Grey screen and locking up

im having lots of problems on my 2008 imac it is locking up and even getting locked out grey screen
It has 1tb hard drive only 50% full and 4gb

This normally indicates your system is attempting to diagnose and resolve a HD problem. Please read Apple's letter on Gray progress bar appears under Apple logo during startup where they explain what you can do to troubleshoot. However I suspect the HD has failed and needs to be replaced. As long as you have been backing up using Time Machine or creating a Bootable Clone using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner restoring back to where you were with a new HD shouldn't be a big problem.
I think your next step after diagnosing is a trip to the Apple Store or an AASP for repair. Make sure you tell them if you have a backup so they can assist in restoring your data. You can use the Apple Online Service Assistant to help locate someone in your area.
Good luck.

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Grey screen with lock icon

Macbook not booting properly, install disk nothing, press option on start up goes directly to grey screen with lock and login bar, tried all passwords and ...Nothing
cannot safe boot. cannot reset PRAM. regular boot startup displays apple icon and spinning wheel.. Have no idea what may have caused issue (not the last one to use it) In other words HELP!

I was able to do this ! YAY ! I believe I did something incorrectly on the first go with the PRAM reset. I was able to enter Single User Mode with original disk. Yay ! It was indeed the firmware password! Thank you Kappy !
Following Kappy's steps, I did the following;
If you're running OS 9, you may need another mac (though i suspect a PC with firewire and a HFS driver would do) and a firewire cable. You will need to delete preferences pertaining to keychain access and any keychains in the preferences folder in the system holder The first imacs ran this so its plausible
If you're running OS X on the imac
Single user mode would do the trick unless there's open firmware password protection in place
To go into single user mode
Press the power button to start the computer.
Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and one of the following: the "s" key for single-user mode. (Command-S) This should boot into a white screen, and iirc throw you into a command prompt
These instructions should work for older versions such as 10.4. Khafshoh S' version works for newer systems 10.5 and better - 10.7 also has yet another option for resetting the password involving the 'resetpassword' command in lion recovery.
Instructions for changing the password are based off of Apple's documentation though the documentation goes very in-depth.
You would then mount the file system as writable with
mount -uw /
then find out what the accounts on the system are with
ls /Users/
then change their passwords with
passwd username
reboot and get back into graphical mode with
reboot
Then check the accounts to work out which one is the admin account.

Screen problems - black screen and lock-up (plus HDMI issues)

Hi, I'm not sure if these are related to the same fundamental issue, but they are both serious problems that need resolution.
I have a new mid-2012 MBPretina. I am on all the latest updates (10.8.2).
The first problem is the most recent, and the most serious problem. Since I updated the Java a couple of days ago I've been experiencing random black screens and lock-ups. Essentially, what happens is that sometimes when I perform an action (opening an app, clicking a link on a webpage, performing other kinds of in-app actions, etc.) the computer screen will go black. About half the time I can, through my own memory, try keyboard combinations to quit or force quit the most recently used app (the one where the action was just performed), and I will get some glimpse of the underlying apps, while the menubar and other areas will remain black until I move a window on top of the black space. Sometimes no key combinations work and I am forced to perform a hard restart with the power button. This is a serious issue, obviously, since I will lose current work/progress in my apps. I'm not sure if this is because of the new Java update, or has to do with something else, but it started happening shortly thereafter, over the last 2 days. I work most of my waking day on my laptop, and this "black screen of death" has happened about 5 or 6 times a day.
The second problem I have been experiencing since I starting using my MBPr with external HDMI displays in August/September. The problem is that I will plug the MBPr into an HDMI display, the screen will temporaliy go black, and then bring me to the login screen (as if it's crashing, albeit softly). This happens about 1 out of 4 times nowadays.
How can I fix these problems, especially the first?

UPDATE:
Clearly there's a problem because a third of the way through a clean reinstallation from scratch it black screened again. Hmmmm.
Now this is not good. Problem is I can't rule out potential updates from Apple that might have caused this either.
The search for solutions continues.

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

Click here and follow the instructions. If the computer originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.8 or earlier, when you reach step 5, insert its original disk, restart with the C key held down, use the Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and install a fresh OS.
(113954)

My mac shows a grey screen and spinning gear and nothing else. please help! i want my mac to work again :/

My mac needed new updates and after clickign update it soon told me there was an error and it froze. I then let it sit fo about 15 minutes adn nothign changed so I restarted it and ever since then all my computer will show is the grey screen and a spinning gear :/ can anyone help me with this problem?

I had the same issue, and I had recently backed-up my files (mostly because the mac was acting wonky before this even happened), so I did an erase and install. Then I ran through all the software upgrades and installed all of them. When I did a required restart (for the Mac OS X 10.4.11 update) it went BACK to grey screen with spinning ball. Talk about frustrating!
I think there is something weird going on with the iTunes update and the Mac OS X 10.4.11 update. But one can't be used without the other. So I'm not sure how to update everything safely and get an up to date system, without having all the problems I had before. So now I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.7 so I can have a stable system to do my work, but I can't run iTunes 7.0. I'm too scared to update OS b/c I can't waste another day re-installing everything (for like the third time).
I'm a pretty new Mac user (year and half) so this may sound really dumb, but any suggestions would be very welcomed. I may start a new thread instead of hijacking this one...

When I am on an Internet site, the iPad will suddenly flash a grey screen and then go to the home page". I then have to go back to safari and reopen my page. Anyone else have this trouble?

When I am on an Internet site, my iPad will suddenly flash a grey screen and then go back to the home screen where I have to start Safari again and reopen my page. It does it frequently sometimes 3 times within 5 minutes. Anyone else have this trouble? It is driving me crazy!

Safari crash regularly
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2460899?tstart=30

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, he turned it off and now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. It won't start in safe mode and when I If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

With a corrupt disk, the install procedure is most likely going to fail.
How old it the disk?
You might be able to reformat it to fix the problem. Of course that means you lose all of your data.
The other alternative is to get a new disk drive and put that in your Mac and install OS X
Then put the old disk drive in an enclosure and see what can be recovered from it.
Allan

Grey Screen and Spinning Circle When Trying to open a PDF from a website

I tried to view a pdf from a website and a little window popped up. At the time i thought it was to save the pdf but i guess it was in fact asking me to find the adobe acrobat program. I quit out of it and now keep getting the grey screen and spinning circle when i try to download the pdf. How do I get it so i can open pdfs if find on websites? thanks!

themercenary12 wrote:
Found another topic and was helpful
*Hi mercenary, Welcome (Back)* to Apple's Users Help Users Forums.
It would be nice if you could explain or link to the helpful topic.
Good Luck, JP

Ibookg4 will not go past the grey screen and will not accept a disc

my ibook will not go past the grey screen and will not accept a disc

Have you tried starting up in Safe Mode? If not, I suggest that you give it a try. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
If this works you will see your normal desktop. Once completely started up in Safe Mode, try to restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar, ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
See if you are able to do a little hard drive maintenance to help things out.

Start up problem-can't get past Apple grey screen and spinning gear

Upon trying to start up my laptop, got nothing but the apple logo, grey screen and spinning gear. I tried several things to resolve the problem on my own (hardware test said it could not verify the disk/could not start up from the OS X install disk/reset the power mgmt. unit/disconnected all peripherals)and finally went to the Apple store. Genius bar said they were able to start up from their hard drive and suggested that I buy an external hard drive, go home, start up again and back up all files. I bought a My Book. Got home and same thing happened: Apple logo and spinning gear. I am an Apple user of 18 years, but have not had to do much in the way of diagnostics. Have tried fsck routine today that I found on another posting here today. If the Genius guy got it going, I assumed that I could too. I was wrong. Any advice would be appreciated. It looks like this is the end of the road for my Powerbook, but I'd like a shot at recovering data.
Message was edited by: Debbie Wach

Hi Debbie/Gregg -
I may have missed something but can't you just put a new hard drive in your laptops? You may not be able to recover your data but it doesn't mean the end for your computer. The same thing happened to my TiBook and I put a new 120Gig hard drive in and it's had a new lease of life.
I bought a new internal hard drive along with an external enclosure and connected it up to my computer and from there cloned it. Then I transferred the external into the TiBook and put the old drive into the external and I use that as an external now. I realise your hard drives are dead but you could use another computer to so the same thing and just install the OS on it.
I bought this -
http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/productinfo.php?productsid=452
Then followed the instructions here -
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G4-Ti-DVI/HD-Replacement/33/6/
Once your new hard drive is installed you may be able to try and repair the old one in the external enclosure?

Solution for a course going to a black screen and locking up after a while (20-30 slides for me)?

The LMS is Saba and I'm using Captivate 6. I am testing the course in production. The course goes to a black screen and locks up. The first time was at slide 28 of 55 which is a widget and the second time was at slide 20 of 55 which is a multiple choice test item. I'm not sure if the type of slide I'm trying to advance to matters but I want to give as much info as possible. The issue seems to be random since I was first able to get to slide 28.

With LMS issues you should always test the same project in SCORM Cloud before you blame the project. If SCORM Cloud shows the same issue, fine, blame the project. If SCORM Cloud has no issue with it, get in touch with the LMS vendor. It may be that they need to update some component of their SCORM Player software.

When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

Simple way to make HDD free space is delete files you don't need anymore.
Or get bigger drive and external HDD case, then:
1) install bigger HDD in external drive case.
2) connect external drive and format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is internal HDD, target drive is external one).
4) install external bigger drive into your Macbook Pro.
In the cace if your're using Mac Pro:
1) get bigger HDD and install it in drive bay of Mac Pro.
2) format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is old HDD, target drive is new one).
4) Select boot drive to new bigger one.

How can I get rid of The Grey screen and boot my macbook?

Today I was on my MacBook Pro (bought July 2011) and it went to a blank blue screen. I powered it off and tried to restart it. It loaded the apple and spinning circle but it went to a grey screen and froze there. I've read and tried a lot of different things already but nothing has worked. I did the hardware test and it found no problems. I tried to safeboot it. I tried everything on here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 except the last suggestion (I'd rather not have to lose all my files unless absolutely nesseccary). I also tried the "hold Command + R keys" to try and get to utilities. Anything else out there that I could try? Not sure what the exact operating system is either.

I wouldn't assume that's the hard drive. The fact that the screen turned blue all of a sudden isn't necessarily an indication of a hard drive failure. Check out this post I made yesterday:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21756819#21756819
My personal opinion would be to try and boot from an external hard drive with the appropriate OS installed. With a 2011 model, I would assume that should be Snow Leopard or later. AHT doesn't catch everything, and I don't know if it even does drive scans for bad blocks. I do know for a fact that it pretty much limits itself to digital interfaces and can't go beyond analog driver stages. For example, if the driver stages of a FireWire port or ethernet port are blown, AHT will report them as being OK.
If you got hit by a transient, which could indicate an internal supply problem or a line problem if you were connected to the internet via a wired connection or you were running off the charger, there's no telling what it might have caused the drive to do (if it's the drive) and it could easily cause the screen to suddenly go to blue, but what other damage was done?
My point is that you need to confirm what the source of the problems are. If there's a logic board problem, your drive and data may be OK. If the drive is bad, some of it may still be recoverable. The problem may very well be drive related, but I wouldn't go out and start throwing money at new parts without first confirming what the cause of the problems is.
Hope this helped, and good luck.

I have a white/grey screen and none of the suggested operations have helped, what should I do?

I have a white/grey screen and none of the suggested options have worked - I have tried all the suggestions on Apple support

Ok, I've had this problem before and contacted Applecare support and they told me that it was an issue with the RAM inside the Mac or something like that. They told me to refresh the ram, and it fixed the problem so that's what I'd recommend. Here's how to do it.
Hit Power button, then press and hold Command + R + Option + P at the same time.
This resets the residual ram that is causing the start up to hang.
Try that, I hope it works for you.
broken_mirror

Help! Macbook wont shut down, i have a grey screen and nothing happening! It wont even respond to turn off button

Help! Macbook wont shut down, i have a grey screen and nothing happening! It wont even respond to turn off button

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Grey screen and locking up

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