Gray screen of death on startup - Please Help!

Hey everyone, my mini is 6 days old and is giving me some trouble. I used it just fine last night, shut it down, and this evening it won't boot up. It gets stuck at the gray screen with the spinning progress wheel.
I unplugged all the peripherals, including the power cord for 30 seconds, then restarted with only the power cord and monitor, no good.
With all peripherals still unplugged (except my Apple keyboard) I reset the PRAM, no good.
I booted in safe mode, and it gets stuck while searching for a mDNSResonder. It says that the file is not found.
Finally, I booted with the OSX install disc and hit 'C' on the keyboard. An option for disk utility never came up, only the option to archive and reinstall OSX, which I really don't want to do given the computer is brand new.
Any other thoughts? Am I stuck reinstalling archiving and installing OSX? And if so, can I delete the "previous system" while keeping all of my files and apps intact (the computer is so new that I haven't had a chance to run TimeMachine yet)?
Thank you!!

+Finally, I booted with the OSX install disc and hit 'C' on the keyboard. An option for disk utility never came up, only the option to archive and reinstall OSX, which I really don't want to do given the computer is brand new.+
After you select the keyboard/language, there is a menu called Utilities at the top of the install window. You will find DiskUtility under that menu.
+I booted in safe mode, and it gets stuck while searching for a mDNSResonder. It says that the file is not found.+
Keep in mind that in Safe Mode, wifi (airport) doesn't work -- so if your Mini was initially set up to access the internet via wireless, then it is to be expected that DNS services would not be available in Safe Mode.

Similar Messages

Beach Ball of Death, Dark Gray Screen after Clean OS ReInstall- Please Help

My 13" MBP is less than two months old.
I read online somewhere that a company that buys large quantities of Macs has a strategy for combating the industry standard 5% hard drive failure in new notebooks. It said something along the lines of performing a clean install / reformat of OS X was a good idea to see if any problems arise- then the HD would likely have problems in the near future, etc...
Being the nerd that I am I performed a clean install on my MBP. I had just performed one the day before on my other Mac (which worked perfectly).
First of all, my MBP took roughly 15 minutes to boot from the disk (to begin the reinstall). Actually one time I gave it over 20 minutes and it never did load. Once I finally got to the Language select screen it froze, clicking the continue arrow did nothing and I couldn't even choose another language. So I shut down and tried again. The DVD doesn't look scratched. Is my drive less than stellar?
This time, it worked, albeit, it took much longer to install than my lesser powered Mac Mini. OS X notified me that the installation was successful and that it now simply needed to restart. Upon restart I was greeted with a dark gray screen and mouse cursor spinning beach ball (that responded to trackpad).
Shut down, turned it back on- same thing. Tried a bunch more times, no luck.
Called Apple Care and after a few questions / tips we concluded that it needed to be sent in, the associate imagined it was a HD problem.
I took my MBP to a local authorized service provider and they took it, and called me back in a few hours. I asked what they did to fix it, and they skillfully dodged the question. They said it should be good now, that it passed all hardware tests, but to let them know if it happened again.
Since then it's been running okay. As a nerd it's a bit bothersome to know that I can't perform a clean install when I see fit- and that if I did, I'd have to take it into Apple Care again in the future, and once Apple Care runs out than a clean install just isn't an option.
It boots up just as fast, but when it gets passed the white screen with the Apple logo... when the desktop is loading I noticed that it stays at the flash of the solid blue desktop a bit longer than usual (the second before it loads your desktop bg image). It also seems that fully loading all of the top right menu bar items takes a bit longer than before.
Also, not sure if the hard drive's sudden motion sensor is going haywire. But randomly, the hard drive will make a singular faint "thud / click" noise. Very faint. But it's not your usual "reading data from the HD" hard drive thrashing noise you hear when you open an app / file. It's a single, more sudden noise, but like I said it is fairly quiet- I hear it when I have literally nothing running except this Safari window. This is something I didn't notice the first few weeks with the MBP.
Also in system profiler, the battery's condition was never good, but only "Normal." I did calibrate my battery one of the first days I had it.
Here's some coconutBattery info:
Current Battery Capacity: 5588 mAh
Original Battery Capacity: 5770 mAh
Which is 96%.
Load cycles: 10
Anyways, curious if anyone has any ideas about my inability to perform a clean install and successfully boot up? I don't see any reason why it should have taken THAT long to boot from the disk, frozen in several random spots throughout, and then not be able to boot up.
The HD noises aren't a huge deal just a bit concerning, and admittedly the battery info is just nerdy paranoia. Just curious what's going on with my MBP. Is there anything I can do, or should read?

Hi simplecoder13,
I perform a similar process on all the HDs that I buy, only I take it a step further. I'll run a single pass erase on drives under 500GB and a seven pass erase on drives larger than 500GB and ones that are deemed "mission critical." Here's an interest metric, though.
Since 01/01/10 on laptop drives (Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi)
+HDs purchases - 461+
+Drives > 500GB - 119+
+Drives < 500GB - 342+
+Drives that fail zero test - 13+
+Drives that pass zero test, fail within 30 days - 2+
+Drives that pass zero test, fail within 60 days - 0+
+Drives that pass zero test, fail within 90 days - 3+
+Drives that pass zero test, fail within 180 days - 4+
+Total drive failures within 6 months - 22 (4.77%) ~ 5%+
I don't have a manufacturer break down, I suppose I should start logging that more closely. Anyway...
I have a new MacBook Pro (13" @ 2.4GHz) and booting off the installation disc, from selecting the installer disc via the boot manager to the language selection screen is ~ 6 mins and 44 seconds. I use that as an average, I did it over 10 restarts but it was a pretty fair assessment. The fact that the installer is freezing is definitely cause for alarm, that's not normal or to be expected. Process of elimination would tell me the following:
1.) The disc is bad
2.) The optical drive is bad
My understanding of the installer is the HD isn't initially accessed during the installer until you choose an install location (at which point it's mount point is verified).
Regarding the battery, your full charge capacity is going to bounce around the first couple of months, usually anywhere from 250-400 mAh. I noticed sporadic reporting until I reached the 50 cycle mark (or around 6 months based on usage). That being said, I don't see any problems or cause for alarm with the information you've reported.

Intel iMac with 10.5.8 - Grey Screen of Death but worse please help!

Okay, this has happened three times now in six months, and I'm about to go out of my mind. Everytime it's a little different but basically:
My iMac becomes unresponsive, whether by a system lock up, or I wake up in the morning (like this morning) to a black screen with the white light still on, as if it were asleep. Nothing I do wakes the computer or otherwise makes it respond, so I hold the power button down for a few seconds and it shuts off.
Now, when I boot up, I get a grey screen with the Apple logo with the spinning black/grey pinwheel.
Inserting a CD does nothing. In fact, now my only install CD of Leopard is stuck in the slot-loading drive. I've tried everything I can to eject it: hold down eject on boot, left mouse button on boot, option on boot, commandoption+pr, command+v, etc. etc. etc.
I'm a software developer for OS X and have extensive hardware knowledge, so I kind of know a bit about what I'm doing.
The iMac will not boot off of a CD. It doesn't even recognize the CD. I have an external USB 2.0 hard drive with a current Time Machine backup, but I don't think those are bootable.
Anyway, in the past, to resolve this issue, I've had to take the iMac apart, put the internal hard drive into an external enclosure, and mount the drive onto my MacBook Pro. Interestingly enough, when I do this the drive mounts perfectly fine and shows all files exactly as they should be. So it's something to do with Leopard destroying it's boot record, or some other system configuration.
Even worse, I cannot simply reinstall Mac OS X from the laptop, because the installer says the hard drive needs to be formatted before an install can occur. So either way I'm losing all my data (even though as I said I have a current backup).
Well this time I haven't taken it apart yet. But the install CD is stuck in the drive. Even if I got the hard drive out, and mounted on my MacBook, my other install CD is too damaged to use, so I MUST get this CD out of the iMac.
My questions are:
What do you do when the grey screen of death occurs, and the computer won't even boot off of the CD?
What do you do to get a CD stuck in an iMac out? Especially when the iMac is in the grey screen of death mode?
What in the world is causing this to happen EVERY 3-6 MONTHS??!
Someone please help... I'm going insane.

Hi I am having the identical problem with my 24" intel iMac 2007..... Did you ever figure out what the problem was? I'm on round 3 now and with a completely blank grey screen and it won't start up from the disk 1.. I also have diskwarrior and techtool pro as well as the osx leopard and snow leopard disk... The HD is new.. Replaced by apple 3 months ago.. Don't know the cause the first time this happened about 9 months ago.. 2nd time, 6 months ago it never rebooted from the office for mac 2008 critical update... Did a clean install after backing up to TC... Took it to apple replaced HD even though it appeared ok, they checked all hardware and I ran techtool pro daily ever since. Last week software update had several updates avail. Office for mac being one of them.. I updated and have never booted since.. . I swear to never ever use another Microsoft product as long as I live if I can just fix this once more... Help me please

IBOOK G4: Stuck on gray screen, no display...please help.

Hello everyone,
I need help with my IBOOK G4. I have power and I hear the fan and the start up sound, but it gets stuck on the gray screen with the apple in the middle and the circle spinning. I am trying to use the software restore and install disc to start it up and it won't read it. I turned it on and help down the power button and the "C" key and it still gets stuck on the gray screen. I am not concerned with saving any data or software, I just want it to turn on. Anyone have any other suggestions?
Thank you.

I'm probably grasping at straws, but can you start up in Safe Mode (Safe Boot)? Press down the shift key from when you hear the start up chime until you see the words "Safe Boot" in red letters on the log in screen AND keep pressing it until you click on the Log In button. It may take a very long time as Tiger will be scanning your hard drive for problems. You should also have all your peripherals disconnected. If this works, you will disable a lot of things that might be causing problems and have a chance to look for the cause of your problem.
If you can get on using safe boot, please post back for further advice. I am not an expert on safe boot, but I do have a good book I can consult. And with luck, one of the more experienced and knowledgeable members of the forum will step in and help.
Good luck!
Good luck!

My MacBook pro won't start. It is frozen on the gray screen with the apple. Please help?

My MacBook pro won't start. It's stuck on the gray screen with the apple logo.

Reinstall OS X:
Reinstall Snow Leopard 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/.
Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the 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 the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
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 click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Help! Getting "Gray Screen of Death" at startup!

Last week I left town and left my iBook asleep on the charger. When I got back everything was fine but the internet seemed to have slowed down. It worked alright for a few hours, and then I decided to restart it. It shut down, made the "bong" sound, the Apple symbol start-up screen came up with the spinning circle under it, and stayed like that for a few minutes, and then the screen went dark and a multi-language box came up with the power symbol in the backround saying "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the restart button." It repeated this message in French, German, and Chinese. Every time I reboot I get the same message. I've tried taking the battery out and putting it back in and then restarting it, but it does nothing. What is wrong?

I would have dug it out, but my boxs are already in L.A. I found out what caused the problem though: there was a power surge while I was gone. Thankfully I had all my stuff backed up on my iPod. I'm going to take it to the Apple store tonight. Thanks for the help!

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..

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 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

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

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?

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 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 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....after 3 reinstalls!!!

Ok so i have the infamous gray screen of death after installing snow leopard but i think mine is slightly different. I don't have the circle going round and round. I only have a gray screen. For some odd reason the first time it happened i held the mouse button, then the cd drive (empty) came out and then it booted up (odd). Then i reinstalled, still happened, and i held the mouse on restart and again it worked. But now this time i reinstalled again, obviously it isn't starting up but even if i hold the mouse button it still won't load. Any ideas?

If you can get it to start, go into System Prefs and check your startup volume...

Gray screen of death on startup - Please Help!

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