Grey bar at startup - Mac HD is greyed out in Disk Utility - Can't be repaired? Need to salvage my data!
Mac Book Pro -
My MacBook Pro (2008 Model) has been unable to start up - upon the start up screen when the grey Apple logo appears, I get a loading bar below it.
After about 15-20 minutes when the bar is almost complete the machine shuts off. There seems to be no way around it.
So I booted up my laptop in recovery mode, and opened Disk Utility to check my if there was something wrong with my drives -
my Macintosh HD (under the TOSHIBA drive) is greyed out. When I hit verify/repair it returns error messages and it remains greyed out.
I tried multiple times and a few times it stopped being greyed out on the sidebar, but even then it wouldn't let me verify or repair.
Not backing up my data recently is my obvious fault here, but I just wanted to know if there is ANY way to salvage my data.
Things I've tried:
1) Recovery Mode
-Veryify/Disk Repair doesn't work
-Time Machine can't seem to access my HD either (greyed out)
2) TargetDisk mode
-I connected my MacBook Pro via firewire to my Mac Pro in TargetDisk mode and no Hardrive shows up on my finder.
Any advice appreciated, going to try and take it to a tech shop on Monday.
Thank you!
I would take out the HDD and install it in an enclosure and then connect that to the Mac Pro and see if there is any success.
If not, then look for data recovery software on the Internet. Most will have a 'trial' version that will indicate if the software will be successful or not, so you do not have to commit funds without knowing if it will work or not.
The last option is a professional recovery service. There will be no guarantees of success and the costs will be very high.
Ciao.
Similar Messages
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Time Machine drive icon greyed out in Disk utility
Hi I'm using a 1TB WD Electronics external drive which is partitioned (265GIG used so far)
Macbook Pro btw
i use one half as a regular external drive and one half to take care of TM back ups
i recently plugged in the drive and the Time Machine back up has failed and there's no TM icon on the desktop and the TM partition is greyed out in Disk utility
i've turned TM off at the moment
any ideas to get TM running again?
thanks
SamDisconnect the drive and reconnect it. Any change? If not, test it with another Mac.
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Time machine greyed out in disk utility
I want to erase a time machine backup to use the HD on a different system, yet it's greyed out in disk utility.
The HD still works fine and I can restore files from it and time machine itself still works backing up to it.
I cannot however erase it using disk utility.
Here's a screenshot.
What am I doing wrong?You've got other problems in addition to the Erase being grayed out.
The menu icons at the top are not right either. The Info, Burn and Eject menu items should be active also.
I'd suggest quitting Disk Utility, reboot your system and trying again.
Post back if that doesn't fix it.
regards -
TS2570 Question re: "Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility"
I've worked my way through the step-by-step trouble shooting in the TS2570 article up to "Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility". So far, every step results in the same outcome - my formerly trusty 2007 Intel duo core iMac (24") will not start up, freezing on a grey screen with a blinking question mark on a folder. I don't completely understand this next step. I have both a Leopard and a Snow Leopard disc. I'm not positive whether these were for the iMac, or my old Macbook Pro. I assume this makes a difference.
Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by one or more of these:
a. Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
b. Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
c. Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
d. The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Note that the information I have provided is what Apple recommends, If other users suggest different solutions than found here, then be sure what they recommend does not impact on your warranty, if any, or ability to get continuing Apple service.
Please don't start removing drives or changing cables unless you know what you are doing and have exhausted other non-invasive alternatives outlined here. If you perform any work yourself that is unapproved by Apple, then you will void any warranty you may have and lose all further Apple Support.
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.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD. Simply boot from the Recovery HD to perform the above.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
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 Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain 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/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless. -
have a mac book pro that crashed. ran disk utility to repair. comp booted and ran for short time. then crashed. ran repair again. disk utility said it could not repair disk and needed to format and start again.
comp said it could not unmount disk and now when comp trys to boot all i get is a question mark on the screen. helpErase and Install
1. 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU after formatting completes and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
5. After restart into Snow Leopard download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. -
Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?
Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive. -
i just restarted my mac then suddenly when it boots,disk utility came and says different option like repair disk, get help, reinstall OSX and I tried to click disk repair but it says that I am um able to repair the disk
It sounds like your hard drive either has a software problem that Disk Utility cannot fix or that the HD has failed (mechanically).
Your Mac may have booted either to your recovery partition or to internet recovery in an attempt to repair the drive- I can't tell from your post.
I'll assume that it was the recovery partition.
Try to boot into internet recovery (hold down option command R at restart), and see if you can repair your HD with Disk Utility. You should also repair permissions while you're there.
If that doesn't work, try to boot into single user mode (restart, hold down ⌘S until you see a black screen with white text) and repair your hard drive. Here's a reference with directions: Repair Your Hard Disk in Single User Mode | Everything Macintosh
If that doesn't work you have a few options:
If your mac originally came with installation disks, you can try to boot from the installation disk and then see if you can repair the HD.
There is a small chance that Techtool Pro 7 will be able to repair your HD if Disk Utility can't.
If none of that works then your HD has probably failed and will need to be replaced, which is not too difficult to do yourself if you can use a screwdriver. -
Brand new Mac, had to erase drive through disk utility as time machine back up failed on initial setup, USB cable popped out Now can only access disk utility as won't load to log in screen. The only has the option in disc utility is to re-install Mountain Lion which my Mac won't allow or loading another time machine back up but after an hour of it processing, that didn't resolve the issue either! The time machine back up is the latest back up of my Mac Book Pro which was using OS X Maverix. I'm guessing I'm going to have to take my Mac to the store but that would be a hassle so does anyone have any ideas?
Follow this guide using another Mac.
Insert your newly created Mavericks USB into you Mac, press the power button and then hold down 'option,' until it gives you an option to boot from the USB. You will then be able to erase the internal disk with Disk Utility and reinstall Mavericks straight after.
After that you should be able to use Migration Assistant to restore your applications and user data. -
Grey bar at startup prevents to load OS X
Nice advise but there is NOOOO ******* apple service in my area and I solved the issue of chime now there is a startup tone but still the bar is there which takes time and after completion requires restart and again starts so this cycle goes on.
I checked HD and that is fine from diagnostic evaluation
I don't have any apple service please help me
Now my issue is I get a grey bar blow apple logo on each startup and it takes 15 to 20 min and than MBP stops that requires again manual restart and again that grey bar
ThanksRubayee,
I don’t know which “nice advice” you’re referring to. Would you care to elaborate?
You can try this to resolve your grey bar problem: boot your MacBook Pro into Recovery mode by holding down a Command key and the R key as it starts up. Once the OS X Utilities menu appears, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Is it able to get past the grey bar now? -
Last week my macbook pro began to stall when starting up. A grey bar would appear at the grey startup screen and would disappear after a few minutes, only to have the whole boot up hang for 5 minutes or not boot up at all. When it would boot up, my usb ports would not work and my internet connection wouldn't either, even though airport identified a connection. I fixed the issue by backing up my data and reformatting my hard drive. I reinstalled OSX and it worked fine. This morning I turn on my computer again and the grey bar appears. It disappears after about 20 seconds, but now my computer is taking atleast 1 minute, to a minute and a half to boot up, and when it does my usb ports are only registering my mouse after 30 seconds or so. I installed no new software updates recently (only did so when i had to reinstall OSX) Why is this happening? I have not downloaded or installed any new software recently, and I have no idea why my macbook pro is acting this way.
The gray bar is usually what you see when you wake from "safe sleep" (aka "hibernation". This should only occur if 1) your battery gets to a very low level and your system is not permitted to enter a normal sleep mode or 2) you have installed something to force your system to go into safe sleep vs. normal sleep.
When the system enters safe sleep, the contents of your RAM is written to your hard drive and your machine basically shuts down. When you wake your machine from safe sleep, you will see the gray scroll bar while the system re-loads the contents of memory that it saved when it went into safe sleep. This can take longer than a fresh boot depending on how much RAM you have and what applications you had open at the time your system entered safe sleep.
It is possible that your system may not be sleeping properly when you close the lid... meaning that instead of going to sleep, it is still running until the battery is drained. When putting your machine to sleep, you see the white LED on the front start flashing? -
When trying to format my internal hard drive, it's greyed out in Disk utility?
I'm trying ot format my computer and wipe everything off before giving it away, but Disk Utility has everything greyed out and won't let me choose my hard drive. I have the original CD and everything that came with the computer. How do I fix this fast?
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
2. 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 the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
(Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. -
Grey folder with question mark and Disk Utility can't find HDD.
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and for some reason the OS X does not boot up. Therefore I see the grey folder flashing. I tried booting into Recovery from holding options button but there are no available startup disks. So I installed Apple recovery on my USB and I boot up with that. I opened disk utility but it does not seem to find the hard disk. I also tried reinstalling Mac OS X and it gives me an error. Is there another bootable software except for Disk Utility that can check the HDD and see if there are any errors or is the HDD just dead?
Try the steps in this support article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Have you tried installing the original Snow Leopard installation disk and access Disk Utility from the Utilities menu?
Ciao. -
Permissions buttons greyed out in disk utility
In the disk utility, the "verify permissions" and "repair permissions" buttons are greyed out no matter which disk is selected in the left-hand pane. Does anyone know why this is so and/or what alternative ways there are of repairing permissions?
The problem persists whether I start the computer from the recovery system (command-r) or not.
Thanks.Hi again and thanks for bearing with me!
I haven't done any cleanup, however there are only a couple of files in /Library/Receipts/, all very old, so I'm guessing the receipts are kept elsewhere after OS X 10.5, since the KB article you referred me to explicitly refers to pre- 10.5 systems.
The disk utility log in console and the info in the disk utility itself both give exactly the same info, which is basically what you’ve given:
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 2
If I understand correctly, this would all mean that I should be able to click “verify permissions” in the disk utility, but for some mysterious reason I cannot.
However, in the KB article (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452) I notice it says “While started from an installation disc in Mac OS X v10.5 and later, a user's home directory permissions can be reset using the "Reset Password" utility.” Does this mean that if I use the reset password utility I can reset permissions and therefore not need to use the repair permissions function of the disk utility? Or is this something completely unrelated to what I’m trying to do?
I really appreciate your help very much - the only reason I wanted to repair permissions was that it was one of the recommended solutions to a problem I’ve had with microsoft office, which thankfully has now been solved after reinstalling os x and office, but it still bugs me that the option to repair permissions seems unavailable!
Anyway, it's not the end of the world if it can't be solved, you've helped me learn a lot in the process!
George -
Volumes Greyed out in disk utility
tried to do averify and repair disk when it finished the volumes/partitions are greyed out
Where are you running Disk Utility from - the boot
system, or an installation disk?
from the actual system yea, I understand about thenot being able to unmount a volume you are on but the disks that were doing it were not the system disk so I was able to do repair and verify disk to mount/unmount, they would go through fine but the volume would stay greyed out not the actual disk itself. One is a int HD the other was a ext FW 400 drive. I have haad a lot fo problems laltely so if you want to read all the thiings that have happened here they are. OH thanks so much for your help
OK before I forget the way all this happened I will write it all down so here it is.
I was trying to hook up a ethernet conn to a muse receptor (music gear)I realized after I wasnt successful setting it up that my main Macintosh HD was missing from the desktop , When I would do a search I would see it and could acess it but it was greyed out. I did repair perm it was ok. I tried moving it to the sidebar ,no luck. I then installed a OS x on an ext HD and repaired and verified the disc that way to unount and remount all was good. WEnt back to real Os ,still not there. Then SOmeone in an email said to run a apple script
"System Events"
set visible of (choose folder with invisibles) to false
end tell when I did I then realized that now my other HD is missing from my desktop and I also accidentally made it go poof from the side bar too. now if I go to finder and try to hit show HD nothing happened.
SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!
More info if I do command shift G for , /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ it goes to a shortcut for it and if I do it for the Audi HD I get a short cut to it but this time it is a network shortcut icon
Also My iDisk which I never use is stuck on my desktop and cant get rid of it
I think what happened is maybe I got my user and my main hard drive volume switched up cause if I look into that Macintosh HD and go to users/myname/desktop it looks the same as my current desktop
OBviously these are all guesses
Update
Now when I hit the audio shortcut Icon it says it cant be found and to insert the disk or connect to the sever volume and wait for it to appear on the desktop
Matt -
hi ,]
last n8
i partatioon hard disk and install windows 7 using bootr cam ,
nw wt heppen my mac HD partation dnt start jst gray screen with apple logo appear and then some loading bar heppen and then shurt down
i tried to repair partation using disk utility
bt
cant repaird ..
so wht should i deoo..
my all data are on mac ..i have to back up .
how can iThere is no option for "DVD and CD Sharing" on a 2011 Mini because it doesn't have an optical drive to share. That option is available only on computers with an optical drive to share.
That option is used, on the other "donor" computer with an optical drive that you want to use/share. On the other computer you turn on "DVD and CD Sharing", allowing its optical drive to be shared. Then on the Mini you connect to it with "remote disc".
I believe you're thinking about the "DVD and CD Sharing" System preference in reverse; you activate it on the computer whose optical drive you want to use/share, not on the Mini without an optical drive.
See the following which explains how to set up and use remote disc: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777?viewlocale=en_US
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