IBook wont boot up past gray screen

my iBook wont boot up past the gray screen with the spinning wheel thing. the wheel will spin but wont go past the gray screen. if anybody knows whats wrong or how to fix it please let me know. i need my computer. and i have no time top take it into the apple store. thnx

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Here are links to Apple Knowledge Base articles regarding startup problems:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50959
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
I hope something there helps.

Similar Messages

MacBook Pro won't boot up past gray screen?

Okay, so I was running chrome and iTunes and spotify. Spotify was playing and Avast! Detected an infection and moved it to the chest. I quit chrome and opened up a Steam game called Garry's Mod, but it wouldn't open no matter how many times I tried it. So I tried to open chrome again and it bounced but didn't open. Tried to open system preferences and it opened but didn't show a window and wasn't responding. So I tried to restart but it wouldn't restart, so I force shut it down. Then it wouldn't go past the gray screen.
So I restarted the PRAM. Didn't work. Tried booting into safe mode. Didn't work. When into single user and checked the directories I think. Didn't work. Called apple and repaired permissions and that didn't work. Then I downloaded OS Mavericks and reinstalled it. Didn't work. So I'm redownloading to see if it might work if i do it again. Otherwise, he said I'd have to completely restore and lose my data, which would suck. I don't have a backup unfortunately.
What I'm wondering is if there's anything you think I could do that just might fix this?
Or, is there anyway to save my data if it won't boot up and I don't have a backup? I have lots of writing and music I really would not like to lose.

Your disk may be sick or dying. As you surmised the top priority at this point is to make a copy of your data.
First, check the health of the disk. Boot in Recovery Mode (Boot, Command-R). Run Disk Utility. Click on the upper left disk icon. Does the S.M.A.R.T. status say “Verified”? If not the disk/SSD is unhealthy and needs to be replaced. Click on the icon indented below, usually called “Macintosh HD” and Verify Disk. If it finishes with a green “OK” message then all is well with the disk. If it shows errors in red then you have found a problem to address once the system is backed up. Do not attempt software repairs until you have secured the data. Post back with the results of this test.
If the disk will not show up at all in Disk Utility to run these simple testes then it is probably already dead. A trip to an Apple store to confirm that would be in order.
If you have an external disk drive you can use as a backup drive then do so. If not I’m going to council you to purchase a drive you can use to replace your internal drive if need be. The silver lining is this new drive will be much faster than the old one. Google “Seagate 1 TB SSHD”. You should find a drive for about $100. Google “USB 3.0 enclosure”. That should cost $10 to $20. When they arrive plug the drive into the enclosure.
Assuming it is still breathing you can recover the data without booting from the sick disk.
Reformat the external disk Boot in Recovery Mode. Start Disk Utility. Plug in the new disk. Select it’s disk Icon (the second one down, left justified). Select the Partition tab.
Partition Layout > Single Partition
Name: Emergency Recovery 1 (or whatever name you wish to use)
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Options… > GUID Partition Table > OK
Apply
Select the Restore tab.
Drag the old system volume (Macintosh HD) to Source.
Drag the new disk volume (Emergency Recovery 1) to Destination.
Click on Restore.
If that will not complete post back for another emergency data recovery method.
If the backup succeeds use the First Aid tab in Disk Utility to select the old volume (Macintosh HD) and Repair Disk. If it repairs with a green OK message, will it boot normally?
Post back for further instructions. How to proceed will depend on what has transpired to that point.

Mac Pro (early 2008) wont boot pat the gray screen

First, my mac pro has three hard drives, bay 1 is time machine, bay 2 is empty, and bay 3 is A new Disk, running a newly installed 10.6.4. The computer was running great, then one morning I turned it on and the computer never got passed the gray screen after the chime and fan noise. I did a hard restart, holding down the power button, the computer booted normally to bay 3. This has happen twice. I have notice that if I restart from the OS it boots to bay 3 with no problems. It seem to only happen when the computer has been off for several hours.
Thanks for any help on this!

One thing at a time, and while I would hope you would use DW 4.2 on regular basis, plan for the worst and hope for the best, no reason to jump off the deep end and no, not processors or logicboard.
DW may not be able to boot your system from its CD, which I never use, just copy latest 4.2+ version to your boot volumes.
A printer or its cable, scanner, consumer USB device is much more likely, or drivers.
But, need to have a clean install of OS X (20GB volume) and a full boot image to play with first.
You can also use OS X DVD.
Safe boot mode - for when there isn't any other option and to do light maintenance.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

Wont boot up past logo screen itouch 2nd gen

its been three days nothings working i have in the past had problems booting up like it would take 30min max but days idk i need serious help im a little concerned to say this but its jailbroken i havent had the chance to plug it in and try messing with it via itunes on acount of my linux instead of windows or mac plz help
this account was created for this question im new and dont know how to use this forum site but my email is [email protected] plz email me if you know exactly whats wrong and how to fix it i spent 400$ on a 32gb itouch last year and it would suck because im 15 and dont have money haha but really not funny i need help
Message was edited by: tannerj

just reset from ipod, still hold "home" 10sec while press power button (power on)

MBP won't boot up past gray screen

Stays at the gray on gray apple logo screen with the rotating dial. Tried resetting PRAM, etc. Saw a similar post but it had no response. Hopefully I'll do better.
thanks

Boot from your system CD, run Disk First Aid from your Disk Utility and repair your permissions. If that does not work, try an Archive and Install.
Mac OS X: About the Archive and Install feature >>
-Bmer
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IBook will not start up past gray screen w/ apple logo

iBook will not start up past gray screen w/ apple logo. So I have zeroed out the hard drive and reinstalled tiger. No change except if I start up holding shift it will boot and welcome comes up then black screen that says you must restart by holding down power key.
Zeroed out the HD again with same results. Also I have a iBook G3 with the same symptoms.

What you are experiencing is a kernel panic.
Try starting up from the Mac OS X Install Disc by inserting the disc and restarting your computer, holding down the C key as the startup chime is ending. Then choose Installer > Open Disk Utility (in Panther) or (in Tiger) click 'Next' at the language screen and choose Utilities > Disk Utility and select the hard drive in the left column. Choose the First Aid tab. Click Repair Disk to test and repair the hard drive.
Once you have repaired the hard drive with the Install disc's Disk Utility, then try to restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar, ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
See if a little hard drive maintenance helps things out.

IBook won't boot, stops at gray screen--HELP

I couldn't find this exact topic at first glance and I am hoping someone can help me. My ibook is about 5 years old and has only really crashed on my once 2 years ago but I was able to reinstall the OS and go on my way. This time, however, nothing works. I tried to boot up yesterday and the gray screen appeared and that was it along with a strange buzzing sound. I tried Disk Warrior, wouldn't even boot off that. Also tried booting off system disk 1 and didn't get past the language screen, just hung up with that buzz again.
Does this sound like a logic board issue? Can it be rescued?
Thanks in advance for any help!

I'm not sure if the computer can be checked out at home in such a way
in its present state, to see if there is a logic board failure behind it, now,
or not. There could be a hard disk drive failure, or ATA controller failure;
and a short list of other possibilities, best checked over by a specialist.
Certain keyboard commands and things could be tried (and I usually
assume they'd been tried before asking here, but that's often not so)
just to see if one or more of them could get a rise out of the dead Mac.
Be sure, if you can get the installer disc to boot the Mac, that you
try and use the Disk Utility to repair disc; maybe more than once;
and do not try to just reinstall an Archive and Install. The HDD may
have corruption issues and it may need low-level zero-data and re-
formatting before a new system could go on there, if it worked at all.
{Even trying to reset PRAM/NVRAM and then seeing if you can get
the bootable OSX installer disc to start up the Mac could be OK.
Maybe that PMU reset, as a last resort? It probably won't hurt...}
A system on an external bootable enclosed hard disk drive could be
used by a tech or a prepared home-tech owner, and a clone of the
machine's system then attempted to be used to boot the ailing Mac.
If the optical drive and other components relying on the logic board
are dysfunctional due to a defect on that main board, most external
devices may also have a hard time trying to use these methods of
outside efforts to troubleshoot be nominally successful.
There may be a way a tech can use an second computer to get
data off the drive in your iBook, should it come to that, by using
the FireWire Target Disk mode and see if your iBook can start
and act like an external hard disk drive. A copy of the drive's
content or parts of it may be made by the second healthy Mac.
A clone (perhaps not bootable if data on it is damaged and not
recoverable) could be made if the second healthy computer has
a clone utility and also an external drive it can copy/clone the
iBook's drive content over to. This may be asking too much;
but the home user who has stuff on hand could do it shortly.
Anyway, there are some ideas online, if you can search google
and choose appropriate words; I looked but you may need to
read through several different source links to see if anything
sounds like it may work. re: iBook won't start past grey screen
Some users have tried resetting the PMU, others tried NVRAM
and PRAM; a few tried SafeBoot to see if the system was OK
enough to load in a reduced startup mode; maybe where the
system's own Disk Utility could be ran to at least fix permissions.
And of these, if it is truly a logic board or a failed hard disk drive,
they won't really do much. Probably no harm; and that is part
of what troubleshooting is all about, working with zeros and ones!
Good luck & happy computing!
edited to add a chapter.

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen
my system:
new (month old) 24" intel imac, 2.8 ghz, 4 gb ram.
running: leopard (upgraded from tiger, which was pre-installed at purchase), installed 10.5.1 update right before this huge problem occurred.
install discs on-hand: two-disc tiget set, single leopard upgrade disc.
what led to this:
i wanted to install windows using bootcamp on a 50 gb partition.
at this point i was running leopard 10.5
i followed all bootcamp instructions, printing out the guide, as well. once i got into the windows setup, i was prompted to choose a partition to install windows. unlike the bootcamp guide, which showed three partitions, one clearly labeled "bootcamp", i saw only one partition. not wanting to risk writing over my mac partition, i quit the setup and rebooted the mac os. after some googling around, i looked for firmware updates (didn't need any), and then software updates. i decided to try updating to 10.5.1.
i then ran through boot camp again, deleting my previous windows partition, creating a new one, and moving forward as before. once again, i was only shown one partition to choose from in the windows setup. i exited the setup again to reboot through the mac os, but this time, i was only given a blank gray screen.
here's what i have tried so far:
booting from a CD, holding down the C or D keys: no response (in fact, i have to restart the computer holding down the mouse button to be able to eject the CD)
booting with option key held down: gray screen
booting with option key held down with external bootable firewire drive attached: the firewire drive appears as a boot icon, and i can click on it within a five second window, but then the screen freezes after that time period, and nothing changes
booting into target mode while attached to another mac: gray screen (no firewire icon, and drive never shows up on other mac)
resetting NVRAM: i'm able to hear the boot chimes, but no difference in performance. gray screen every time
Safe boot: nothing but a gray screen
Verbose mode: gray screen
Single user mode: gray screen
Single user mode with firewire drive attached: occasionally (not every time), i am able to get the white on black terminal to show up. from here, i'm able to run fsck, but it appears to only be checking the firewire drive. i have tried several times to boot from here, and once it took me to a blue screen with movable arrow cursor, but it never went beyond this.
is there anything else left to try before taking it to apple?
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Casey Burns
Casey Burns Illustration and Design
http://CaseyBurns.com

I'd call Apple support at this point. You'll need
to put this issue on the record.
Call U.S. iPod and Mac technical support: 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273)
The wait may be long for an agent to come on the line
so expect that and have some other stuff to do in the meantime.
If you have the applecare protection plan, I'd ask about "onsite"
service.
I like your work ! Good luck !
Slim
Message was edited by: slimpikkunz

IMac Does not boot past Gray Screen

iMac does not boot past Gray Screen. 2008 24" Intel iMac running Mountain Lion with 1TB hard drive.
Problem started yesterday while I was web surfing, and my iMac frooze and shutdown. I rebooted and could only get as far as the gray screen.
On bootup the following things happen:
Startup tone
Gray screen with Apple, and gear spins below Apple.
Once the gear stops spinning, nothing happends.
Troubleshooting steps I have tried:
removed all devices connected to iMac and rebooted, but same symptons occur.
booted into Safe mode and run disk utilites.
     Disk Utilities found no errors on the drive, but did find two permission issues that it was able to fix.
          First permission issue:
                   "Group differs on library; Should be 0; group is 80"
          Second permission issue:
                    "Permissons differ on library; Should be drwxr-xr-x; They are drwxrwxr-t"
Disk Utilities says it fixes these issues and then I reboot, but get the same problem.
I reboot back into Safe Mode and run Disk Utilities and it discovers the same problems listed above with Permissions. It says it fixes them, I reboot, but the same problem occurs. Its as if we are stuck in some sort of loop process.
Booted into Single User Mode and ran the following command:
     /SBin/fsck -fy   it reports back, Volume Apprears to be ok.
I reboot, same issue !
Performed SMC Reset, Rebooted, same issue
Performed PRAM Reset, Rebooted, same issue.
Booted into Recovery Partitioin (Command R) and ran disk utilities. It found the same permission issues listed above. It fixed them. I rebooted. Same problem still.
While in safe mode, I preformed a full time machine backup.
I am out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hello,
I reboot back into Safe Mode and run Disk Utilities and it discovers the same problems listed above with Permissions.
You can ignore repeated "fixes" it's not really a problem, if it says completed repairs that's all that's needed.
Luckily it boots in Safe Mode, here's basically the steps to try to find out what it is...
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons
Though I'm suspecting some corruption to your OS at the moment.

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.

Computer won't boot past gray screen

I can't get my computer to boot past gray screen. It keeps showing the apple logo and the spinning wheel. What can I do to get into my system?

Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
Startup - Gray Screen
Startup Issues - Resolve
Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

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.

I have been given a iphone3gs today and after restoring it to factory settings like i was adviced to, my phone now wont boot up past the apple logo, it will switch to black screen if i press both buttons. I havnt managed to sync it to itunes. how do i get

I have been given a iphone3gs today and after restoring it to factory settings like i was adviced to, my phone now wont boot up past the apple logo, it will switch to black screen if i press both buttons. I havnt managed to sync it to itunes. how do i get it to work???

Try to connect in recovery mode, explained in this article: iOS: Unable to update or restore

My ipad wont boot up past the apple icon

my ipad wont boot up past the apple icon

Frozen or unresponsive iPad
Resolve these most common issues:
    •    Display remains black or blank
    •    Touch screen not responding
    •    Application unexpectedly closes or freezes
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/ipad/
iPad Frozen? How to Force Quit an App, Reset or Restart Your iPad
http://ipadacademy.com/2010/11/ipad-frozen-how-to-force-quit-an-app-reset-or-res tart-your-ipad
What to Do When Your iPad Won't Turn On
http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad_Troubleshooting/ss/What-To-Do-When-Your-Ipad-Wo-No t-Turn-On.htm
iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3281
iPad: Basic troubleshooting
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3274
 Cheers, Tom

How to get past gray screen on MacBook?

How to get past gray screen on MacBook?

Here are some initial things to try.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-troubleshoot-the-four-most-common-oh-sh-t-mac-48708 0511

IBook wont boot up past gray screen

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