Grey Screen on start-up - Dad needs help again

Hello to the mac family,
As a regular 9.2 user, I am stuck once again. I am trying to help my son's roommate at school. I have not seen the computer. I think....
He has a powerbook G-4.... On start up, he just gets the grey screen and the X sign. He is running X.4 (Tiger). The machine is just out of warranty time.
This problem just started. I told him to start up holding down the shift key to get into safe mode. When he holds down the shift key it just starts up and hangs at the grey screen with the X on it. It doesn't go further. Because he lives far away (from college) I am planning to bring my son's i-book disks to the college. My son has an i-book with Tiger.
Will this allow him to get to the utilities and check things from there?
As I stated I am a 9 user so I can't help too much.
Could someone give us step by step instructions or a link to an article that will help us.
He has disconnected all periphs and plugged into an outlet.
I am floundering and would like to help him. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated..........mGb...........Jim (dad)
I also posted in Powe books in the hopes that someone can help me.

Hello Allan,
First of all...cool last name (hahahah)
Now for te serious stuff. Thanks for the help.
My son's mother drove to campus and bought the discs for his computer. The computer will start from disk and we get to utilities, first aid. Then we tried to repair. It started the process and after several minutes we got an error message that stated could not complete because of an error.
Next he ws thinking of re-installing even though this was not a great option. As it turns out.... The original install disc can't see the HD as a destination to install to.
He took the computer to an apple store and talked to the "Mac genius bar" Ithink that is what it is called. They told him to try running "Warrior" and see if that can fix things. He is a college kid and I don't know if he can come up with the $$ for Warrior.
What is troubling is that this problem seems to be the direct result of Downloading an update for Quick Time. He did this last night and today the computer wouldn't start.???
I thank you for the links adn will read them carefully now that I am back home. Another odd thinng...I couldn't get the computer to boot in "Safe Mode or the other "fsq?? or whatever that is. I tried holding down apple + S...while booting, but it just starts up to the grey screen and stops. No unix commands show. I am over my head but was trying to help him out. I will post with any progress...Thanks again for the help....mGb.....Jim Sampson
Allan, the error message was:
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Volume check failed.
The underlying task reported failure on exit.
Just though this might help. Jim

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Grey Screen at start-up - Troubleshoot harddrive and/or logic board?

Hi everyone. Sorry for the lengthy post, but hopefully you can help me - I've spent a lot of time on the boards already, but hoped you could clarify some things.
The problem is my Powerbook will not get past the grey screen at start-up. It will not boot off the 10.5 install disk and I can't eject the install disk to run the hardware test disk. Removing 3rd party ram, resetting PRAM, NVRAM, attempting to boot in 'safe' mode haven't helped. The harddrive is softly clicking/searching.
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-------

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News "FLASH"... Nancy O (the legend) ... i need help again

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Noooooooo........ When i saw your email notification i had high hopes of getting the answer i have been trying to work out for two days....but no problem ..your still a legend ha ha ... you got me out of a big hole in this project the last time... but thanks for taking the time to reply, i will try the other forum.
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:28:18 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: News "FLASH"... Nancy O (the legend) ... i need help again
Re: News "FLASH"... Nancy O (the legend) ... i need help again created by Nancy O. in Dreamweaver - View the full discussion
You'll get better answers in the Flash Forums for whichever Action Script ver you're using.
Sorry. I don't do much Flashy stuff anymore. As far as I'm concerned, when Apple iDevices quit supporting Flash, it became a dying web technology.
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
http://alt-web.com/
http://twitter.com/altweb
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Need Help again...

Hi all...
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Won't get past grey screen while starting up....please help

ya my g4 powerbook will get to the grey screen with the spinning gear but won't go no further. If this is a simple fix please let me know.

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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

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