I have a grey screen at startup and cannot go any farther.

Hello,
My problem is similar to other folks problems. At startup I first experienced a flashing file folder with a question mark. After I tried to shut down and reboot I experienced a grey screen. After another shutdown and reboot I experienced an apple symbol with a spinning sphere below. I rebooted again after several minutes of watching this and no action. Now, I just recieve a grey screen.
I have tried some of the support tips with no success. Can anyone assist in walking me through a sure fire method(s) of getting my macbookpro up and running again.
I'm running on snow leopard. Macbook pro circa 2006..
Thanks

Here's a great Apple doc. on the subject.
DALE

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I apologise for what will most likely be an essay ahead.
I have a Macbook Pro (2.16ghz) that is just over three years old. It is running on Leopard with all the up to date patches / updates. Over the past week or so, it has been 'playing up' in the sense that the spinning loading icon would appear at random intervals and stay there for a good 20 to 30 seconds or so, not allowing me to do anything. If I would be listening to music, the music would pause and then come back on.
It would normally appear when something was trying to load. For example, the final straw was when I was using Adobe Bridge and it was taking an extremely long time to load up the photos I had imported and in the end I gave up. Speed has never been an issue before and my MBP has 2GB of RAM.
So I backed up what I needed and proceeded to do an 'Erase and Install(Leopard) format. Once formatted, the MBP booted up and I completed the registration, took my User picture blah blah etc. Once done, the MBP booted into OS X - this is where the problems occurred. The spinning loading icon appeared and after about 30 seconds or so, the Finder window / toolbar at the top disappeared, as did the Macintosh HD icon on the desktop. All I was left with was my wallpaper and Dock with icons in. However, if I clicked on any of the programs, nothing would happen.
Naturally, I tried restarting it and the same thing happened again. I figured that because my MBP was connected to a second Dual monitor, that this might have been the issue so I decided to boot from the OS X Leopard CD and do another 'Erase and Install'. I once again got past the registration screen, but this time, instead of booting into OS X my MBP stuck itself on a grey screen. It would not go any further.
I then decided that the spinning loading icon issue may be a RAM problem. When I first got my MBP, I upgraded the RAM so I knew how to take it out and replace it. So I tried taking out the RAM stick (1GB) I put in orignally and booting it with the original 1GB stick. The same problem occurred. I tried the other way round, putting in my 1GB RAM stick and taking the original out - nothing worked. I tried every possible combination, even swapping the sticks around.
Eventually my brother tells me he has some spare RAM which I also try and once again, this does not solve the issue. So I figure it cannot be a RAM problem.
So next I try booting from the OS X Disc on startup and run Disk Utility. I verify and repair the Mac HD which comes up fine. No errors, no issues, nothing.
I finally scour the internet for info on what could be the cause of the problem and the biggest suggestion seems to be formatting. So I once again try formatting my MBP for a third time - however this time, I get the original problem. It boots up into OS X but then the Finder toolbar and Mac HD icon disappear, leaving me with Dock and Wallpaper.
The final thing I try is resetting the MBPs PRAM on startup. This does not solve the issue.
So here I am. If you could be bothered to read all of that, well done haha I'm not sure if I could have.
If anyone has ANY suggestions or advice, please post!
I do not have Apple Care so if I was to take it to the local Genius bar, would they look at it for free and diagnose it? Or would that cost me? I have never had to take my MBP in before.
Thankyou again

I just skimmed over this because the post is like a small novel! lol Try a Apple Hardware Test. I think it's probably a bad logic board.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
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If you have any over 4GB sized files, those won't copy to a standard formatted FAT32/MSDOS drive from the factory, if you need to save these 4GB+ files use another blank/empty drive and use Disk Utility to format it 1 Partition, Option: GUID, Format: OS X Extended Journaled (or the standard default one for older Mac's).
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Problem description:
gray screen at startup and crashes
EtreCheck version: 2.1.1 (104)
Report generated 6 de dezembro de 2014 13:29:43 BRST
Hardware Information: ℹ️
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) (Verified)
MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2
1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4-core
4 GB RAM
BANK 0/DIMM0
2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok
BANK 1/DIMM0
2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok
Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported
Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n
Video Information: ℹ️
AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB
Color LCD 1440 x 900
Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 384 MB
System Software: ℹ️
Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549) - Uptime: 0:31:56
Disk Information: ℹ️
TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF disk0 : (698,64 GB)
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
- (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 749.81 GB (378.70 GB free)
MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
USB Information: ℹ️
Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️
Apple, Inc. MacBook Pro
Problem System Launch Daemons: ℹ️
[not loaded] org.samba.winbindd.plist [Support]
Launch Agents: ℹ️
[running] com.babylon.activation.plist [Support]
[loaded] com.divx.dms.agent.plist [Support]
[loaded] com.divx.update.agent.plist [Support]
[loaded] com.hp.help.tocgenerator.plist [Support]
Launch Daemons: ℹ️
[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Support]
[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Support]
User Launch Agents: ℹ️
[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist [Support]
[loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist [Support]
[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Support]
[running] com.skype.c2c_service.plist [Support]
User Login Items: ℹ️
iTunesHelper UNKNOWNHidden (missing value)
FaceboxPro Aplicativo (/Applications/FaceboxPro.app)
Safari Aplicativo (/Applications/Safari.app)
Octoshape Aplicativo (/Users/[redacted]/Library/Octoshape/Octoshape.app)
uTorrent UNKNOWN (missing value)
Dropbox Aplicativo (/Applications/Dropbox.app)
Inkscape UNKNOWN (missing value)
RealPlayer Downloader Agent Aplicativo (/Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/RealNetworks/RealPlayer Downloader Agent.app)
HP Product Research Aplicativo (/Library/Application Support/Hewlett-Packard/Customer Participation/HP Product Research.app)
Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
OVSHelper: Version: 1.1 [Support]
Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 [Support]
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 [Support]
RealPlayer Plugin: Version: Unknown [Support]
AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 10.1.12 [Support]
FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 15.0.0.239 - SDK 10.6 [Support]
DivX Web Player: Version: 3.1.1.9 - SDK 10.6 [Support]
Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 [Support]
Flash Player: Version: 15.0.0.239 - SDK 10.6 [Support]
QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.6.6
iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.7
SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.1.2 [Support]
AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.12 [Support]
JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 13.9.8 - SDK 10.6 Check version
User internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
npsf_uni: Version: sf 3.3.2.1 [Support]
OctoshapeWeb: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.8 [Support]
Safari Extensions: ℹ️
Searchme Adware! [Remove]
Skype Click to Call
iSkyDeluxe
TED HTML5 video playe
Audio Plug-ins: ℹ️
iSightAudio: Version: 7.6.6
3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️
Flash Player [Support]
Flip4Mac WMV [Support]
Skype Click to Call [Support]
Tuxera NTFS [Support]
Time Machine: ℹ️
Time Machine information requires OS X 10.7 "Lion" or later.
Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️
      5% WindowServer
      4% DivXMediaServer
      1% fontd
      0% RealPlayer Downloader Agent
      0% WebProcess
Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️
296 MB WebProcess
202 MB FaceboxPro
185 MB Microsoft PowerPoint
163 MB Safari
137 MB Microsoft Word
Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️
843 MB Free RAM
1.76 GB Active RAM
706 MB Inactive RAM
978 MB Wired RAM
577 MB Page-ins
0 B Page-outs
Diagnostics Information: ℹ️
Dec 6, 2014, 12:58:24 PM Self test - passed
Dec 6, 2014, 12:23:11 PM Kernel_2014-12-06-122311_MacBook-Pro-de-...panic [Details]
Dec 6, 2014, 07:08:28 AM PluginProcess_2014-12-06-070828_MacBook-...crash
Dec 5, 2014, 05:24:39 PM WebProcess_2014-12-05-172439_MacBook-Pro...crash
Dec 5, 2014, 10:45:59 AM Kernel_2014-12-05-104559_MacBook-Pro-de-...panic [Details]
Dec 5, 2014, 10:18:14 AM Kernel_2014-12-05-101814_MacBook-Pro-de-...panic [Details]
Dec 3, 2014, 08:28:35 PM locationd_2014-12-03-202835_localhost.crash
Dec 5, 2014, 10:25:44 AM Kernel_2014-12-05-102544_MacBook-Pro-de-...panic [Details]

Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
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I have a grey screen at startup and cannot go any farther.

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