Grey snowflake pattern with apple logo on display?

Am getting a gray snowflake pattern on display screen (using older Mac pro). Did something fail in computer or is this a hacking job? Right now I'm using another MAC to send this.

It sounds like the hardware could be failing, however it would be a good idea to rule out the installed OS.
Do you have another disk to boot the Mac Pro from? Try the original installer disks (grey disks), one will have text explaining how to use Apple hardware test (hold D at startup with the disk inserted). See if that can boot OK.
Also try the recovery partition (this is assuming you have one). Hold cmd+R at startup to see if the Mac ever gets to a point where the screen works. Also do you have any other display to test with? It may be the display failing & not the Mac Pro.
Mac Pro's have 'user replaceable parts'. If you can work out what model you have you can find the manual for this. It explains how to safely change the graphics card. This next link is the general principle…
http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA178/en_US/MacPro_PCIeCard_DIY.pdf
Find the manual for you model… Apple - Support - Manuals
Sometimes removing and re-seating the graphics card can make a difference, look for any dust etc whilst you are inside the case.

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My MacBook Pro is stuck on grey loading screen with apple logo and spinning wheel.

PLEASE HELP - Tried to start up my MacBook Pro and I get grey screen w/ apple logo & spinning wheel. It's stuck on this screen. Safe mode didn't help but reveled this: smc read key action error, BOOS key failed, BOPS key failed. Consider rebuild of prelinked kernal com.apple.kext triggers triggered rebuild. IOBluetooth host controller USB transport Suspend Device. I ran verifications/repairs in Disk Utilities, but nothing came back wrong on the reports. I'm a bit panicked, as I use this computer for work and have no other computer to use in the meantime. I should also note that I have very little technical knowledge, so if you can lend your help please keep that in mind when responding. I'd be over the moon if anyone can help.

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MacBook 2008 or 2009(?) stuck on grey boot screen with Apple logo and rotating gear under it.

See now, the real problem is that I can't even try Disk Utility because I don't have the original disks seeing as I bought this MacBook off of Amazon. I tried Safe Mode, Single User Mode, & resetting the PRAM. Basically everything I can do without the original disks. How do I do this?! Please help for I'm desperate.

Sounds like you've already read this Apple note. No bootable external backup hard drive? You might call Apple support to see if they still have the original OS X disks for your system, or you can buy OS X 10.6 from the online Apple for $20, which would be an upgrade, assuming you have at least 1GB of memory. Otherwise, take it into an Apple store for assistance.

My macbook pro 2011 shows grey screen with apple logo and want start

i was just using my macbook pro and it freezed for a while not responding and i turned it off by pressing the power button. afterwards, i turn it on and it shows a grey screen with apple logo but want start pls somebody help me because am having "my life" on the machine

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.a. Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode.* The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Post for further instructions.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is damaged and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Boot into Recovery again. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup.
Step 8
A dead logic-board battery in a Mac Pro can cause a gray screen at boot. Typically the boot failure will be preceded by loss of the startup disk and system clock settings. See the user manual for replacement instructions.
Step 9
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

Ipod 4 is displaying blue frozen screen and black screen with apple logo. I try to turn power off but as soon as it goes out it automatically reboots. Plugged it into the usb port on my mac and it doesnt do anything. It doesnt appear in Itunes. Help?

ipod 4 is displaying blue frozen screen and black screen with apple logo. I try to turn power off but as soon as it goes out it automatically reboots. Plugged it into the usb port on my mac and it doesnt do anything. It doesnt appear in Itunes. Help?

Let the battery fully darain. After charging for an least an hour try a reset and restore. Use Recovery mode if necessary.
If not successful, then time for an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store.

When turning on my mac book pro it displays a screen with apple logo and begins loading a loading bar, after this continues to show loading circle however has been like this all day still no different. Tried turning it on and off however still same!

When turning on my mac book pro it displays a screen with apple logo and begins loading a loading bar, after this continues to show loading circle however has been like this all day still no different. Tried turning it on and off however still same!

... then run Disk Utility, Repair Disk.
Also:
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk ...
Mac troubleshooting FAQ: start-up woes
How To Fix Common Mac Startup Problems
Mac Stalls on Gray Screen at Startup - Troubleshooting Mac Startup ...

I have snow leopard installed as an OS. When trying to reboot a MacBook Pro I am getting stuck on grey screen with apple logo and rotating symbol. What can I do?

I have snow leopard installed as an OS. When trying to reboot a MacBook Pro I am getting stuck on grey screen with apple logo and rotating symbol. What can I do?

Maybe this might help.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

Mac book pro is unable to display desktop ,only white screen with apple logo is appearing

Hi
I have a Mac book pro, since today morning the Mac book pro is not starting. It just displays the white screen with Apple logo and search signal. Despite waiting for a long time desktop is not coming up.
I have tried to restart it several time but the status remains same. Kindly help.
Thank you
Kind regards
satish

Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar

Macbook Pro (2011) froze while working, forced shut down, now won't turn on. Grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel for hours. Help?

Macbook Pro (2011) froze while working, forced shut down, now won't turn on. Grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel for hours. Help?
Unfortunately do not know the operating system since I never updated anything and I can't get in to it.
Thanks for your assistance.

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from the Recovery partition or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Start up screen stuck on grey screen with apple logo and spinning gear

Start up screen is stuck on grey screen with apple logo and spinning gear. What should I do?

See this thread with dominic23’s suggestions: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5783326?tstart=0

Grey screen with apple logo after new HDD install

I have a mid 2010 iMac A1312, this was given to me recently with the knowledge of its bad HDD, so I bought a new HDD. I followed step by step instructions on how to replace a Hard drive and I did. I switched the computer on and inserted my Snow Leopard 10.6.3 install disk and clicked the icon. It is now at a light grey screen with a dark Apple logo. I have waited about ten minutes and restarted the machine. Ive tried all variances of startup holding down c, option, command r and so forth. Currently I am going to give it a good long wait of 20 minutes or so and see if I was just being impatient and not allowing the install software chance to start up. But in the mean time... any suggestions? I have read I need the original disks that came with the computer from factory to get a new HDD going. Is this true? thank you for your time!

it has now been 30 minutes and no change. I still have the grey screen with apple logo. please help

Grey Screen with Apple Logo - HELP

First of all: I know there is another topic for this, but this is a different problem (i think?)
I was installing snow leopard... it came up with that green tick with restart below it. It shut down and when it booted up it went to the grey screen with apple logo and it hung there for 6 hours until I turned it off. The disc is still stuck in there (tried holding in the mouse button) and it won't come out. I also held in the C button which made the disc drive make a lot of noise.
Any help would be appreciated.

Here there is a lot of topic about that subject.
By any change, have you completed all upgrade that your mac asked you before installing 10.6?
If yes, you're in this situation: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2990 , you can try to install it again. Some people said that it took them 3 times to make it works.

Hi my iMAc 27 inch starts up to the grey screen with apple logo and loading bar underneath it loads halfway then freezes up and shut down after a while please help

Hi my iMAc 27 inch starts up to the grey screen with apple logo and loading bar underneath it loads halfway then freezes up and shut down after a while please help

Try the tips listed here Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

Computer won't start, grey screen with Apple logo only. Ideas?

Last night my wife's G5 froze. It is a G5 2.0 running OS X 10.4.11. I shut it down (had to use the power button) and tried to restart. No luck, just made it to the grey screen with Apple logo and spinning wheel. After a few seconds the Apple logo disappeared and a black box took its place, then the wheel stopped spinning. It was late, decided top wait until morning before trying again.
This morning I tried to start up again. This time got a warning(?) in upper left that a Firmtek item had already started. I'm sorry I didn't write this all down at the time, so I don't remember the entire message. Since there is a Firmtek card installed in one of the PCI slots I thought that might be the problem, and I pulled the card, as well as another Adaptec card that was also installed. Tried to start again, got to grey screen with Apple but this time no spinning wheel.
Opened media slot manually and inserted Diskwarrior. Tried to start with Diskwarrior but again only reached grey screen. Let run for ~5 minutes, until fans started to run and were begining to get noisy.
Next I reset the PRAM. No luck, still stuck on grey screen. Tried Diskwarrior again, this time got another message in upper left. Here is most of it -
System Failure : cpu=1; code=60000009 (Invalid pmap)
Lateset crash info for cpu1;
Exception state (sv=0x609bb280)
PC=0x000a4ad0; MSR=0x02003000 followed by more similar strings, then
backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address; 0xfc088891
So what's the diagnosis? I've had various issues with my G5s in the past, but have never had one refuse to boot with Diskwarrior before.
Thanks in advance for any help!

Whew, could be many things, from RAM, (or RAM slots/solder issue), to CPU #1 being bad, (CPU#1 is actually the second one.
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
We might get clues with verbose mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492

My MacBook Air won't start it's grey with apple logo Howe do I fix this?

I have 2008 MacBook Air today I can't start up. When I press the power button it shows gray screen with apple logo and that thing spinning . How do I fix this?

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is damaged and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Boot into Recovery again. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup.
Step 8
A dead logic-board battery in a Mac Pro can cause a gray screen at boot. Typically the boot failure will be preceded by loss of the startup disk and system clock settings. See the user manual for replacement instructions.
Step 9
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

Grey snowflake pattern with apple logo on display?

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