
My MBP (March 09) running 10.6 Snow Leopard is playing up.
After a frustrating day of troubleshooting, I don't know what else to do.
So far:
Duplicate accounts deleted.
Permissions repaired and verified
Renistalled the OS from disc
Haven't been able to log in to OS since,
- can only boot in safe mode or OS istall disc to use Utility
Disk Utility used in safe mode, disk utility > verify disk, said to repair it from disc boot
Disk repaired
Still won't reboot out of safe mode - it gets past the blue screen to the desktop wallpaper screen, but the dock or items on my desktop won't appear, colour dial spins, i think the longest i've given it is 20 minutes
Still won't boot other than in safe mode (currently using it right now)
Did the whole /sbin/fsck -fy,
Invalid file count (Is 484158 instead of 484160)
Invalid volume directory count (is 157609 instead of 157807)
Repairs successful
Ran fsck again, and HD OK message
Ran exit and it won't boot, only in safe mode again, and to the spinning wheel on the desktop wallpaper screen.
Is my HD cactus?
Is this something that can be replaced?
If not, what next?
I'm a little apprehensive about sending it out to get fixed (it's out of three year warrnaty) and I'm not sure how much more they can do/check than I've already done and come to the same conclusion.
Any help, much appreciated and thank you in advance
Bree.

Are you referring to the new bluetooth (wireless) keyboard or are you using a wired version?
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

How much does OSX take up on a brand new MBP HD?

Does anyone know on a Brand new MBP 128 SSD drive....how much is allocated to the OSX?
Thanks in advance

You do need to install Windows twice - once under Boot Camp and once under Parallels - but you can legally use the same CD with the same licence for both installations. There is no need to buy two copies.
There is a program called Monolingual that will assist in removing the additional language support. Be care, as it has removed the components needed to run Rosetta for some users who were not as careful as they should have been.
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FaceTime problems on 3 brand new MBP 13 Retina, Apple has given in

Hi All,
After recieving 3 brand new machines (MBP13 Retina) in Dec 2013 and Jan 2014, Apple does not believe they can deliver a proper working brand new machine. They also won't look into the problem and hope i can accept this faulty machine.
Is that what Apple is turned into? A company that doesn't believe they can fix their own machines? Or do they not care anymore about their customers and their product?
The person I'm facetiming with cannot hear me when we talk at the same time. My (3 brand new, but all 3 faulty) machines will mute me, so the other party cannot hear me. It is back to the walky talky ages again, 'over'.
Since I'm a great believer of Apple, I cannot believe they won't fix this problem and just keep on selling and delivering brand new MBP 13 Retina machines that don't work.
Does nobody at the Apple company care anymore, is there no company pride?

after a week of working on this problem the last straw was spending 3 hours being helped with this problem by 1mb.com after which time they asked me either to take out a years support at £129 or pay for help from a better qualified technician! As I only received my IPad last week I am going to send it back tomorrow. why doesn't Apple respond when it is obvious from all the discussions that there is a problem? Considering the price of the iPad I feel thoroughly disillusioned and cheated as well as frustrated by spending so many hours to no avail. this was not the only problem I've encountered but it is the one I've wasted most time trying to resolve./

24" iMac will only boot in safe mode

Here is the short version:
I have a 24" iMac Core 2 2.16 GHZ with Lion installed (has been for a long time). It will only boot successfully in safe mode. The AHT Extended tests do not report any problems. I have reset PRAM and SMC. Nothing helps. Normal boot process will get to the point where it switches from the Apple logo with spinning wheel to where it would normally switch the OSX GUI and login screen. Instead the screen is all white or gray. The exact same problem happens if I try to boot from an OSX Install DVD or USB and also my DiskWarrior DVD. Since safe mode works, my guess is that the problem is with the video card and the normal color depth that the Mac boots to. In Safe Mode it is in reduced colors.
Since safe mode works, I have all of my data backed up to an external drive. If I could boot from an install disk, I would have already wiped the disk and done a new install, but I cannot do this! I am assuming this is a hardware problem and given the age of this iMac I am out of luck. I ordered a new system last night, but if it is possible to get this one working again, I would like to be able to give it to a relative who could use it. So if anyone has any ideas, it would be appreciated.
Just slightly longer version:
Been using this system since 2007. Used to use it for work, now it is the home media hub where we sync our iOS devices. It has had Lion installed for probably a year now and has always worked great. A few weeks ago, it started locking up whenever my son was playing Minecraft. I would have to power off the system to get it back. I assumed it was a Java problem. I tried fixing disk permissions etc. but nothing solved it. Anyway, last week I was downloading App updates in iTunes when the system locked up again. The mouse would move around but I could not Force Quit anything or really do anything. So I had to power off the system. That is when the boot problems started. Since that happened, the system has not come back with a normal boot.
Thanks for any ideas/help. If someone thinks this is fixable, I can bring it to my local Apple service dealer. I do not want to pay them $100 just to have them tell me it cannot be fixed or needs a new logic board or something like that which would not be worth buying.
Mark

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in safe mode.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
The commands may line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Launch the Terminal 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.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Triple-click the line of text below to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). Then click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V).
find /Sy*/L*/Ex* -type f -name Info.plist -exec sh -c '/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :CFBundleIdentifier" "$1" 2> /dev/null | egrep -qv "apple|Accusys|ArcMSR|ATTO|CalDigit|HighPoint|hp-fax|JMicron|print|SoftRAID|stex" && echo ${1%*.kext/*}.kext' {} {} \;
Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.) You can omit the final line ending in “$”.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 3
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' 2> /dev/null
Remember, these steps are all copy-and-paste — no typing. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.

How can I transfer files from a 27" iMac which will only boot in safe mode?

My late 2009 27" imac is having issues and will only boot in safe mode. I have tried to transfer files to a new Imac using migration assistant but it wont let me. If I try booting the old Imac normally I just get a grey screen, I believe it is the video card failed and am waiting for a fix, but I would like to transfer files before the fix in case something goes wrong and I lose everything.
Any help would be great

Hello Myles, likely it is a Hardware problem.
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Brand new MBP will only boot to blue screen

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