Grey screen upon turning on Mac

Trying to turn on my Mac and all I get is a grey screen and apple logo. Did hear the chime upon turning the unit on but do not get to home screen. Help

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Read and follow all the steps.
If your Mac shipped with Lion or Mountain Lion already installed, make the following correction:
Start from your Mac OS X Install disc Start your Mac using OS X Recovery; use Disk Utility

Similar Messages

Flashing question mark on mac book pro,with grey screen when turned on?

flashing question mark on mac book pro,with grey screen when turned on?

Press the power button down to force a emergency hardware shutdown and hold the option/alt key down and reboot
If you see your OS X boot partition, then click it and the arrow, head to System Preferences > Startup Disk and reset it. Done.
Folder with question mark issue
If that doesn't it, then do a #2 PRAM reset and try the above again.
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
If no OS X boot volume appears in Startup Manager, then OS X is corrupted.
Try more of the Steps above (like 1-8) then if that doesn't work.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Once you got your data off, erase and reinstall OS X onto the MacintoshHD partition and then restore from TimeMachine or bootable clone if you have it. or build new and return users files from the data recovery drive.
Most commonly used backup methods
If the drive doesn't appear in Disk Utility it might be dead or there are further complications let us know for further assistance.
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/?p er_page=50

Grey screen once turned on, loading bar for 20 seconds then off...help!

Every time I turn on my mac, grey screen loads, then a progress bar appears then disappears then it turns off. Any ideas??

Start with this and see if there are possible solutions for your problem:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Ciao.

My mac computer was frozen,then it had a question mark ? and does not start, still at the grey screen blinking with the mac logo,dont know if it is a lion,leopard or tiger

my mac computer was frozen, so my son turned off the computer and restarted again, then a questin mark showed on blank grey screen, then the mac logo comes up blinking and nothing happens. Don't know if it is still in the frozen stage. Please help me, don't know what to do?The version not too sure but i know it is more than 10.5 and 6. I turned off the computer many times and left it off for a while and turned it back on and it remains at the white screen with the mac logo blinking.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/8517/cant-boot-mac-only-shows-a-folder- with-a-question-mark
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3926554?start=0&tstart=0
How old is this Mac? It is also possible that the hard drive has failed. If nothing works, take it to the  Retail Store

What do I do when only the grey screen appears on my Mac desktop?

When turning on computer it will only get to grey screen after the chime.

update your profile to reflect mac model and OS more clearly.
You might want to search out for the OS X and iMac Communities.
Mac OS X Forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
The more backup sets you have the better. And some basic knowledge of system maintenance.
Mac OS X Help
http://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/
Isolating Issues in Mac OS
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388
https://www.apple.com/support/osx/
https://www.apple.com/support/quickassist/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/help/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
Get Help with your Product
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304725
Apple Mac App Store
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_app_store/using_mac_apple_store
How to Buy Mac OS X Mountain Lion/Lion
http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
TimeMachine 101
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine
Mac OS X Community
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os
Recovery Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
ExpressLane
https://expresslane.apple.com/
Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT131
Startup Key combination: here is the old list:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
Startup Key combinations new list
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1367
Clone your system:
How to Clone a Volume
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy
See also Erasing a Drive, How and Why to Partition a Drive, RAID.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393
What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X) - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
Isolating issues in Mac OS X
Creating a temporary user to isolate user-specific problems:
Isolating an issue by using another user account
Identifying resource hogs and other tips:
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used
Starting the computer in "safe mode":
Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
To identify potential hardware problems:
Apple Hardware Test
General Mac maintenance:
Tips to keep your Mac in top form
How to install OS X on a new or faulty HD without Internet recovery
Corrupt and new disks might not have a working Recovery partition, but there are still ways to access one and reinstall OS X, if needed.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57594422-263/how-to-install-os-x-on-a-new-o r-faulty-hd-without-internet-recovery/

Sudden grey screen on a new Mac Pro

Hi,
from a two days my Mac suddenly crashes with the grey screen.
Does anyone know what is going on? Below the report:
Thu Sep 10 23:04:14 2009
panic(cpu 11 caller 0x001AA0D4): Kernel trap at 0x0017ebd4, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x6c617475, CR3: 0x00d40000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x00000001, EBX: 0x6c617461, ECX: 0x155e1998, EDX: 0x16275230
CR2: 0x6c617475, EBP: 0x90ce3c18, ESI: 0x0002d000, EDI: 0x00000000
EFL: 0x00010202, EIP: 0x0017ebd4, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00000010
Error code: 0x00000000
Backtrace (CPU 11), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x90ce3a18 : 0x12b4c3 (0x45d7fc 0x90ce3a4c 0x133542 0x0)
0x90ce3a68 : 0x1aa0d4 (0x467864 0x17ebd4 0xe 0x467010)
0x90ce3b48 : 0x1a0773 (0x90ce3b60 0x90ce3c7c 0x90ce3c18 0x17ebd4)
0x90ce3b58 : 0x17ebd4 (0xe 0x3e0048 0x90ce0010 0x1a0010)
0x90ce3c18 : 0x1603cd (0x16275230 0x2d000 0x0 0x40000)
0x90ce3c98 : 0x163bfd (0x1cfe9b0 0x7d000 0x0 0x90ce3e1c)
0x90ce3d38 : 0x16ddeb (0x1cfe9b0 0x90ce3e1c 0x1522ce0c 0x50000)
0x90ce3e88 : 0x3c390f (0x90000 0x0 0x3 0x0)
0x90ce3ec8 : 0x384888 (0x50000 0x0 0x3fe70 0x0)
0x90ce3f78 : 0x3e19ff (0x15929cd4 0x15510680 0x155106c4 0x0)
0x90ce3fc8 : 0x1a0c6a (0x157e2cc0 0x0 0x1a30b5 0x17912a80)
0xbfffeb98 : 0x55555555 (0x0 0x55575555 0x0 0x55555555)
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: launchd
Mac OS version:
9G3553
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.3: Tue Jan 20 18:26:40 PST 2009; root:xnu-1228.10.33~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacPro4,1 (Mac-F221BEC8)
I appreciate any advise.
Marek.

And again with this:
Thu Sep 10 23:11:06 2009
panic(cpu 8 caller 0x001AA0D4): Kernel trap at 0x0017ebd4, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x80010033, CR2: 0x21ff331f, CR3: 0x6b0e5000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x00000001, EBX: 0x21ff330b, ECX: 0x1870b4f0, EDX: 0x163e294c
CR2: 0x21ff331f, EBP: 0x90f439a8, ESI: 0x01639000, EDI: 0x00000000
EFL: 0x00010202, EIP: 0x0017ebd4, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x048d0010
Error code: 0x00000000
Backtrace (CPU 8), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x90f437a8 : 0x12b4c3 (0x45d7fc 0x90f437dc 0x133542 0x0)
0x90f437f8 : 0x1aa0d4 (0x467864 0x17ebd4 0xe 0x467010)
0x90f438d8 : 0x1a0773 (0x90f438f0 0x163e2954 0x90f439a8 0x17ebd4)
0x90f438e8 : 0x17ebd4 (0xe 0x48 0x90f40010 0x1a0010)
0x90f439a8 : 0x1737db (0x163e294c 0x1639000 0x0 0x0)
0x90f439f8 : 0x1cec75 (0x163e294c 0x15f1000 0x0 0x163b000)
0x90f43a98 : 0x1ceef7 (0x163a95a0 0x1708f30 0x0 0x15f1000)
0x90f43ad8 : 0x330e63 (0x163a95a0 0x1708f30 0x0 0x15f1000)
0x90f43b58 : 0x1f717d (0x90f43b88 0x246 0x90f43bb8 0x1db215)
0x90f43bb8 : 0x36c6d7 (0x163a95a0 0x2c 0x90f43ed8 0x0)
0x90f43f78 : 0x3e1631 (0x159959e8 0x18390d48 0x183886c4 0x0)
0x90f43fc8 : 0x1a10ee (0x18390d44 0x0 0x1a30b5 0x18390d40)
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x5fbfad00
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: TM_Notifier
Mac OS version:
9G3553
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.3: Tue Jan 20 18:26:40 PST 2009; root:xnu-1228.10.33~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacPro4,1 (Mac-F221BEC8)

Macbook has Grey screen wont start- said " MAC OSX does not have enough memory "

My daughter was using the macbook, and a message came up saying something like MAC OSX does not have enough memory for start up applications, ...
and it was frozen ( wish I had written down what it said") In held the start button down for 10 seconds, and now it wont work properly.
All I get on start up is a grey screen. I have tried holding down shift key and rebooting, but nothing.
I tried resetting the Pram or whatever it is.
I cant try and start from the start up utility disc as there is already a disc in there and I cant get it out.
Have tried rebooting with mouse key pressed., have tried rebooting holding F12, rebooting holding command O and P , have tried pushing the ejectb button when rebooting. But nada.
Ipod died last week, video camera on the blink yesterday, am having a bad electronic week!!!
Has it died or is there another solution..Help please.

Wow, sorry to hear!
Does it boot into any of these modes?
Target mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Does booting with the Option/alt key held down show any boot choices or work at all?

I can't get past the password grey screen on my new Mac Book Pro.

I have a new Mac Book Pro. I transferred info from my old computer, and when I went to log into the new one, it took me as far as the password screen, and I can get no farther. I click on my name, put in my password, and it jiggles...as if it is wrong. News to me - as I used the same password that I have used for years on my computer.
I get a message that says, "If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your Apple ID." There is a little arrow there, but when you press it, the message disappears, and nothing happens.
There is a guest profile set up, that apparently has a mystery password in it as well.... I am locked out of my new computer. Very frustrated!!!

Lanch Font Book located in HD > Applications
Type Hoefler in the search field top right side of the Font Book window then select Ornaments.
See there's anything that will work for you there.

G3 won't startup (grey screen with happy mac)

My sister has a iMac G3 that all of a sudden stopped working. When it's turned on, we get the chime, a grey screen and a happy mac, that's all. It just sits there. I've tried restarting with the C down, using the PRAM trick, putting in a CD startup disk (though not the one it came with), disconnecting the USB drve/hub, but get nothing. We've had problems with the CD drive before, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was broken too. Any help would be appreciated. It's a blue iMac (maybe a 350mhz?. Thanks in advance
iMAC G3 (350mhz) Mac OS 9.0.x

You may need to replace the PRAM battery. A weak or dead battery has been known to cause startup problems.
If you can startup from a Mac OS installation CD, you can run Disk First Aid from the CD (for Mac OS 9) in the Utilities folder, and verify (and repair if necessary) the internal drive.
If you suspect the CDROM drive, you can also try disconnecting the CDROM drive internally to see of this will allow the iMac to start up. Sometimes, a bad drive will prevent another drive on the IDE bus to not be recognized.

Mac mini unable to boot, stuck in grey screen.

Hi,
i have a Mac Mini which I have kept up to date with current version of OS X (Mountain Lion)
After a recent reboot the system won't come up, it just hangs displaying a grey screen.
I have tried:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
I can boot up the system in single user mode.( https://support.apple.com/kb/ht1492 )
I have done a /sbin/fsck -fy and this works fine. I can browse the file system, the only
strange thing I notice is "BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 2 No such file or directory".
I have googled quite a lot but I have not managed to find a solution for this, though it is frequently mentioned.
I have tried the normal diagnostics and no hardware error is reported.
I have tried to boot into local recovery, this starts but after a while I end up with the grey screen.
I have tried a Internet recovery and this starts, the screen flashes for a second and I end up with the gray screen
I have tried the different reset methods, such as NVRAM ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 )
I have tried to reset the SMC ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964 )
I have swapped the RAM modules for other ones.
testing my internet connectivity; speedtest.net reports 15 Mbit downstream and 2 Mbit upstream
Even if I leave my Mac mini on for 12+ hours the internet recovery never finishes, nor am I presented with any options, just the grey screen.
Because the Mac mini doesn't ship with any DVD-media and the Mountain Lion I have bought is through the app store I couldn’t try to boot
from a DVD.
The reason I bought a Mac was to get away from problems which is typically related to computers (Windows). I am running out of ideas here,
please help!
Kind Regards

Whew,
Great work so far, is it still covered unfer AppleCare? I think you'd done all you can do & it needs to be taken in.

G3 Beige: grey screen at startup; no icon; won't boot from CD

G3 Beige, OS 9.2; working perfectly for past year.
I was using a D-Link wired router, to this and my other Mac, G4 Graphite OS X Tiger.
Having just gotten a netbook, I installed a D-Link wireless router (DIR-615), and changed the ethernet cables for both (non-wireless) Macs over to the new router. (It had been configured for me by a Staples Associate where I bought it.)
The netbook and the Graphite G4 worked as they should, but upon restart, the G3 Beige not only wouldn’t boot, it didn’t even show a sad Mac or a question mark. It chimed, but only has a grey screen. Cursor works (& keyboard); nothing else.
I disconnected ethernet cable; same grey screen upon restart.
Won’t boot from Norton or Mac OS 9 CD, pressing “C” at startup.
Zapping pram didn’t help.
Shift during startup didn’t help.
Now what??
TIA.
PS: Meanwhile, I'm afraid to connect my emergency spare 7300 w/G3 upgrade & OS 9.1 to that router. Should I?

The next thing to try is re-seating the sound card. The backpanel is only well-supported on one side, and the sound card takes a beating in all the Beige G3s and similar Macs with tumble-open or lift open designs (but not the All-in-One). Jeff suggests you remove the exterior third screw \[and leave it out] and bend the top tab slightly before re-installing the two screws on the rail. This helps push the sound card back into the slot and keep it firmly seated.
Do you have any SCSI devices or SCSI cables connected? A dangling SCSI cable or a badly-terminated SCSI device can cause a Hang where you describe.

Macbook Pro Grey Screen

Hello,
My Macbook Pro has suddenly started to show the grey screen upon startup. It only seems to happen when both my USB ports have connections made. When I disconnect the USB connections startup goes smoothly, Do I need to just boot up my Macbook Pro without the connections being made, or is there something I can do to avoid having to do this?
Mark

If the excellent idea above doesn't solve it I would recommend you try the following, as explained by User "rkaufmann87" in these Forums:
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Hope this helps

Tiger install completes, restarts to blank grey screen

G3 blue and white desktop/400MHz/512 MB RAM/20 GB Western Digital EIDE HD/ OS X 10.4 retail install DVD.
My friend gave me the aforementioned Mac, which was working fine before.
Performed a complete install, with an erased and Apple-formatted drive. After about 40 minutes of installing, the installer reaches the last step, and restarts (DVD still inside). I thought that would be it and I'd be ready to go.
Then it just hangs for an eternity with a grey screen.
If the Mac is then restarted without the installer DVD, I get the flashing happy Mac/ ? icon.
Following these suggested steps: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
1. Booted in safe mode;
2. Zapped my PRAM;
3. Removed added RAM and restored the lower-capacity ones that came with it,
all these actions did nothing.
I then ran First Aid, and Verified and Repaired disc parameters, and Verified the disk. No problems, and all passed.
System Profiler also shows that there has been several GBs installed on the HD.
I've read others having this problem after installing security updates, but I can't find an instance of it happening immediately after an install.
Any ideas on how to proceed?

"Classic cannot find a Mac OS 9 system folder on the startup disk to use." Well, obviously it can't find one, because I don't have one! That's why I'm installing OS X! Why would Apple require people to have an older version of an OS in order to install a firmware update for a newer OS to use a larger capacity drive?
You aren't supposed to boot this computer into OSX until you have installed the firmware update, so why bother have the firmware installer run under OSX?
On another hunch, I updated the system to 10.4.11, and tried the firmware update again, but nada.
The computer has to be booted to OS9 natively (not running OS9 as Classic) in order to install the firmware update, not booted to OSX.
And this is the only Apple disc I have.
Call Apple Customer Support 1-800-767-2775 (http://www.apple.com/contact/phone_contacts.html). Provide the serial number and specifications of the Mac. They may be able to provide a replacement set of discs for a fee. These discs will be for whatever OS was installed on the computer originally.
Is there any way to get a hard drive > 10 GB recognized?
Did you read the stuff about Rev.1 vs Rev 2 B&W in my post in the other topic? Depending upon the model it simply may not be possible to get a large hard drive to work properly on this computer without a PCI card. I think it would help if you read what I posted in the other topic and resolve a lot of these issues on the older hardware forum since many of these things are not Tiger problems as such but a matter of using old hardware. Some B&W can successfully run OSX but you have to cosset these old machines into running software that really wasn't intended to be run on them.

USB connections causing grey screen

I posted this question yesterday with no responses.
Whenever I have either one or two USB connections made on my Mcbook Pro, I get a grey screen upon bootup. This problem jsut started happening the other day. Does anyone have any ideas or sugestions?
Mark

what bios version do u have?? have u installed usb patch which comes with the msi cd rom???

IMBP 13" (2009 revision) display a prohibition sign w/grey screen on boot

Hello,
I'm new to this OS, which is a iMBP 13" (2009 revision). I'm experiencing abnormal boot sequence. The bootup screen display a prohibition sign with a grey screen upon boot after installing Security Update 2010-001 for Snow Leopard. There is no error message I can write down nor excessive fan noise coming out from the laptop.
Thanks for your help
Tony from New Zealand
Computer Spec: 13-inch: 2.26GHz
13-inch: 2.53GHz
W/ v10.6.2
Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB Memory
500GB hard drive
SD card slot
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
(2009 revision)
Message was edited by: TonySNZ

Hello Tony from New Zealand (great place, I visited once):
Welcome to Apple discussions.
Take a look at this article to see if it helps you fix the problem:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
If it does not, I think I would reinstall OS X 10.6 (upgrade from your software install DVD) over your existing system. Then I would run software update to bring everything to current levels.
A good backup before any software change is always a very good idea (I use both Time Machine and SuperDuper).
Barry

Grey screen upon turning on Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for