Crashing with no gray screen of death. CD drive goes crazy. HELP!

I was sitting at work not touching my Macbook. I had iTunes open and I was eventually going to pull out my headphones and start listening to music.
The screen went black and the cd drive sounded like it was pulsing, like bzzt-bzzt-bzzt-bzzt. Timed, almost. But anyway, it wouldn't respond so I had to hold the power button down and shut it down manually.
I rebooted it and it let me log in. I just let it sit there for a moment and then it went black again and started doing the cd thing again.
Any idea on what's going on? I just installed the Quicktime update yesterday afternoon. Maybe that has something to do with it? Mine has also been exhibiting the wifi-connectivity issues (which none of the updates have fixed yet.)
I've had this Macbook for three or so years. Maybe it's just old age? :/

I don't think that taking it in to get serviced is going to do me any good. I don't have AppleCare on it anymore. I rode on the complementary one while I could and then I was going to get it once the WiFi started acting up to cover the (apple claimed) $1k+ repairs but apparently you can only buy AppleCare up to a year after you buy the product. Or that's how I understood what they told me, anyway.
I got Onyx Consulting in Atlanta, GA to quote me for less than $200 (not counting labor) to replace my airport card, the wifi antenna in the screen, and the inverter in my screen (it's been flickering practically since I got the machine.)
Unless this crash is caused by a fault in any of that hardware, I don't even want to bother getting the stuff replaced.
I'm still at university/work-study so I'll try getting my stuff off tonight.
Thanks for letting me know about Target Disk Mode, though.

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Kernel Panics, Gray screen of death, and hard drives, oh my!

Last week, while performing multiple tasks on my G4, Safari froze up and completely locked up the entire computer. I rebooted by manually pushing the glowing power button the front of the tower. During reboot, I got the gray screen of death with the "you need to restart your macintosh... by holding down the power button for several seconds" message.
After a couple tries and getting that exact same gray screen of death, I started to worry about all my data.
I took both drives out of the G4 Quicksilver - one, a 500gb Barracuda Seagate (Master/bay 1), the other a 200gb Hitachi (slave/bay 2). I hooked them up to an older G4 and ran DiskWarrior and DiskUtility on both of them. The master drive had serious (>34%) fragmentation, which has since been cleaned up. The slave drive was relatively fine.
here's my current problem:
When I hook up:
1. Just the Master with no jumper pins, the drive runs fine, no problems, all settings and prefs are there, etc.
2. Just the Master with the correct pin settings, I get the kernel panic screen of death
3. The Master with correct pin settings and Slave with correct pin settings, kernel panic screen of death
4. If I swap the Master and Slave, and make the correct pin settings, the booting process starts and then I get a light gray screen with the "ghostbusters/do not enter" circle.
I put the original Slave drive in an external HD firewire enclosure, and it will mount on the desktop after the original Master drive has booted up - BUT - if I have the external drive powered up before I boot the Master, I get a gray screen with nothing on it - no message, nothing but grayscreen.
I've backed up my critical data, but would like to get these two drives back into their normal operating Master/Slave relationship that served them well for the last couple years.
Any help greatly appreciated.

New wrinkle:
This morning trying at boot up, the Mac chime sounded, the gray screen w/the apple logo appeared, and then the machine sounded like either the main fan or one of the two drives spun down. Shortly thereafter, I got the prohibitory sign again.
I rebooted and then got something completely different: a black screen with a small blinking vertical rectangle in the top left of the screen, with nothing else happening for a long time, so I manually rebooted and tried to boot into safe mode.
Trying to boot into safe mode gave me the chime, the apple logo, and then the sound of either the fan or drive spinning down and leaving me at the prohibitory sign once again.
Finally I option-booted to the slave drive and upon startup, received the following crash report, which might as well be in Swahili as far as my being able to make sense of it:
Sat Apr 11 09:59:48 2009
Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 0): 0x300 - Data access DAR=0x0000000003DFFF70 PC=0x000000000032F68C
Latest crash info for cpu 0:
Exception state (sv=0x2d409780)
PC=0x0032F68C; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x03DFFF70; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x00287A40; R1=0x2D3BFDD0; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)
Backtrace:
0x2D3BFE20 0x00287AA0 0x00288658 0x0030C5AC 0x000B34C8 0xFFFFDFFF
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2d409780)
previously dumped as "Latest" state. skipping...
Exception state (sv=0x24459500)
PC=0x93091180; MSR=0x0000D930; DAR=0x00100AE4; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x000067FC; R1=0xBFFFED50; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: launchd
Mac OS version:
9G55
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.0: Mon Nov 24 17:39:01 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.9.59~1/RELEASE_PPC
System model name: PowerMac3,5
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xFFFF0003): 0x300 - Data access
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x0009BCF0 0x0009C694 0x00029EA0 0x000AFA90 0x000B32F8
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2d409780)
PC=0x0032F68C; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x03DFFF70; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x00287A40; R1=0x2D3BFDD0; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)
Backtrace:
0x2D3BFE20 0x00287AA0 0x00288658 0x0030C5AC 0x000B34C8 0xFFFFDFFF
Exception state (sv=0x24459500)
PC=0x93091180; MSR=0x0000D930; DAR=0x00100AE4; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x000067FC; R1=0xBFFFED50; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: launchd

Gray screen of death ... macbook boot failure

Three weeks old and getting the gray screen of death. Power up works but MacBook just keeps trying to read a video disk I left in the ROM drive. Gray screen with nothing else (no processing circle, no apple logo, just a plain gray screen). I could hear the rom drive cycling.
I worked with support via telephone and their solutions failed also:
1. power up, hold down the eject button (nada)
2. power up, hold down the mouse button (nada)
3. power up, hold down the apple key, the cntl key, the P and the R keys for two chimes (got the two chimes but nada)
Now it chimes when i start up but still sits there cycling the cdrom which has a movie disk in it.
The support rep asked me if there was a small extraction hole by the drive. HELLO: are you really Apple ??? On the new macbook?
The MacBook was delivered with 10.4.8. Wanting the large 10.4.9 update on CD for any future need, I downloaded the 10.4.9 intel combined update (larger than the other choice) and went with that not knowing which to use. However this was three weeks ago and the computer has been perfect. my session yesterday was perfect but I did 'brag' on the new macbook when a friend saw me using it. why does bragging cause boot failures? Murphy?/??????// HELP.
Black MacBook intel core 2 duo 120gb drive 2 gb memory Mac OS X (10.4.9)

My apologies to everyone if I raised an alarm. The hardware (i.e. the MacBook) is fine and the problem was that I am a new user. I have to say that Apple Support was unprepared to address the issue but I did resolve it myself by accident. Here is the resolution:
I looked up the SMC reset instructions on the Apple Support site as a next step and the instructions said to try 3 things before doing the SMC:
1. Force Quit (Option - Command - Escape)
2. Restart (Control - Command - Power)
3. Force Shutdown (hold down pwr button for 10 seconds
As a new user I could not know that the key with the Apple was the Command key, but I guessed since the words control and option were called out, it had to be the Apple key with the Squiggle.
I did each step but nada. I did get a different alert tone (lower pitch) after doing step 3. Each time I turned the computer off.
I then started over and tried again turning on the macbook from being off each time. I did step 1 and turned the machine off and then did step 2 and the computer came alive.
The system is just like I left it and the rom drive works fine. Again, my apologies to all you macbook users for raising any alarms. We are new to using Apple and have much to learn. I did not have any cheat sheets to work from so it took time. Many thanks for the responses.
Black MacBook purchased in March 2007 Mac OS X (10.4.9) I love this MacBook

Gray screen of death on boot-up

I have a 2.1 GHz MacBook with a 120GB hard-drive that I bought last November. I've been doing a lot with video and music and I keep running out of disk space. So, I keep deleting files that I thought I didn't need. Unfortunately, I must have deleted something important (for the OS) yesterday, and now, when I try to boot the machine, I get the "gray screen of death". And, to make matters worse, I cannot find the boot-CD that came with the MacBook. I don't have back-ups for many of my files and am hoping that I'll be able to recover my files. So, I've just bought an external hard-drive (which I should have done before). Any ideas how I can get the MacBook to boot and repair the problem without the original boot-CD? Will I have to erase the hard-drive to repair the problem, and if so, will I be able to save the files first? Thanks!

Hi MB-GSofD,
Without the disc(s) that came with your machine, I'm afraid your options are extremely limited. You can try to startup the machine in Safe Mode (Hold Shift immediately on startup, until you get to the login window) but based on what you deleted out of the /System or /Library folders, you might just be dead in the water.
Are you near an Apple Store? Do you have access to another Mac, say a family member, friend, roommate, co-worker, etc? There is Target Disk Mode if you can get access to another Mac and a Firewire cable.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

Gray screen of death at start up

Hello all,
Today when i was downloading the latest updates for my mac and iTunes my system froze while trying to access my BAD hard drive. So i restart my mac and after the apple logo appeared the gray screen of death showed up. I tried every thing from PRAM reset to disk and permission repair. So please help me with this problem.
Thank you

If you are on Mountain Lion you can boot from the Recovery Disk that is installed hidden from your internal HD. You can Use the Disk Utility from there to repair disk and you can also use that on OS re-installation of your ML.
"OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion includes a built in set of utilities in the Recovery System. Restart your Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R), and keep holding them until the Apple icon appears, indicating that your Mac is starting up. After the Recovery System is finished starting up, you should see a desktop with a OS X menu bar and a "Mac OS X Utilities" application window."
Check this link
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718

Gray Screen of Death (moving from Java 1.1 to 1.4)

I am in process of moving my applet from Java 1.1 to modern Java 1.4 with Swing. My concern is that users on MS IE with the ancient MS JVM will get the "gray screen of death" and no hint that something is wrong. The best option I've found so far seems to be this:
http://www.chaingang.org/code/util/AppletLaunch.html
where you have one applet start up, check the version, and then either report "you need a new version of java" or launch the next applet. I'm not sure whether this will work when the first applet is compiled for Java 1.1, and the second is for Java 1.4 (they use different class file formats).
What are the recommendations for dealing with this situation? I've seen that Sun has some very complicated stuff about using OBJECT, EMBED, and APPLET tags:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/plugin/developer_guide/contents.html
Also stuff about "Java Web Start Applications":
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/JavaLP/javawebstart/AutoInstall.html
I've also seen something about the "HTML Converter".
This is all looks way complicated!! As long as I can tell users "go update your java" and direct them to the java install web page I'm happy... I don't want to try to get their install started automatically. And I'd rather keep my HTML code simple and clean if possible.
Thanks in advance...

1. Write an applet in 1.4 that simply displays a small image.
2. Place the image on the webpage beside the applet.
3. Put a line of html beside or under the image and the applet saying "If you cannot see this image here (as in applet loaction) then you must download the 1.4 jre here"
Yahoo provide an applet as a means of editing ones geocitys website. This is how they ensure the user has the required jre. Crude but very effective and without complication.

IMac won't boot! (gray screen of death?)

Hello,
I just had a kernel panic on my main iMac computer, so I had to restart it...
When it logged in automatically, it restarted again (by itself)...
Now, once it booted, I'm staring at the horrendous Gray Screen of Death/Doom...
No apple logo, no loading wheel, nothing... just a blank gray screen.
Please help! I have no idea how to fix this!
Thank you. All help is greatly appreciated.

Hi mik.e245
Pop in the Install Disk 1 that came with your iMac and run disk repairs as described in the articles below:
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3810
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1018.html
Not always, but many times Kernal Panic's are associated with a ram issue's. If a ram module was recently added it may have become partially dislodged/unseated and needs to be reseated.
If your still having trouble run the Hardware Test from the same install disk as per this article.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081-en
Dennis

Since loading Lion, I've experienced much more instability than Snow Leopard. In particular, Mail crashes with regularity, full-screen apps seem to run slower and show the beach ball more often for longer, etc. I'm disappointed with the performance. Any

Since loading Lion, I've experienced much more instability than Snow Leopard. In particular, Mail crashes with regularity, full-screen apps seem to run slower and show the beach ball more often for longer, etc. I love the features, but I'm disappointed with the performance. Any help coming from Apple? I've been sending them so many reports after crashes, that their file must be full!

Summoning max. courage, I did what you advised. Here is the result. What does this tell you? My Lion 7.2 (mid 2011 iMac) has several annoying glitches (which I have so far tolerated through gritted teeth) but none that have actually stopped me working.
BTW, I see several items involving CleanMyMac which I did not know I had. It is generally villified as a trouble-maker. Spotlight can't find an app. or a utility of that name. How can I get rid of what's there please? Just delete?
Last login: Thu Nov 3 20:55:11 on console
Steve-Kirkbys-iMac:~ stevekirkby$ kextstat -kl | awk ' !/apple/ { print $6 $7 } '
com.AmbrosiaSW.AudioSupport(4.0)
Steve-Kirkbys-iMac:~ stevekirkby$ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk ' !/0x|apple|com\.vix|edu\.|org\./ { print $3 } '
Password:
com.openssh.sshd
com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderXAgent
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
com.bombich.ccc.scheduledtask.067493DB-2728-4DF3-87D8-092EF69086E8
com.bombich.ccc
com.adobe.SwitchBoard
Steve-Kirkbys-iMac:~ stevekirkby$ launchctl list | sed 1d | awk ' !/0x|apple|edu\.|org\./ { print $3 } '
com.sony.PMBPortable.AutoRun
uk.co.markallan.clamxav.freshclam
com.veoh.webplayer.startup
com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.volumeWatcher
com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.trashSizeWatcher
com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae
com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
Steve-Kirkbys-iMac:~ stevekirkby$ ls -1A {,/}Library/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Sta}* 2> /dev/null
/Library/Components:
/Library/Extensions:
/Library/Frameworks:
AEProfiling.framework
AERegistration.framework
ApplicationEnhancer.framework
AudioMixEngine.framework
FxPlug.framework
NyxAudioAnalysis.framework
PluginManager.framework
ProFX.framework
ProMetadataSupport.framework
TSLicense.framework
iLifeFaceRecognition.framework
iLifeKit.framework
iLifePageLayout.framework
iLifeSQLAccess.framework
iLifeSlideshow.framework
/Library/Input Methods:
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
AdobePDFViewer.plugin
EPPEX Plugin.plugin
Flash Player.plugin
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin
Silverlight.plugin
flashplayer.xpt
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
/Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
com.sony.PMBPortable.AutoRun.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons:
com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
com.apple.remotepairtool.plist
com.bombich.ccc.plist
com.bombich.ccc.scheduledtask.067493DB-2728-4DF3-87D8-092EF69086E8.plist
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderXAgent.plist
/Library/PreferencePanes:
.DS_Store
Application Enhancer.prefPane
Default Folder X.prefPane
DejaVu.prefPane
Flash Player.prefPane
Flip4Mac WMV.prefPane
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools:
com.bombich.ccc
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderXAgent
/Library/QuickLook:
iWork.qlgenerator
/Library/QuickTime:
AppleIntermediateCodec.component
AppleMPEG2Codec.component
DesktopVideoOut.component
DivX 6 Decoder.component
FCP Uncompressed 422.component
Flip4Mac WMV Advanced.component
Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
LiveType.component
/Library/ScriptingAdditions:
.DS_Store
Adobe Unit Types.osax
Default Folder X Addition.osax
/Library/StartupItems:
Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
Library/Frameworks:
EWSMac.framework
Library/Input Methods:
.localized
Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae.plist
com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.trashSizeWatcher.plist
com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.volumeWatcher.plist
com.veoh.webplayer.startup.plist
uk.co.markallan.clamxav.freshclam.plist
Library/PreferencePanes:
.DS_Store
Perian.prefPane
WindowShade X.prefPane
Library/QuickTime:
AC3MovieImport.component
Perian.component
Library/ScriptingAdditions:
Steve-Kirkbys-iMac:~ stevekirkby$

My MacBook Pro shuts down within seconds after starting with a Gray Screen and Apple Logo, a bar comes at the bottom.

My MacBook Pro starts with a Gray Screen and Apple Logo, a bar comes at the bottom, but after few seconds the machine shuts down. This was bought approx 1 year back. Please help!!

jayanta.ray,
which model MacBook Pro do you have (did you buy it new?), and which version of OS X is installed on it?

HT1338 I can't update my laptop why is it? I di all the process and it says it should restart with a gray screen and a status bar and it does not it just goes back to the regular screen

I can't update my laptop why is it? I di all the process and it says it should restart with a gray screen and a status bar and it does not it just goes back to the regular screen

You will need to contact support to have your account sorted.
https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action

My computer turns on but its remains with a gray screen that has the apple icon

My daughter was using our computer to download some music from Itunes onto her psp. She said the computer froze and she forced it to restart. The computer turns on the apple icon shows up and a load bar under that shows up then dissapears and it remains with a gray screen. I have tried several times time to restart it and it does the same thing. Can anyone help?

Have you had the chance to look over and begin using the Gray screen appears during startup or the Gray progress bar appears under Apple logo during startup articles?

I have updated my Macbook pro to mavericks since yesturday it has been running none stop with a gray screen and the apple logo in the medle

I have updated my Macbook pro to mavericks since yesturday it has been running none stop with a gray screen and the apple logo in the midle. Does anyone has incounedt that same of problem? Please help. Thank you in advance.

The startup disk may need repairing ...
Startup your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys.
From there you should be able to access the built in utilities to repair the disk and restore OS X using OS X Recovery

Gray Screen of DEATH?

i just got a GRAY screen of DEATH for my iphone today. i was wondering what can i do to fix it other than restoring? have anybody got this before? tyvm for your help!

i just got a GRAY screen of DEATH for my iphone today. i was wondering what can i do to fix it other than restoring? have anybody got this before? tyvm for your help!

Gray screen of death on third-gen iPad...

I'm caught in a bit of a circle and am needing a little help re if/how to get out of it. Hoping the community here might be able to help - or confirm that I'm out of luck.
My third-gen iPad gave me the gray screen of death this morning, while downloading an app from the app store. I'm unable to reboot from the iPad itself (more gray screen, before shutting off). Based on the advice provided in the archives, my next step was a restore. Unfortunately, iTunes wants the passcode - which, of course, I'm unable to enter.
Is there a workaround for this that anyone has found to get past this particular challenge?
Not that I'm looking for an excuse for an updgrade....

NPMaven wrote:
Unfortunately, iTunes wants the passcode - which, of course, I'm unable to enter.
Why are you unable to provide the passcode? You are using the computer's iTunes, aren't you?
If you're unable to do the Restore, go into Recovery Mode per the instructions here.

Gray screen of death.... Please help.

Wife's 27" iMac is giving us the gray screen of death. I tried everything I could:
Command + Option +P + R
Holding Option at boot to try Recovery
Command + Option + R (Internet Recovery)
Holding shift to get to Safe Mode
Inserting install disc while holding "C"
Installed Mountain Lion on my Flashdrive to try to boot from that….
ALL FAILED. Any ideas, guys? Please help. This Mac is just a little over a year old. just out of the one year warranty.

Thanks for telling us everything you did. However, you haven't given us any information on what the computer did. So there's not much to go on except a gray screen. Assuming the drive has not failed:
Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard 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.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
If you are not able to perform the above then the drive has most likely failed and will have to be replaced. Take the computer in for service..

Crashing with no gray screen of death. CD drive goes crazy. HELP!

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