Help! my mac wont boot

help! my mac wont boot

Have you tried Safe Boot?
You also might reset PRAM and reset SMC.
Have you tried booting with the Recovery System? See its possibilities here.
From there you can make repairs to your primary startup partition.
Do you have a backup? If not, do you have an external drive large enough to back up your primary drive? It would be good to have one in case your drive needs repair or replacement.

Similar Messages

  • G5 mac wont boot up past white apple screen

    My kids mac wont boot up past the white apple screen. I can here everything running but the monitor starts to get all static and scan lines with a reddish tint to it. I tried the commandoption+pr but it still wouldn't boot-up past the white apple screen. Not sure what else to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

    Hi there Peter,
    Not cheap anyway you look at it sorry, professional Data Recovery being the most expensive.
    Unfortunately, Disk Utility can't fix all that much, and the only other Apple Options are erasing the HD, or installing OSX to a second drive, then using Migration Assistant to move stuff over to the new HD.
    If Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...
    http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
    Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.
    http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
    But others that may work…
    Drive Genius 2…
    http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
    TechTool Pro 4…
    http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83
    Data Rescue II...
    http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
    This one would require another HD with plenty of space to recover to.
    You should use another Boot Disk or other Mac with this one in Target mode to do the recovery.
    They have a free demo to see what it could recover.

  • Old mac wont boot xcpt via firewire, want to move iphoto files from old to new, where are the pics stored?

    old mac wont boot xcpt via firewire, want to move iphoto files from old to new, where are the pics stored?

    Photos are stored in your home folder (~pictures).
    Barry

  • My i mac wont boot up past the start screen

    My imac wont boot up past the grey screen with the apple logo, the progress bar gets to about midway and stalls at this point.
    I even left the system on in this state for the remainder of the day to no avail.
    The original problem which resulted in the grey screen, was that when the system did boot up i had a black screen with only the task bar, however when the task bar tabs opened i could not get any of the options to actually operate/function. At this point i turned the system of and after the third attempt the system faltered to the grey screen.
    I have tried the Safe mode boot/nram/pra/smc rests but the system still stalls midway on the progress bar, even holding the c key.
    Help please....

    See if the computer will boot into the Recovery Partition (Command + R on startup) if it won't that means the HD has likely crashed and the ONLY thing to do is get it serviced.

  • Mac wont boot, stuck on white screen

    Hi
    After doing a software update and restart, my iMac wont boot. It will chime on, Grey screen w/ apple logo, then flashes to a white screen with a larger loading dial. It will keep doing this over and over, never actually getting to the login screen.
    Have done safe mode start-up, tried repairing disks, and reinstalling OSX, which it won't let me do.
    Not a computer expert so wondering if there are any more things I can try before taking it into get repaired?
    Thanks ahead of time!

    Try booting from the install disc. A quick search should pull up the precise method for your particular iMac. If this started happening after and update, then it is likely something corrupted in your system software that may be an easy fix.  Do you have an external backup drive you could boot from?

  • My mac wont boot up it stays on the white screen with the apple logo

    Can someone tell me why my computer will stay on the screen with the circle going around meaning its loading but i left it for over an hour and it still was on that screen. any help??????

    connect to another mac (if you have), from the Disk Utilities, do a First Aid ---> Disk Repair.
    Dont sent in for repair first.
    Another way is to Pop in your Installer Disk that comes with the Mac and
    on boot up, Press C
    you will load into Installing Leopard/Tiger.
    At the top menu, click till you reach Disk Utilties and under it look for your hard drive.
    At the First Aid tab, there should be a verify and repair Disk options.
    Click on it to check if you can do a disk repair.
    Sometimes it works. So all is not lost until you tried everything.

  • G5 Power Mac Wont Boot

    Hello, all.
    I'm trying to fix a G5 tower, power pc with issues booting. The owner was browsing a large folder of images when, suddenly, the pinwheel of death began spinning without end. He had to reboot the system. When he now boots the system, there is the white/grey screen with the apple logo and the fans go on overdrive after several minutes of idling on the screen.
    When we booted from our 10.4 disk, we could not repair or verify our hard disk. It said that the disk could not unmount. We even installed a brand new hard drive, but we couldn't install 10.4 on it. We even tried to verify the new drive after the failed installation and we got the same "unmount" error.
    I'm not sure what to do. I've searched and browsed other posts, but I can't seem to find any similar issues. Perhaps someone can help?
    Thanks,
    J

    Hi Jeremy, did you pull the old Drive when trying to Install to the new one?
    If you have anther Mac With Firewire, you might try putting the G5 into FireWire target disk mode...
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

  • Mac wont boot, auto restarts after about 10 seconds

    Hello,
    My friend's mac has broken and it starts to boot for about 10 seconds, then auto reboots. He has tried booting in safe mode (holding down shift) but it doesnt change. Does anyone know how to fix it? He thinks it may be a virus, so is there a way to get it working so he can install AV software?
    Thanks, Black_Sirrah239

    Great Help so far, just to add...
    Could be many things, we should start with this...
    "Try Disk Utility
    1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
    2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
    *Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
    3. Click the First Aid tab.
    4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
    5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
    Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
    (Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
    If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
    If 10.7.0 or later...
    Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitirion & use Disk Utility from there.

  • Mac wont Boot but BootCamp still works

    upon restarting from windows to mac, my mac won't boot up to the login screen (it showed the Apple Logo stuck with a blue screen). I was told to reinstall my os which i did.
    I restored my mac using back up (time machine). Which took me 7 hours. And after the restoration was completed, I was prompted to restart my computer. However, upon restart, i was welcomed by a big power button asking me to restart my computer again. I restarted my laptop and still am being asked to restart it again.
    My windows works perfectly, however i cannot boot into mac.
    Please help!!!

    Startup to your Snow install DVD and try repairing disk. You also might try following the [steps here including resetting your SMC if necessary|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US].

  • Mac wont boot up

    When i turn the mac on it freezes and the boot loading is continous, but it isnt the boot load at the bottom of  the screen its like the one that cirles, i don tk oiw what too do, im writing from the reboot help link but other than this i cannot access the mac  help. . . .

    Go step by step and test.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570
    Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14204?viewlocale=en_US
    Repair Disk
    Steps 2 through 8
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
    Reset PRAM.  http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4405
    Reinstall OS X
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10763?viewlocale=en_US

  • Mac wont boot, hangs at apple logo screen

    Hello everyone,
    I have a 2006 Imac. This morning I tried to boot and it hung at the silver/white screen with the Apple logo and the spinning circle of lines below it. The computer will just hang at this screen.
    Every time I tried to boot I can eventually hear the hard drive turn off. I recognize the sound when the computer was working and I put it to sleep it made the same sound. Anyways, it will hang on that screen for however long before I turn it off. I am no expert with macs, I tried loading the install disc but it wouldn't even load that and now I can't seem to eject the disc either. Please help!

    I have been having this problem for the last several weeks on my MacBook Pro–I think a 2006 also. Mine will hang just before the Apple logo so the whole screen will be silver. Every time this happens I turn it off using the power button and just try again. Usually on the second try it works, sometimes the third. I've been experimenting with how long I hold the power button down, although it shouldn't be too sensitive to that and I don't think I am finding a correlation. I have had this occur in the past but only as flukes, not as a consistent pattern like lately. I'm getting worried that someday this thing will just not start up.

  • Please help! emac wont boot after installing os 9 alongside os x!

    Hi,
    I am a teacher. My school recently gave me an emac to use in my classroom that has Tiger installed on it. I have a bunch of OS 9 games that I want the kids to be able to use, so I decided to try to install OS 9 alongside os x. I just installed OS 9 on the same partition as os x using an OS 9 emac installation disc. I had to install OS 9 on the same partition as OS X because I am not allowed to repartition the school computer. I tested out classic in OS X, but it didn't play the games well. I then tried to boot naively into os 9 by going into system preferences, then to startup, and then selected OS 9 as what to boot into. When I restarted, the only thing I was left with was a floppy disk with a flashing question mark inside. I tried to boot back into OS X by holding the option key, but my only option for booting is OS 9. I then tried to boot back into OS X by holding down the "x" key, but it still tries to boot into OS 9. Could someone please help?
    Thanks!!
    -Stacy

    Hi, Stacy -
    Since the machine boots to the OS 9 Install CD, it is indeed OS 9 bootable, by definition.
    Since the installer on the CD was able to 'see' the destination drive, then that drive does have OS 9 drivers on it.
    Those two are the primary causes for a machine not being able to use OS 9 as a boot OS.
    I assume you accepted the default install of OS 9 and did not customize it. If that is the case, then it should have installed all files needed by your machine in order to use it as a bootable OS.
    About all that is left is make sure that the OS 9 System Folder has been blessed - registered as a bootable OS. To do that, boot to the OS 9 Install CD but do not run the installer. Instead, open the icon for the hard drive (if it is not already open), locate and open the System Folder (not the folder named just System - that's OSX). Drag the files named Finder and System (both are loose in the System Folder's window) out to the desktop. Close the Syatem Folder. Then drop those two files back into the closed System Folder.
    Once that is done the System Folder should be displaying a miniture glyph of the Mac OS logo superimposed on the icon for that folder.
    One other question, re the CD you used for the installation. Was it a Software Install CD specific to that machine (does it show eMac on the label)? Or was it a retail OS 9 Install CD (white label, gold 9)?
     

  • Mac wont boot. troubles reinstalling lion, want to reset my mac already.

    ugh mbp 2008, never had problems till now. So i went into utility, and because i have nothing of real interest on my mac i reset the HD. it was partitioned i guess because i had my normal hd and bootcamp, which i never used anyways. also repairing the disk kept giving me errors. so after erasing everything, i went to create a partion, and was going to download lion to that. but when i try to make a partition it says "partition failed- couldnt unmount disk." I need help. I just want the whole thing to be reset, i have nothing to lose. what do i do???

    milesmartin, did you ever resolve this issue?
    I find myself in almost the same situation. I have a Mac Pro using OS 10.6.1 with 9gb RAM and three hard drives. This happened suddenly at a cold startup for me. The strange red/pink lines, mouse not responding, etc. I could do a hard restart (power off) and the problem seemed to go away. I have tried many tests with TechTool Pro and the Apple hardware disk. All test show no problems with hardware. I have installed clean systems on a new hard drive several times including going back to OS 10.5. Each cold restart brings the same freeze, strange graphic displays. I reset the SMU, purged the PRAM, replace the battery, pulled/replaced all RAM modules, tried starting from the OS install disk. So far, nothing helps.
    At the start of this problem, I could do a boot in safe mode. Now, nothing works and it may take 4 or 5 restarts to get the system up and running. This is most unacceptable and probably stresses the components in ways that will eventually cause a failure.
    I am out of ideas today and it is no longer fun. Any help?

  • Mac wont boot after installing yosemite, stuck with a ring with a slash in..

    I installed Yosemite on my macbook Pro. It worked fine, I set up iCloud, and everythind you should in the installing. So when I wanted to start the mac the next time, it wouldnt boot up. I got halfway trough the starting bar. And then it jump tp a white screen, with a grey ring, with a slash in...
    Is there anyone who can help me??

    Hey KeyofNorth,
    Thanks for the question. The following resource outlines troubleshooting steps if you are seeing a gray screen with a prohibitory symbol:
    Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support
    http://support.apple.com/ts2570
    Thanks,
    Matt M.

  • Help!. computer wont boot up, but power light shows up

    hello. i have a dual 2.3 g5 power pc, i bought it about 6 months ago
    long story short, my computer will not boot.
    when i plug it in. the light will turn on as if it is in sleep mode. but will not glow bright to dim. it will only stay a constant bright light.the computer will not respond to holding down the power button to reset and everytime i plug it in. the light turn on by itself. i also hear no sounds coming from the computer.
    what i have tried:
    remove all but factory ram
    unplug the computer for at least 5 mins
    called tech support and they told me to "find the little gray button on the logic board and press it"
    tried a different monitor
    tried to boot by holding down "P" "R" "command" "option"
    i have a deadline on tuesday which i have to meet. and i cant get it serviced in time. what to do... if anyone can help me. a warm thanks would go out.
    thanks.
    power pc g5 dual 2.3ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.4)  
    power pc g5 dual 2.3ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.2)  

    Sounds like you will need to take it in for repair. If resetting the PMU like Apple had you do didn't work, you may have a power supply and/or logic board problem.
    Also, if you don't have AppleCare yet, I would suggest buying it before your one year warranty is up if you plan on keeping the computer for awhile.
    -Bmer
    Mac Owners Support Group
    Join Us @ MacOSG.com
     An Apple User Group 
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