How to reboot a macbook pro that stops at grey screen

My wife's macbook pro, 2010 circa, is not rebooting. With three attempted power-ups she gets a grey screen with the Apple logo...

In answer to your question, have you tried using
Disk Utility?
   1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, 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. (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. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
   5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
   6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Then, if you can, reboot to your internal drive and repair permissions.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mchlp2889.html

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I have a MacBook pro that stopped working - mother board issue?

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It is a 15" MacBook Pro purchased new in October 2007. It has a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Due processor with 4MB shared level 2 cache, 2GB SDRAM, 120GB hard drive, and a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM.
I read in another thread that there was a problem wiht NVIDIA video cards. Could this be the case with this computer? In the thread, the person indicated that NVIDIA was fixing these issues under warranty.
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My macbook pro is stuck on grey screen with apple symbol in center with the progress circle under it continusly spinning. After I had turned it on. Prior to turning it on I had to force close and shut down a few hours prior. Please Help?

My macbook pro is stuck on grey screen with apple symbol in center with the progress circle under it continusly spinning. After I had turned it on. Prior to turning it on I had to force close and shut down a few hours prior. Please Help I have tried everything I know to do

Unfortunately this means that there is a problem in the boot sector of your hard drive. It might be indicative of a fundamental corruption in the coding that allows your computer to boot your operating system from your hard drive. I had this problem twice and it resulted in me having to get a new hard drive and restore my data.
In other words, your computer can't talk to your operating system so you can't access your data.
Here is my advice: DON'T CALL APPLE TECH SUPPORT though they are kind and usually helpful it will take you an hour just to explain the situation and they will only tell you to do what I'm gonna say here.
First: Shut down your computer completely
Two: boot up while holding down the following keys: command, option, p, and r. The computer will reboot 3 times. This solution will likely fail so if you're frustrated skip to the next step.
Three: Boot up while holding down the option key. Select recovery drive. Select your default language. Select disk utility, click on Macintosh HD, and select "verify and repair volume." Likely the verification will produce some line like "unused node not erased." Or something like that. If anything using the words "node structure" comes up, you need a new hard drive.
If after verification and repairs you still can't boot I sincerely hope you have apple care because you will need a new hard drive. Set up an appointment to come in to the apple store, they will tell you to go and get data recovery, just ask them to give you the old hard drive. Unless you have an up to date backup in which case you can just restore from that. If you're lucky the only issue is with the boot sector which means that if you ask them to give you the old hard drive, you can buy an enclosure and you have effectively been given a free external hard drive. It still works to store data just not to load an operating system.
If you have a back up drive bring it to the apple store and they'll do the whole thing right there, it should take around an hour and a half but may take longer.
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Rieev wrote:
My MacBook Pro fans were loud and unusual, so when I looked up what to do on google most of the results told me to reset the SMC.
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So I did that, expecting it to work, and now my MacBook Pro won't go past the Reboot screen! The strange thing is, it doesn't stay on the Apple logo like most people say. Instead, the apple logo changes into the "Restricted" Symbol and just stays there.
Ok, it's not booting up to OS X, which when loaded will control the fans to settle down, but the default if OS X doesn't load is eventually turbo mode.
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Step by Step to fix your Mac

My macbook pro laptop has a grey screen at start up and doesn't boot up all the way

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mr.edsr wrote:
Where is the SMC located and how is this done? Thank you!
Please read this link:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
Ciao.

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ultraago,
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Hello everybody!
My HDD cable recently failed, so I ordered a used one from eBay.
It is the second time I have this problem.
When it came this morning, I went immediately back to test my new (used) cable.
I changed it and when I tried to boot, my Mac stayed in a completely grey screen with nothing on it.
At first, I thought that the cable was buggy, so I tried to boot from a USB hard drive, but it did not change anything.
I tried to enter the SL installation disk, but the drive did not even take the CD in it.
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I am really desperate, my MBP is mid-2009 and I really need it right now.
Thanks in advance for reading my problem
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ultraago,
You may have the problem that I, and scores of others, have had with the faulty GPU found in a number of 2011 models, as discussed here -> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?tstart=0.
Usually the problem begins with graphics glitches and then it's downhill from there. The AHT will not report any problems and neither will the tests that the Apple techs have available.
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Good luck,
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If your warranty is still in effect, then make a Genius Appointment and take it in for service.

How to reboot a macbook pro that stops at grey screen

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