Imac freezes on startup grey screen and really loud fans

My Imac G5 non intel 20" freezes on startup grey screen and really loud fans start and it won't boot. just have the logo on the grey screen.
I've tried resetting Pram - think that was the right thing to do?
I've tried disk utility, but it won't settle for me to choose the hard drive, it kind of sticks and keeps rotating the wheel.
any ideas anyone?
please help.

Lots of things you can try - first, try resetting the SMU. Next, boot from your install disc, go to Disk Utility and try to verify and repair your hard drive. If that doesn't work, try running the Apple Hardware Test on one of your install discs.
Also, depending on which model you have, you may be eligible for Apple's power supply or video and power issues.
Please post back with results,
Miriam

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Blank Screen And Really Loud Beep On Startup..

Hi,
2 days ago I formated my iMac and installed fresh Snow leopard, after finishing installing and going through the software update, machine restart, then i got Blank Screen and Really Loud Beep then after 20 second got the gray screen and mac start normally, but this happening now each time i start up my iMac, and it is really irratating..... I start up from snowleopard disk and check Hard disk and permission; It is ok, then I did hardware test; and result is OK,
Please Please anyone know How to get red of this....

Hi Eric,
No i didnt install anyhing or add anything; i checked Diagnostics:
Apple Hardware Test:
Last Run:          01/08/4011 21:08
Version:          3A157
Result:          Passed
Power On Self-Test:
Last Run:          02/08/2011 00:14
Result:          Passed

IMac wont go past grey screen and cog turning

Hi there !
I have an iMac, thing is after installing a new OS it won't turn on again, it gets as far as grey screen then the cog keeps turning then it just shuts itself off. I've tried using the disk utility but it fails when I verify disk and repair disk, then the HD name goes grey and when I go to boot options its no longer there to boot from. done all the reccomendations on the apple troubleshoot through start up and fsck. is there something physically wrong with the disk or can it be solved by diskwarrior ? (Oh, I haven't backed up either so any idea's if it can be saved?)
Cheers
Ed

Hmmmmm... I had a very similar issue and I called apple. Do you still have apple care? They are awesome about helping you. With mine, I had to reinstall my OS but I can't remember the little tricks used to do it. Maybe you have already tried that... not sure.
I hoe that helps.

Macbook air freezes up at grey screen and

My macbook air freezes up at the grey screen where you sign in. The mouse is stuck in the upper left corner and does not move. None of the buttons work either. What can I do?
It boots up like normal and then I cant do anything once it goes on the grey screen. HELP!

Reboot the computer and hold the Shift key as soon as it chimes. When you see the Apple icon release. This is will start you in Safe Mode (hopefully). Once the computer gets to the Finder (assuming it works) restart as normal and see if the cache cleaning solved your problem.
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Security Update 2010-007 freezes MacBookPro with grey screen and spinner

Just some observations: a client with a MacBook Pro (2GHz Duo Core, 1.5Gb RAM) was running 10.5.8 without issue. Applied the Security Update 2010-007, Java Update 8, iTunes 10.0.1 and Safari 5.0.2. Rebooted, and machine kernal panics. Restarted twice to same kernel panic. Machine was able to reboot off of a clone backup (firewire external drive) made the day prior (without the updates) without issue. Try to reboot on normal drive and kernel panic.
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Hey, since I have updated to 10.6.3 I have a similar issue. When I put my macbook pro to sleep and I come back a few hours later and turn my external monitor on I notice that the macbook is ON, BUT frozen! The time is usually a few hours back, so the macbook must have started up and frozen shortly after I had put it to sleep. There is no way to restart but to hold down the power button, SUPER annoying!
Hope this will get addressed in an update. Any way your problem is connected to sleep mode?

Imac G5 ALS shows grey screen with blinking folder icon on startup

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The blinking folder means just that, it can't find an OS to boot to. Tray zapping the PRAM and it wouldn't hurt to run Rember and if the RAM checks out, she might want to add some, 512 is really a minimum, and Leopard should really have at least 1GB.

My old MBP (2005) often crashes, freezes or shows grey screen at start up. Also track pad often does not work. I have re fomatted the HD and reinstalled system but to no avail. Genius bar says possible faulty HD, but suspect logic board, any ides any body

My old 17" MBP (2005) often crashes, freezes or shows grey screen at start up. Also track pad often does not work. I have re fomatted the HD and reinstalled system but to no avail. Genius bar says possible faulty HD, but I suspect logic board. All checks out OK on the Apple Diagnostic bench. Can a Logic board go intermittant?? Any Ideas any body??

Ive repaired 1000s of laptops over the years (translate: diagnose and replace parts).
Its not that old, Ive owned 100s of laptops (most were free) ....some I still have are nearly 13 years old and still perfect, ....some extremely expensive ones died in under a year.
other than becoming obsolete at some point, there isnt really any "will spoil on" data like Milk for solid state computer parts, ....alas.
You can have a $5000 laptop die in 4 months, and a junker one keep kicking after 10 years.... Ive seen that firsthand countless times.
Common logic dictates that "very expensive = long life" in computers,..... but all the repair people will tell you just the opposite.
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Imac freezes during startup stops @ blue screen & have tried everything

My imac freezes during startup, it gets to blue screen and just sits. I have tried to boot from the Leopard 10.5 install disk, and just sits, can't get to log in screen. Have run the disk utility and it says disk appears to be ok, Won't startup up in safe boot, blue screen just sit. Have tried 'fsck' fix, just sits at blue screen. Have reset PRAM, I don't know want else to try. Disk utility & "fsck" says 'disk appears to be ok'. When exiting fsck, it will start the process then stops. Does anyone have any suggestions, I have not tried to reinstall 10.5 yet.
Thanks in advance
Paula

After reading resolutions TS1541 & other threads, I decided to try to archive & reinstall 10.5 from install disc. Well that made things worse, sometime during reinstall, system locked up, I looked at the log during install & it had been locked up about 3 hours and now I have nothing. no systems files, using Target( firewire cable) disc with my macbook, I can see I have previous system folder & a folder that say system. but Install disc does not see OS.
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please help
Paula

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

Click here and follow the instructions. If the computer originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.8 or earlier, when you reach step 5, insert its original disk, restart with the C key held down, use the Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and install a fresh OS.
(113954)

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, he turned it off and now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. It won't start in safe mode and when I If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

With a corrupt disk, the install procedure is most likely going to fail.
How old it the disk?
You might be able to reformat it to fix the problem. Of course that means you lose all of your data.
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Then put the old disk drive in an enclosure and see what can be recovered from it.
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When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

Simple way to make HDD free space is delete files you don't need anymore.
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1) install bigger HDD in external drive case.
2) connect external drive and format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is internal HDD, target drive is external one).
4) install external bigger drive into your Macbook Pro.
In the cace if your're using Mac Pro:
1) get bigger HDD and install it in drive bay of Mac Pro.
2) format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is old HDD, target drive is new one).
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I was wondering if anyone else is having the problem of getting a grey screen and unable to continue in Oracle when trying the run either financial reports or MPR reports. We have researched the differences in computer hardware and software loaded and basically all is the same. The strange thing is that the reports were working on 2 computers and all of a sudden they are freezing with the grey screen. No new programs were added to either the server or the user.

Well, an Invalid Node Structure is usually not repairable using Disk Utility. But I see you ran it from the disk (the best result doing this in Tiger). Now it's Invalid Key Length, a little better then the 1st report, but still leaves her down. I would try the Disk Repair several more times. That is what is suggested if DU does not succeed the 1st time.
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But you say no volume showed; not good. Have here try a PMU reset to see if we can get the volume to show.
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DALE

20" imac won't start up-flashes between blank grey screen and black screen

20" imac
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Was running system 10.5.8 just fine. Worked great.
But then I wanted to give the imac to a relative. And so, I tried to boot from the original grey mac install dvd to wipe the hardrive and set the imac back to factory specs.
But it wouldn't boot off the dvd. All It would do at restart was to flash slowly back and forth between blank grey screen and black screen. So, I tried the Leopard update dvd. Same results. So I zapped the pram and tried again. Same results.
If I just pushed the start button tho.. the imac would start right up and run fine. However, I didn't want to give it to someone else with all our information on it.
I finally restarted it and held the "T" key to turn it into a giant firewire drive, hooked it up to our other 20" imac, and used the disk utility from the second imac to erase the drive of the first imac. Then I inserted the grey install dvd into the second imac and selected the drive of the first imac and ran the install process.
Now, the first imac won't start up at all. Just a continual grey screen for a bit, than a couple of buzz sounds in the machine and then the black screen... than back again.
It ran great before I erased the drive and re-installed OS 10.5
What's wrong? How do I get the machine to either boot off the install cd?

So, I've figured out a little more on the first machine. It's a 20" 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.5.8.
It ran great. But, I wanted to erase the hard drive and reinstall the OS system before giving it to a relative.
I found that although the optical drive would read and write to normal cds and dvds, the machine would NOT boot from the grey start-up disks I had on hand. ( I have two imacs, and I tried both sets of dvds without success.)
I zapped the PRAM, and used disk utilities via firewire connection from my other 20" imac to check the hardrive and make repairs. Disk Utilities couldn't find any problems. So, using disk utilities from the other imac, I erased the first imac's harddrive and then used the install dvds on the second imac to install the original OS to the hard drive of the first imac.
(looking on the hard drive of the first imac, I can see all the contents)
However, the first machine will not start up. It just switches from grey....to black..... then grey..... and then black again.... over and over
Why won't it boot from the newly installed OS on it's own hard drive?
And Why won't it boot from the original install dvds?
How can I get it to start up again?

How do i get iMac to move past grey screen.

How do i get iMac to move past grey screen.

Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
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When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
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G3 won't startup (grey screen with happy mac)

My sister has a iMac G3 that all of a sudden stopped working. When it's turned on, we get the chime, a grey screen and a happy mac, that's all. It just sits there. I've tried restarting with the C down, using the PRAM trick, putting in a CD startup disk (though not the one it came with), disconnecting the USB drve/hub, but get nothing. We've had problems with the CD drive before, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was broken too. Any help would be appreciated. It's a blue iMac (maybe a 350mhz?. Thanks in advance
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You may need to replace the PRAM battery. A weak or dead battery has been known to cause startup problems.
If you can startup from a Mac OS installation CD, you can run Disk First Aid from the CD (for Mac OS 9) in the Utilities folder, and verify (and repair if necessary) the internal drive.
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Imac freezes on startup grey screen and really loud fans

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