IMac G5 won't go past grey screen w/Apple symbol & gear

Hello,
Three days ago, I installed the (I believe) security update and the Java update, the following day I bought a new iPod and installed the iPod software. After setting up my iPod, I left the computer as it was until the next day whe i returned from school and attempted to go on the computer. I then tried restarting the computer because it was very slow, and when I restarted it, it would not go past the grey screen. I then manually turned the computer off and on, still, it did not go past the grey screen. Does anyone know what my problem may be?
Thank You.

You could also try the following;
Try things in Apple doc.#106464 for your startup issue.
Also, try using Disk Utility to repair your startup disk (hard drive) as shown in Dr.Smokes Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption. Smokes link will help walk you thru it.
Cheers!
DALE

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IMac G5 doesn't go past grey screen with apple and spinning gear

I have an iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor) running Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard. Last night my computer froze while using QuickTime. I had to force shutdown the computer by holding the power button for 5 seconds after everything else failed.
Now it won't start. I hear the chime, the apple logo on grey screen appears and I see the spinning gear. But it stays like that indefinitely. I can boot with the Leopard DVD with no problem. I verified/repaired the boot disk. I verified/repaired the permissions. Everything is super fine. Made sure the selected startup disk was the correct one. I can even start up in FireWire Target Mode. I've resetted the PRAM and the SMU. Starting in single user mode also works.
How can I solve this startup issue. Are there things I could try before resorting to a archive install or clean install of Leopard. My HD is 232GB and I have 197GB of data.
Thanks for the help.

I opened the back cover according to the instuctions in the manual to check the internal battery (which is fine and strong according to my little battery tester). I followed the steps in the support article "iMac G5: Troubleshooting when your computer won't turn on". According to the LED, my power supply is fine. I turned on my computer with the back cover off using the internal power button. It turned on, chimed, did the usual SuperDrive sound and did a complete boot. I took a peek at the screen by lifting a corner cause it was laying face down on a soft towel on my bed. And I saw the user prompt asking me my password, and the galaxy theme desktop picture. So I turned this off and placed the cover back on. But it still won't start using the external power button. Thanks with all your help Miriam. I'm now gonna look for a solution with the external power button issue.

Powerbook won;t go past grey screen with apple logo on start up

Hi
I am getting very stressed, my powerbook g4 won;t go past the grey screen with the apple logo when switched on. I need to sort it ideally without another computer to go through but if that is necessary then I will do it. I have tried the RAM reboot but nothing, there is not even the spinning loading symbol just a grey screen - which it will stay on until I turn it off. Someone please help!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure of my OS as I can't turn my comp on, but I am running leopard on it

Welcome!
First, see if you can boot in Safe Mode, holding the Shift key during startup until you see a message about safe mode. Getting a desktop can take longer because Safe Mode forced some disk checking.s
...I am running leopard on it
Then you should have the install disks. They can be used to boot the computer for repair. Insert the DVD and press and hold the "c" key during startup. That will launch the installer BUT you don't want to reinstall yet. Find the install's Utilities menu and launch Disk Utility. From there you can check the hard drive and make some repairs.
I need to sort it ideally without another computer to go through but if that is necessary then I will do it
That would require that your compute work enough to start in FireWire Target Disk Mode. FWTDM lets your hard drive show up on another Mac as if it were an external drive. You can test by starting the computer and holding the "t" key until you get a blue screen with a big yellow FireWire symbol. Looks like this:
!http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT8uGcDJDrUrECaelR5ash9yA3zuGBakhxrJ9TjfjO_uoCmKQ&t=1&usg=_5RiQv2QkO7UuPLUpiige1MVxdb0=!
I believe FWTDM's code is in firmware and not on the hard drive , so may let yo uaccess the disk form another computer.

Macbook Pro won't boot past grey screen with Apple logo and then shuts off

This is a long story...
This morning, I would turn it on and it'd go to the grey screen with the Apple logo for a few seconds and then go to the icon that is a circle with a line through it. After reading online, I was able to boot it up in Safe Mode. I messed around a little bit in system preferences thinking I could fix it on my own, not really knowing what I was doing (I'm a *******). I went to Startup Disk in Preferences. I chose the MAC OS X, xxxx and then clicked the lock to prevent further changes and then clicked restart.
Now when I turn on the macbook, it goes to the grey screen with the Apple logo for at least two-three minutes and then just shuts off. Won't boot into Safe Mode now. Please help. I already tried the Command-Option-P-R keys trick like five times.

If you have a full retail DVD for 10.6 you can boot from that by holding the C key during startup...but you will then be in install mode if that is what you want to do. At least go ahead and see if it will boot ok from the 10.6 disk and then you can decide what you want to do further.
Apple does not have 10.5 for sale anymore from what some other users have said on here so if you want to go that route you will have to find a copy for sale such as from eBay or one of the Mac resellers.
Before taking the machine to someone, try booting from 10.6 and see if that works...that way you can narrow down problems the machine may be having.

Macbook won't boot past grey screen with Apple logo and spinning wheel.

For some reason, after about 1 year and 10 months of owning my Macbook, it decided this morning not to load past the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinning cog/wheel.
I used it for a couple of hours beforehand, and it was working fine. Software Update prompted me of about about 4 or 5 updates; I can't remember exactly what was downloaded, but I think there was a Security Update and iTunes among them. I restarted, left it to install with no errors, but when I logged in, Safari and iTunes were running incredibly slowly. I also noticed that the volume keys weren't responding, as well as the power key to bring up the "Sleep, Restart, Shutdown, etc" dialog box. I forced shutdown, hoping a restart would solve my problem, and that's when my troubles started. I originally just left it, but after about an hour the wretched thing was still spinning.
So far, I have done a number of troubleshooting tips on a variety of websites. I have tried taking the battery out and holding down power for 5 seconds, resetting the PRAM with option, cmd, p & r, and holding down power until the sleep light flashes rapidly and the computer lets out a large "BOOOP".
I have booted off my Leopard install disk with both option and c, repaired the hard drive a number of times, with there being no errors whatsoever. I have tried repairing permissions, but everything seems to freeze up, except the mouse.
For some reason my computer will not boot into safe mode, either, and holding cmd & s at startup doesn't get me to the stage where I can enter commands with the keyboard.
Unfortunately, because of my puny 60GB hard drive, I only have 1GB of free space left and cannot reinstall Leopard without wiping my hard drive.
I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could assist me with this unfortunate dilemma. It's such a shame that my computer has been fantastic for so long and now decides to play up. (Maybe it's just Apple trying to get me to buy a new 2.4Ghz aluminium Macbook sooner than I was planning...)
Thanks very much.

Hi ds,
Sorry to hear you're having such trouble!
Unfortunately, the best thing you can do at this point is reinstall Leopard (and then attempt to install the combo updater, too). If you don't have a backup of your machine, you could boot it into Target Disk Mode (by holding down T at startup) and then attach it via FireWire to another computer to salvage your files.
I recently had to repair a machine with this exact same problem, and after messing around with that for several hours, I'd have to say that I think that an Erase and Install is the way to go. If you then migrate over your user data and start having troubles, you at least know where the problem lies. I suspect, though, that having a clean machine with all of the new updates applied will be the end of the issue.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. There are a few other things you could try first; you could, for example, manually download the relevant combo updater from Apple's website and attempt to install it to your damaged machine while it's in Target Disk Mode. If you have a copy of Disk Warrior, that too is certainly worth a shot (and in some cases may be the saving grace). In my experience, though, a failure of this magnitude isn't easy to resolve.
Hope that helps.
—Hazy

Computer won't load past grey screen with Apple logo, even with OS Disc

I turn on my computer and only gets to the grey screen with the Apple logo and idling circle. After a while, it loads a small box telling me to restart, time and time again, no matter how many times I restart. I've tried holding "shift" to go into safe mode, it won't let me.
I believe it's originally a Tiger platform, and right now I think it's running on Leopard.
I just bought a Snow Leopard OS X Disc, and I inserted it and tried to let it load. It gave me the restart box. I held down "c" while starting up, got the restart box.
Held down "option", and selected the "Mac OS X install Disc"; it went back to the grey Apple logo screen to load, and gave me the restart box after several minutes. Repeated that and held down "c" while loading, still gave me the box.
Nothing I do with or without the OS X Disc is making a difference. I cannot load anything on my computer, period.
Can someone please suggest something for me to try?

Well if you do then turn both computers off. Connect a Firewire cable between them. Boot your computer into Target Disk Mode. After the TDM screen appears boot the other computer normally. If your drive is accessible it will show up as a disk icon on the Desktop of the other Mac. You can then access your files and transfer them to another hard drive.
Then open Disk Utility. Your drive should appear in the sidebar list. Select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the Partition Scheme drop down menu to one. Set the Format type drop down menu to Mac OS Extended, Journaled, then click on the Partition button and wait for the process to complete.
Your drive should now be OK assuming it's not mechanically damaged. Eject the drive from the Desktop as you would eject any removable drive and disconnect the Firewire cable. Shutdown your computer. You can now boot from the installer disc and install OS X.

My iMac won't boot past grey screen and it didn't come with a os x disk

My iMac won't boot past grey screen with apple. I've tried booting in safemode but that didn't help and my iMac didn't come with a os x disk.

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
If the startup process stops at a blank gray screen with no Apple logo or spinning "daisy wheel," then the startup volume may be full. If you had previously seen warnings of low disk space, this is almost certainly the case. You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use either of the techniques in Steps 1b and 1c to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.
Step 3
Sometimes a startup failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 4
If you use a wireless keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, replace or recharge the batteries. The battery level shown in the Bluetooth menu item may not be accurate.
Step 5
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 6
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to start up, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can start up now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
Step 7
If you've started from an external storage device, make sure that the internal startup volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Start up in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know the login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you start up in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, the startup volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 10. If you ever have another problem with the drive, replace it immediately.
If you can start and log in in safe mode, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then restart as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the startup process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 8
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select the startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then restart as usual.
Step 9
Reinstall the OS. If the Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 10
Do as in Step 9, but this time erase the startup volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically restart into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer the data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 11
This step applies only to models that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery: all Mac Pro's and some others (not current models.) Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery, if there is one, is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a startup failure. Typically the failure will be preceded by loss of the settings for the startup disk and system clock. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
Step 12
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

17 MacBook Pro is not booting up. Won't get passed grey screen with Apple wheel spinning below.

17 MacBook Pro is not booting up. Won't get passed grey screen with Apple wheel spinning below.

You may be having a hardware problem that you cannot resolve on your own. Nevertheless...
...hold down the command and R keys whilst booting to try to get to your Recovery partition. If you can, use Disk Utility to try to Verify your boot drive (usually named "Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). If the verification fails, try to repair your hard drive. If everything appears to be OK, restart.
If you can't get into your Recovery partition, your problem is likely hardware related. If so, keep your appointment and see what the Apple techs have to say.
Clinton

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.
Hope this helps, it's annoying but it's your safest bet.
All the best.

Won't get past grey screen while starting up....please help

ya my g4 powerbook will get to the grey screen with the spinning gear but won't go no further. If this is a simple fix please let me know.

I had exactly the same problem after updating my pb G4 to 10.4.7 (combo). It crashed and would not restart up past the grey screen. I tried everything for hours...from safe mode, single-user mode, start off cd, target firewire, to reset PMU, PRAM and NVRAM. Nothing worked. The HD wasn't even appearing !
Thinking the HD was dead, I just almost went to buy a new one (or even a new MacBook .
Fortunately some time ago I bought a version of DiskWarrior and started from the CD. After running for 9 hours and freezing several times, it found and repaired hundreds of errors. But still it wouldn't start. At least the HD appeared now in target mode so I backuped my files, started from the OSX CD, deleted my HD and reinstalled OSX, updated 10.4.6 and my Powerbook runs like new... I'll wait a bit before updating to 10.4.7 again !
Hope this helps.
Wycat

Macbook won't go past grey screen

ITs mac book a1181 its pretty old I was on it deleting a bunch of random stuff (like an idoit) now I try to trun it on and it won't get past the grey screen the apple turns into a cirle with a cross through it. Tried installing a later mac os x but it wont take it! help pls

Try resetting the PRAM:
#1 turn one computer
#2 hold command, option, P and R until the computer chimes for a 2nd time and then let go.
Hopefully it's running again after that.

G5 won't boot past grey screen

G5 2.0 Dual will not boot past grey screen. Running 10.5.8 on an old maxtor 160gb drive, drive is available as a startup disc in StartUp disk in system preferences. But when it is chosen the machine shuts down in the usual manner then switches to the maxtor disk and only gets to the grey screen with the apple log no progress clock appears. Using disk utility from install disk reports that drive is ok, running techtool pro 4.6.2 reports the drive is fine and all file structures, volume structures and directories are fine. So of course i am keen to find out what the issue is and wether it can be resolved without resorting to a clean install. When booted from another internal drive the icon for the errant drive is visible and all files and folders are visible and readily accessable.
It would be great to get back to booting from this drive as it is the main drive I use and has so much more on it than the secondary drive.
Any help will be of immense use
Thank You

I assume you have already tried a PRAM reset. If so, then the following three items may yield a clue.
Number one thing to try is a Safe Boot by holding the shift key down at boot. You may have a something in the non-minimal Apple kext set that is causing the hang. (If it safe boots, you may have a problem in kext caches which can be cleared. See below.)
Second is to disconnect all peripherals except monitor, keyboard and mouse and see if something there is contributing to the hang.
Third is to use verbose boot (hold down cmd-V at boot until you see a black Unix terminal screen come up) and see where the system is hanging.
Clearing the kext Caches (if indicated)
This is probably easiest done booted from the other drive, so I'll describe that method.
Open the Maxtor's System folder, then open the Library folder and drag the following two files to the trash:
Extensions.kextcache
Extensions.mkext
Empty the trash.
Open a Terminal session from the Terminal application in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
Type cd followed by a space in the command line and then drag the icon for the Maxtor into the window, which will put a properly formatted Unix path into the command line, then press the return key. Type the following three commands
cd System <cr>
cd Library <cr>
sudo touch Extensions <cr>
then give your password when requested and close the terminal session. Select the Maxtor as the statrup drive in System Preferences and give it a go.

Can't get past grey screen with apple spinning wheel, had a loading bar for a few seconds?

HElp, can not open my Mac. Stuck on grey screen with apple and spinning wheel?
PReviously opened fine but I could not remember my password try a number of passwords. I now know my password but when I turned it off and back on got this screen?

THe command R took me to a dark scree with Mac OS X Utilities with 4 choices
REstore From Time Machine Back Up
REinstall Mac OS X
GEt Help Online
DIsk Utility
HElp

IMac (early 2008) won't boot past grey screen and has lines going vertical.

I have an early 2008 iMac that won't boot up past the grey apple screen. I've tried booting from the install CD to no avail and it also will not load my windows partition (boot camp). I've reset all the things I think I can reset and also tried starting in safe mode with no luck. Has anyone experienced this before and if so, how did you fix it?? I suppose I should note as well that the ram has been upgraded to 4gb (myself). It worked great for quite a while then I periodically got the lines along with a frozen screen but usually a restart fixed it. I'm up against a wall with it now and short of taking it in to the genius bar (closest one is almost 3 hours away) I don't know what else to do.
Any thoughts?
P.S. I've attached a picture of the lines. It gets to here and then freezes.

I suppose I should note too that when I try to boot from the CD, the screen dims and tells me to restart after a minute or so.

Imac G5 - unable to get past grey screen

Help Please.
I have an Imac G5 (non I-sight) model which was going well until about 3 weeks ago. First indications
were the freezing of the screen with various patterns across it - no choice but to continually power off.
Then every time i've tried to start up since then all I got was the grey screen and spinning cog.
Have tried re-starting many times without success. Resetting the PRAM. Also used Apples Hardware test
disk which worked although it was just viewable thru these so-called patterned images - result No
Problems found.
Tonight, after reading the various solutions from these forums, I thought I would try one last time by
using the original install dvd that came with my Imac. I managed to get the machine to read the disk
and went straight to Disk Utility and selected repair disk. Immediately it started to list in red "Reserved
fields in the catalog record have incorrect data. " This has been going for some 20 minutes now as I
type this, and is about ⅓ of the way thru its sequence.
Can anyone say what all this means, please?
Is the machine dying rapidly. Various apple techs have suggested that the video card has gone but is costly to replace and not worth the trouble and expense.
With the machine now reading the install dvd perhaps it is not finished with?
Hope not anyway.
Alan

Dave,
OK, after running D/U from my install disk, it eventually finished saying "Keys out of order".
I then, still using the install disk went to repair disk. Initially it stated "repaired successfully" and underneath " repairs attempted on 2 volumes" - 1 HFS volume repaired followed by 1 volume could not be repaired"
I tried this two times with the same result.
I then tried First Aid (repair permissions) but that stopped saying no "valid packages"
Tried verifying disk but this failed " underlying task reported failures on exit (-9972)"
After several restart attempts managed to get the install disk ejected - but still cannot get past the grey screen and spinning gear.
I do have a backup on my Lacie hard drive, but the problem is that I can't get to the Imac
system prefs to be able to select the disk to start from.
Have you any other suggestions or am I reading something wrongly?
Alan

IMac G5 won't go past grey screen w/Apple symbol & gear

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