Imac is stuck on the grey boot up screen!

my imac froze while using safari (that evil spinning wheel showed up & wouldnt go away) so i had to restart it manually. & now it wont get past the grey boot up screen! i have no idea what to do! im freaking out cuz just the other day i imported a whole bunch of my newborn sons photos & didnt back anything up!!!! (i know that was dumb of me, was not thinking at all!) i really really really REALLY dont want to lose any of his pictures! theyre all ive got! Someone please help me!!!!! ive only had the imac for about a month; bought it used from a friend & shes never had any problems with it! im pretty sure theres no apple warrenty either.
oh & ive already tried restarting it more than once & unplugging the power cord & what not!
help me out please! & thank you!

Boot the Mac to Safe Mode - turn off, turn on, as soon as you hear the startup chime press and hold Shift. You'll see a grey bar appear at the bottom of the screen, when you do you can let go of shift.
See if it boots in this mode, if it does then make sure all the SW is up to date and then try rebooting again.
Make sure there is nothing connected to your iMac other than the power cord - no external HD's, USB hubs etc - if there is then disconnect them and try to boot.
If none of the above works then we would need to boot to the install DVD and verify the HD to see if there's any errors that may cause it to not boot. Insert the Mac OS X Install DVD 1 and boot the Mac holding C. Choose the language and then open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu along the top of the screen. Select the HD and then Macintosh HD and verify/repair each one in turn.
When done try rebooting the Mac.
If this still doesn't work then you may need to reinstall the OS. Naturally it shouldn't hurt your files and it's recommended you have a backup just in case. As you did not back up your files (naughty, naughty) you won't really have a choice. Follow the above steps to boot to the disk and then choose to Reinstall Mac OS X and follow the prompts.
If you need an install DVD because you have lost or damaged yours then call AppleCare. Regardless of your support they can sell you one for $16+tax and ship it out to you. If you asked really nicely they might even make an exception and ship it for free .
Best of luck.

Similar Messages

My 2009 iMac gets stuck on the grey Apple logo when booting up. It boots correctly when in safe mode. I have tried erasing the HD and re-installing from a USB installer. It says the install is complete, but after restarting it gets stuck on the Apple log

My late 2009 27" iMac gets stuck on the grey Apple logo when booting up. It boots correctly when in safe mode. I have tried erasing the HD and re-installing from a USB installer. It says the install is complete, but after restarting it gets stuck on the Apple logo again. This could possibly be an HD failure, but then why does Safe Mode still work and the USB install not work? Any ideas?

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.
Don't be put off merely by the seeming complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.
2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. All it does is to collect information about the state of the computer. That information goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. However, you should be cautious about running any kind of program (not just a shell script) at the behest of a stranger. If you have doubts, search this site for other discussions in which this procedure has been followed without any report of ill effects. If you can't satisfy yourself that the instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.
Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:
☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.
☞ Paste into the window of another application.
☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.
☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.
The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.
4. You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode, under the conditions in which the problem is reproduced. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.
5. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.
6. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(Software Hardware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Fonts 51 4 1000 25 5120 KiB/s 1024 85 \\b%% 20480 1 MB/s 25000 ports 'com.autodesk.AutoCad com.evenflow.dropbox com.google.GoogleDrive' DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES\ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH -86 ` route -n get default|awk '/e:/{print $2}' ` 25 N\\/A down up 102400 25600 recvfrom sendto CFBundleIdentifier 25 25 25 1000 MB );N5=${#p[@]};p[N5]=` networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder|awk ' NR>1 { sub(/^$[0-9]+$ /,"");n=$0;getline;} $NF=="'${p[26]}')" { sub(/.$/,"",$NF);print n;exit;} ' `;f=('\n%s: %s\n' '\n%s\n\n%s\n' '\nRAM details\n%s\n' %s\ %s '%s\n\t(%s)\n' );S0() { echo ' { q=$NF+0;$NF="";u=$(NF-1);$(NF-1)="";gsub(/^ +| +$/,"");if(q>='${p[$1]}') printf("%s (UID %s) is using %s '${p[$2]}'",$0,u,q);} ';};s=(' /^ *$|CSConfigDot/d;s/^ */ /;s/[-0-9A-Fa-f]{22,}/UUID/g;s/(ochat)\.[^.]+(\..+)/\1\2/;/Shared/!s/\/Users\/[^/]+/~/g ' ' s/^ +//;5p;6p;8p;12p;' ' {sub(/^ +/,"")};NR==6;NR==13&&$2<'${p[10]} ' 1s/://;3,6d;/[my].+:/d;s/^ {4}//;H;${ g;s/\n$//;/s: [^EO]|x([^08]|02[^F]|8[^0])/p;} ' ' 5h;6{ H;g;/P/!p;} ' ' ($1~/^Cy/&&$3>'${p[11]}')||($1~/^Cond/&&$2!~/^N/) ' ' /:$/{ N;/:.+:/d;s/ *://;b0'$'\n'' };/^ *(V.+ [0N]|Man).+ /{ s/ 0x.... //;s/[()]//g;s/(.+: )(.+)/ (\2)/;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;s/\n\n//;/Apple[ ,]|Intel|SMSC/d;s/\n.*//;/\)$/p;' ' s/^.*C/C/;H;${ g;/No th|pms/!p;} ' '/= [^GO]/p' '{$1=""};1' ' /Of/!{ s/^.+is |\.//g;p;} ' ' $0&&!/ / { n++;print;} END { if(n<200) print "com.apple.";} ' ' $3~/[0-9]:[0-9]{2}$/ { gsub(/:[0-9:a-f]{14}/,"");} { print|"tail -n'${p[12]}'";} ' ' NR==2&&$4<='${p[13]}' { print $4;} ' ' END { $2/=256;if($2>='${p[15]}') print int($2) } ' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 21 22`" 'NR!=2{next}'"`S0 37 17`" ' NR!=5||$8!~/[RW]/{next};{ $(NF-1)=$1;$NF=int($NF/10000000);for(i=1;i<=3;i++){$i="";$(NF-1-i)="";};};'"`S0 19 20`" 's:^:/:p' '/\.kext\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' 's/^.{52}(.+) <.+/\1/p' ' /Launch[AD].+\.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { if(n<200) print "/System/";} ' '/\.xpc\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' ' NR>1&&!/0x|\.[0-9]+$|com\.apple\.launchctl\.(Aqua|Background|System)$/ { print $3;} ' ' /\.(framew|lproj)|\):/d;/plist:|:.+(Mach|scrip)/s/:[^:]+//p ' '/root/p' ' !/\/Contents\/.+\/Contents|Applic|Autom|Frameworks/&&/Lib.+\/Info.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { if(n<1000) print "/System/";} ' '/^\/usr\/lib\/.+dylib$/p' ' /Temp|emac/d;/(etc|Preferences)\//s/^\.\/[^/]+//p;' ' /\/(Contents\/.+\/Contents|Frameworks)\/|\.wdgt\/.+\.([bw]|plu)/d;p;' 's/\/(Contents\/)?Info.plist$//;p' ' { gsub("^| ","||kMDItem'${p[35]}'=");sub("^.."," ") };1 ' p '{print $3"\t"$1}' 's/\'$'\t''.+//p' 's/1/On/p' '/Prox.+: [^0]/p' '$2>'${p[9]}'{$2=$2-1;print}' ' BEGIN { i="'${p[26]}'";M1='${p[16]}';M2='${p[18]}';M3='${p[31]}';M4='${p[32]}';} !/^A/ { next;} /%/ { getline;if($5<M1) a="user "$2"%, system "$4"%";} /disk0/&&$4>M2 { b=$3" ops/s, "$4" blocks/s";} $2==i { if(c) { d=$3+$4+$5+$6;next;};if($4>M3||$6>M4) c=int($4/1024)" in, "int($6/1024)" out";} END { if(a) print "CPU: "a;if(b) print "I/O: "b;if(c) print "Net: "c" (KiB/s)";if(d) print "Net errors: "d" packets/s";} ' ' /r\[0\] /&&$NF!~/^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./ { print $NF;exit;} ' ' !/^T/ { printf "(static)";exit;} ' '/apsd|OpenD/!s/:.+//p' ' (/k:/&&$3!~/(255\.){3}0/ )||(/v6:/&&$2!~/A/ ) ' ' $1~"lR"&&$2<='${p[25]}';$1~"li"&&$3!~"wpa2";' ' BEGIN { FS=":";} { n=split($3,a,".");sub(/_2[01].+/,"",$3);print $2" "$3" "a[n]" "$1;b=b$1;} END { if(b) print("\n\t* Code injection");} ' ' NR!=4{next} {$NF/=10240} '"`S0 27 14`" ' END { if($3~/[0-9]/)print$3;} ' ' BEGIN { L='${p[36]}';} !/^[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/ { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n "$0;} END { F=FILENAME;if(!F) exit;if(!f) f="\n [N/A]";"file -b "F|getline T;if(T!~/^(AS.+ (En.+ )?text$|POSIX sh.+ text ex)/) F=F" ("T")";printf("\nContents of %s\n%s\n",F,f);if(l>L) printf("\n ...and %s more line(s)\n",l-L);} ' ' /^ +[NP].+ =/h;/^( +D.+[{]|[}])/{ g;s/.+= //p;};' ' /^ +B/{ s/.+= |(-[0-9]+)?\.s.+//g;p;} ' ' END{print NR} ' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' / /{$0="'"${p[28]}"'"};1;' '/ en/!s/\.//p' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-M]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 39 40`" ' $10~/$L/&&$9!~"localhost" { sub(/.+:/,"",$9);print $1": "$9;} ' '/^ +r/s/.+"(.+)".+/\1/p' 's/(.+\.wdgt)\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/\1/p' 's/^.+\/(.+)\.wdgt$/\1/p' 's/0/Off/p' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps sudo\ crontab sudo\ iotop top pkgutil PlistBuddy whoami cksum kextstat launchctl sudo\ launchctl crontab 'sudo defaults read' stat lsbom mdfind ' for i in ${p[24]};do ${c1[18]} ${c2[27]} $i;done;' defaults\ read scutil sudo\ dtrace sudo\ profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil sudo\ lsof test );c2=(com.apple.loginwindow\ LoginHook '-c Print /L*/P*/loginw*' '-c Print L*/P*/*loginit*' '-c Print L*/Saf*/*/E*.plist' '~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $' '.??* -path .Trash -prune -o -type d -name *.app -print -prune' '-c Print\ :'${p[35]}' 2>&1' '-c Print\ :Label 2>&1|head -1' '{/,}L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist -exec plutil -s {} \;' "-f'%N: %l' Desktop L*/Keyc*" therm sysload boot-args status " -F '\$Time \$Message' -k Sender kernel -k Message Req 'Beac|caug|dead[^bl]|FAIL|fail|GPU |hfs: Ru|inval|jnl:|last value [1-9]|n Cause: -|NVDA$|pagin|proc: t|Roamed|rror|ssert|Thrott|tim(ed? ?|ing )o|WARN' -k Message Rne 'Goog|ksadm|SMC:' -o -k Sender fseventsd -k Message Req 'SL' " '-du -n DEV -n EDEV 1 10' 'acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu' '-t1 10 1' '-f -pfc /var/db/r*/com.apple.*.{BS,Bas,Es,OSXU,Rem,up}*.bom' '{/,}L*/Lo*/Diag* -type f -regex .\*[cgh] ! -name *ag \( -exec grep -lq "^Thread c" {} \; -exec printf \* \; -o -true $ -execdir stat -f:%Sc:%N -t%F {} \;|sort -t: -k2 |tail -n'${p[38]} '-L {/{S*/,},}L*/Lau* -type f' '-L /{S*/,}L*/StartupItems -type f -exec file {} +' '-L /S*/L*/{C*/Sec*A,E}* {/,}L*/{A*d,Ca*/*/Ex,Compon,Ex,In,iTu,Keyb,Mail/B,P*P,Qu*T,Scripti,Sec,Servi,Spo,Widg}* -type f -name Info.plist' '/usr/lib -type f -name *.dylib' `awk "${s[31]}"<<<${p[23]}` "/e*/{auto,{cron,fs}tab,hosts,{[lp],sy}*.conf,pam.d,ssh{,d}_config,*.local} {,/usr/local}/etc/periodic/*/* /L*/P*{,/*}/com.a*.{Bo,sec*.ap}*t .launchd.conf" list getenv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf\ globalstate --proxy '-n get default' -I --dns -getdnsservers\ "${p[N5]}" -getinfo\ "${p[N5]}" -P -m\ / '' -n1 '-R -l1 -n1 -o prt -stats command,uid,prt' '--regexp --only-files --files com.apple.pkg.*|sort|uniq' -kl -l -s\ / '-R -l1 -n1 -o mem -stats command,uid,mem' -i4TCP:0-1023 com.apple.dashboard\ layer-gadgets '-d /L*/Mana*/$USER&&echo On' '-app Safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled' );N1=${#c2[@]};for j in {0..8};do c2[N1+j]=SP${p[j]}DataType;done;N2=${#c2[@]};for j in 0 1;do c2[N2+j]="-n ' syscall::'${p[33+j]}':return { @out[execname,uid]=sum(arg0) } tick-10sec { trunc(@out,1);exit(0);} '";done;l=(Restricted\ files Hidden\ apps 'Elapsed time (s)' POST Battery Safari\ extensions Bad\ plists 'High file counts' User Heat System\ load boot\ args FileVault Diagnostic\ reports Log 'Free space (MiB)' 'Swap (MiB)' Activity 'CPU per process' Login\ hook 'I/O per process' Mach\ ports kexts Daemons Agents launchd Startup\ items Admin\ access Root\ access Bundles dylibs Apps Font\ issues Inserted\ dylibs Firewall Proxies DNS TCP/IP Wi-Fi Profiles Root\ crontab User\ crontab 'Global login items' 'User login items' Spotlight Memory Listeners Widgets Parental\ Controls Prefetching );N3=${#l[@]};for i in 0 1 2;do l[N3+i]=${p[5+i]};done;N4=${#l[@]};for j in 0 1;do l[N4+j]="Current ${p[29+j]}stream data";done;A0() { id -G|grep -qw 80;v[1]=$?;((v[1]==0))&&sudo true;v[2]=$?;v[3]=`date +%s`;clear >&-;date '+Start time: %T %D%n';};for i in 0 1;do eval ' A'$((1+i))'() { v=` eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((3+i))'() { v=` while read i;do [[ "$i" ]]&&eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}" \"$i\"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}";done<<<"${v[$4]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((5+i))'() { v=` while read i;do '${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$1]}" "$i";done<<<"${v[$2]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};';done;A7(){ v=$((`date +%s`-v[3]));};B2(){ v[$1]="$v";};for i in 0 1;do eval ' B'$i'() { v=;((v['$((i+1))']==0))||{ v=No;false;};};B'$((3+i))'() { v[$2]=`'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}"<<<"${v[$1]}"`;} ';done;B5(){ v[$1]="${v[$1]}"$'\n'"${v[$2]}";};B6() { v=` paste -d: <(printf "${v[$1]}") <(printf "${v[$2]}")|awk -F: ' {printf("'"${f[$3]}"'",$1,$2)} ' `;};B7(){ v=`grep -Fv "${v[$1]}"<<<"$v"`;};C0(){ [[ "$v" ]]&&echo "$v";};C1() { [[ "$v" ]]&&printf "${f[$1]}" "${l[$2]}" "$v";};C2() { v=`echo $v`;[[ "$v" != 0 ]]&&C1 0 $1;};C3() { v=`sed -E "$s"<<<"$v"`&&C1 1 $1;};for i in 1 2;do for j in 2 3;do eval D$i$j'(){ A'$i' $1 $2 $3; C'$j' $4;};';done;done;{ A0;A2 0 $((N1+1)) 2;C0;A1 0 $N1 1;C0;B0;C2 27;B0&&! B1&&C2 28;D12 15 37 25 8;A1 0 $((N1+2)) 3;C0;D13 0 $((N1+3)) 4 3;D23 0 $((N1+4)) 5 4;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 0 $((N1+5+i)) 6 $((N3+i));done;D13 1 10 7 9;D13 1 11 8 10;D22 2 12 9 11;D12 3 13 10 12;D23 4 19 44 13;D23 5 14 12 14;D22 6 36 13 15;D22 7 37 14 16;D23 8 15 38 17;D22 9 16 16 18;B1&&{ D22 11 17 17 20;for i in 0 1;do D22 28 $((N2+i)) 45 $((N4+i));done;};D22 12 44 54 45;D22 12 39 15 21;A1 13 40 18;B2 4;B3 4 0 19;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 5 11;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 22;B4 4 6 21;A3 14 7 32 6;B4 0 7 11;B3 4 0 22;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 8 11;B5 7 8;B1&&{ A2 19 26 23;B7 7;C3 23;};A2 18 26 23;B7 7;C3 24;A2 4 20 21;B7 6;B2 9;A4 14 7 52 9;B2 10;B6 9 10 4;C3 25;D13 4 21 24 26;B4 4 12 26;B3 4 13 27;A1 4 22 29;B7 12;B2 14;A4 14 6 52 14;B2 15;B6 14 15 4;B3 0 0 30;C3 29;A1 4 23 27;B7 13;C3 30;D13 24 24 32 31;D13 25 37 32 33;A1 23 18 28;B2 16;A2 16 25 33;B7 16;B3 0 0 34;B2 21;A6 47 21&&C0;B1&&{ D13 21 0 32 19;D13 10 42 32 40;D22 29 35 46 39;};D23 14 1 48 42;D12 34 43 53 44;D22 0 $((N1+8)) 51 32;D13 4 8 41 6;D12 26 28 35 34;D13 27 29 36 35;A2 27 32 39&&{ B2 19;A2 33 33 40;B2 20;B6 19 20 3;};C2 36;D23 33 34 42 37;B1&&D23 35 45 55 46;D23 32 31 43 38;D12 36 47 32 48;D13 20 42 32 41;D13 14 2 48 43;D13 4 5 32 1;D22 4 4 50 0;D13 14 3 49 5;D12 26 48 59 49;B3 4 22 57;A1 26 46 56;B7 22;B3 0 0 58;C3 47;D23 22 9 37 7;A7;C2 2;} 2>/dev/null|pbcopy;exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
7. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
8. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "syntax error," enter
exec bash
and press return. Then paste the script again.
9. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, press the key combination control-C or just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.
10. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, there will be nothing in the Terminal window and no indication of progress. Wait for the line
[Process completed]
to appear. If you don't see it within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report the results. No harm will be done.
11. When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with "Model Identifier." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
12. When you post the results, you might see the message, "You have included content in your post that is not permitted." It means that the forum software has misidentified something in the post as a violation of the rules. If that happens, please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
Note: This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

HT201412 My iphone is stuck on the apple boot logo screen. What do i do and i already tried to restore but it comes with an error

My iphone is stuck on the apple boot logo screen. What do i do and i already tried to restore but it comes with an error

Try this
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3125

How Can I get My iMac Running again when its stuck in the Loading boot up Screen?

My 2010 21.5 Imac wont stop loading, The wheel just keeps spinning and it doesn't even boot in safe mode. the only thing i can do is get into single user mode. My Mac doesn't respond to command + r. I am able to pull up a disk to boot from but it doesn't show a recovery disk, only "Macintosh HD", when i click it I'm back at the apple logo screen with spinning wheel.At this point i want to do one thing and that is factory reset the computer. a fresh install, delete everything, NO BACK UPS. I don't have the install CD (This Computer had a previous owner). If i were to buy a copy of the OS X from the apple store (I believe my computer was running 10.6.8, Im not 100%sure and i dont now how to find out at this point) would i be able to even put the CD in the disc drive? would it read the CD even though its stuck in the boot up(loading) screen? How would i get it out if the Drive doesn't read the disk? Do I have Other options? Thanks guys!

You are using Snow Leopard. There is no COMMAND-R for a startup. That's for Lion or later.
Call Apple and purchase replacement discs for your model. You cannot use the retail version of Snow Leopard on your model. You have no other options unless you have the original discs that came with the computer. When you get the discs:
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

My 2008 iMac will get to the white boot up screen and has the loading circle and then it will freeze. And will freeze when attempting to boot recovery or bootable disc of Mavericks

Hi there, I have a 2008 iMac 24' 3.06 Intel Duo with 4gb ram. And yesterday it was working totally fine and jolly with no issues. Then I noticed there was an OS X update for Mavericks, so I finally decided to do it, and once it was rebooted it went to like the grey screen and I could move my mouse, just nothing else was there. So I tried to restart it, and then it booted up, but was really laggy, and so I decided to restart it and try again, this time the iMac froze at the login. So I decided to take it apart, pull the 500gb hard drive, connect it to my MacBook Pro, and then formatted it in Disc Utility. From there, I opened the Mavericks installer on my MacBook and then installed it to the iMac's hard drive via usb hard drive enclosement. And once the install of Mavericks was completed, I put the hard drive back into the iMac and tried to boot it. It now boots up to the white screen with the Apple and the loading circle underneath the Apple and then it freezes and doesn't go any further. So then once that happened, I turned it off and tried to boot it into recovery mode. Then it freezes on the screen with the Apple and loading circle below it. Then out of desperation, tried to use a bootable disc of Mavericks to see if i can at least get the iMac to boot up again, with no success. It froze at the same point again. So now I reach out to the Apple Community to see if anyone else has an idea on what I can do or if anyone had this issue and what they did to resolve it. Any help would be great. Thanks.

mddcfilms and Pat75, I'm having precisely this same issue -- no booting but spinning and freezing gear under the Apple logo. Have either of you come to a resolution? Here are my details:
iMac, Early 2008, 24”, 3.06 GHz, 4GB
September 2013: Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS GPU repaired, HDD replaced with Western Digital 2TB
21 April 2014: Erased HDD with Disk Utility on Mavericks USB; clean installation of Mavericks from the USB. Process completed without issue, including registration process. After a minute or two of poking around, machine shut down immediately (not through the shut-down process).
Since then it will not boot up. Grey screen and Apple logo appear, with gear spinning; the gear freezes, then the machine tries to boot up again. Occasionally I’ll hear “To use English for the main language, press the return key.”
I’ve tried booting into Safe Mode; same gear freeze and restart.
I’ve tried booting to the 10.9 Recovery disk; same gear freeze and restart.
Tried booting from Mavericks USB; same freeze and restart.
Tried booting from 10.6.3 DVD; same freeze and restart.
Ran Apple Service Toolkit (at Stormfront in the UK), which turned up nothing in error.
Started in single-user mode to test HDD and RAM, which are fine.
Started in verbose mode to check logs; some error messages but nothing seems crucial. After the log screen, the grey screen and Apple logo appear, gear spins, and then freeze.
Cannot get to Apple Hardware Test (vintage machine too old?)
Cannot get to Target Disk Mode with my MacBook Pro
Ideas: Potential booting flaw in Mavericks installation. Firmware incompatibility with Mavericks. Hardware issue in Nvidia GPU (known for problems). At the moment I'm hoping that it's a Mavericks installation or firmware issue, though I suspect the Nvidia GPU has blown up on me. These graphics cards are known for being pieces of junk, so I may try installing the lower spec ATI Radeon 2600 GPU if I can find one at a reasonable price.
Anybody else have precisely these problems or have any advice?

Please help me!! My Power Mac G5 is stuck at the grey apple logo screen and nothing is working!

My computer froze a few weeks ago and I got a grey screen that told me I needed to restart the computer. When I restarted, the computer froze on the grey screen with the apple logo. No pin wheel. Nothing. Eventually the fan begins running at warp speed. I've scoured this discussion board for a solution and I've read every possible thing I can find on the Internet regarding this issue. Nothing is helping. I've tried reseating memory, resetting PRAM, I replaced the PRAM battery, all the standard stuff on the message boards. I can't run a disk, i cant boot from a disk holding down c, but I can hold down the option key to open the hardware test, I've done the extended and short test and passed both.
When I hold the shift+command+v it tells me-
com.apple.driver.appleintelcpupowermanagement isn't a valid Mach-o (magic is cefaedfe)
Error mapping module file com.apple.driver.appleintelcpupowermanagement
Can't map com.apple.driver.appleintelcpupowermanagement in preparation for loading
Can't determine dependencies " "
Can't alloc class " " blah blah blah
I'm pretty sure this is some sort of kernel panic. This computer has been pretty much trouble free in the 8 years I've owned it. I had recently upgraded iLife to iLife 07 before the trouble happened.
I've also been able to get it to boot once or twice since then. I get a message that says" the computer was shut down blah blah do you want to send a report to apple?" I'm able to do some basic stuff like back up some pictures onto my external hard drive and then it will freeze again and the fan will come on. While I had access to the desktop I checked the disk repair permissions and they were all messed up. I tried repairing permissions but I don't think it worked. Also the time and date was messed up which made me think it was a battery thing. Lately I haven't been able to boot at all past the apple screen. I don't have much money but I have to get this fixed!
Some specs--
Power mac g5
CPU @1702037.8 ghz
Boot rom version 5.2.4f1
Memory 8 gb, 400mhz
Pmu/fcu versions:127/6.0.1 f0
Running OSX 10.5.6
Just to be clear this is the power pc from around early 2005, not the intel based g5, not the water cooled one, and not a Mac Pro!
Please help me!!

HI, have you blown the dust out lately?
Does it boot better/further if allowed to cool?
If you're sure the RAM is good, try the Hair Dryer trick...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13240047#13240047
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15223603#15223603
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15499912#15499912
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15613068#15613068
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3270112
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16053892#16053892
No power light at all...
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3692775?tstart=0
It can show on any G5, and even many other computers & electronic devices of the period.
http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/pmg5.html
http://lowendmac.com/ppc/power-macintosh-g5.html
And see this last one in particular...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16781690#16781690
Heat gun better...
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3916312?tstart=0
If we don't get more help or answers here, feel free to join my site & ask...
http://x704.net/bbs

My macbook is stuck on the white boot up screen, my macbook is stuck on the white boot up screen

My Macbook was running slow and it ran out of battery. Now when I try to boot it, it gets stuck on the white screen with the apple icon and the wheel. What should i do?

See this Apple note.

Major Problem! Booting gets stuck on the grey Apple Logo Screen

HI All,
My iMac wont startup. It gets to the screen with the apple logo on it with the small dial spinning and thats it .... I left it for a bout 10 - 15 mins and thats as far as its got!
I'm running 10.5 with the 300 GB HD partitioned into 2 one for Mac and the other running windows through boot camp. I booted from 10.5 disk... went to Disk utility and repair It only shows the the one disk 300GB usually it wold show 3 the 300GB and the 2 partitions as a sub of this.
Another thing I'v noticed is that looking in the start up disk nothing appears in there apart from the CD.
SIf I just wanded to reinstall the OS doesn't even look as if thats a possibility.
OK... So I tried the same thing but booting from and older operating system disk 10.4. I disk repair the 2 partitions are there so I run the disk repair while repaiing it come up with 'Incorrect number of threads recorded'... continues throught the other things like checking multi linked files etc. gets to the end then repeats the reparing volume. It automatically did the for 3 times now and its finally finished says
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS Volume Checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 Volume
1 volume could no be repaired
.. looks obvious to me that there is a problem with the HD that it cant seem to fix.
Does anybody have any ideas what I may be able to do to try and fix this problem or does it sound like the HD is dead?
Thnaks
Wayne

Ive just restarted held down option and managed to boot in windows so I know that this part of the disk partition is running good.
However I tried the Install & Archive option on the Mac partition from the 10.4 System CD and it will only get as far as Varifying destination disk the progress bar move only a couple of mm and thats it.

Am stuck in the grey start-up screen

Any ideas about what I can do to resurrect my Air?

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. 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 installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

Mac stuck on the grey apple screen startup? Follow these steps to re-boot....

So today I had a little scare with my Macbook. It was stuck on the grey apple startup screen with the loading icon. Switching it on and off did nothing and neither did waiting. I did a lot of browsing to try and find a solution but all the forums ended in 'looks like thats the end of my mac' or 'I think i've lost everything' or 're-install Os' blah blah etc. I DID NOT WANT TO LOSE ANYTHING!!! and I'm guessing neither do you! Ok so enough talking, in the end I found a solution which worked perfectly for me and I did not lose anything!!!!!:
Step 1
If the Mac is on switch it off.
Once it is off, switch it on again but this time as soon as you press the power button to switch it on, hold down the Apple cmd key + S.
Hold this down untill the 'safe boot' screen appears.
A black screen with white writing should now come up.
Step 2
Once the screen has loaded, at the bottom type:
/sbin/mount -uw /
[press enter]
then type:
chmod 775 /
[press enter]
then type:
exit
this re-boots the mac. As soon as you have done this the mac should load up again as normal!! Voila!!!
Hope it helps!

Someone suggested this to be risky. worked for me but DON'T DO IT WITHOUT RESEARCHING FIRST and if in doubt CALL APPLE!!!!!

My Macbook is stuck on the grey screen and we don't have the original installation discs. Please help

Hi there,
We have a late 2008 Model MacBook (Serial No: 45920ccp9gu) It has suddenly stopped working and is stuck on the grey start up screen, I have tried to press the Command and R Keys after chime and also the hold of Option key, but both don't work, I can't tell what version of software is installed, (we bought it second hand) but I thin it is Snow Leopard. Any ideas how to fix this? Many thanks

. The 10.6 Snow Leopard DVD is in the Apple online store. You can get it for $19.99. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
Command + R is only for 10.7 Lion or 10.8 or Mountain Lion. For 10.6 Snow Leopard or lower you need a DVD install disk.
Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. When it comes up is your Hard Drive in the list on the left?
If it is, then click on the Mac OS partition of your hard drive in the left hand list. Then select the First Aid Tab and run Repair Disk. The Repair Disk button won't be available until you've clicked on the Mac OS partition on your hard drive. If that repairs any problems run it again until the green OK appears and then run Repair Permissions. After repairing use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for restarting from your hard drive.
If your hard drive isn’t recognized in Disk Utility then your hard drive is probably dead.

TS2570 On start up of my new iMac it locks on the grey screen with the apple logo and the progress wheel spins. Boot up in safe and this is where it stopped at "BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/bootcache.playlist: 2 no such file or directory. "

On start up of my new iMac it locks on the grey screen with the apple logo and the progress wheel spins. Boot up in safe and this is where it stopped at "BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/bootcache.playlist: 2 no such file or directory. "

Reinstalling MacOS does NOT fix the problem for me. I'm still searching a solution !
Bernard

Mac Pro gets stuck on the grey screen and won't finish booting

I have a Mac Pro 1, 1 recently (successfully) upgraded to snow leopard that gets stuck on the grey screen with the spinning rainbow cursor (after the apple logo and brief blue screen) and won't finish booting up. This happened after my computer froze up and I had to force quit. I checked out the forums and I tried all the all the suggestions (like disconnecting peripherals) and appropriate disk utilities, saw no errors with the HD reported, and had no trouble doing a safe boot (everything works o.k. there) or starting up from the software disk to perform the repairs. I did notice that during the repair permissions command, it gets stuck in the last few minutes, the CD starts to chug along, and everything freezes and I have to force quit. This happens every time I try it. I eventually backed everything up, erased the HD and reinstalled the OS, reset PRAM and NVRAM, but I'm still getting the grey screen on restart. Tech tool deluxe reports a "fail" on the video RAM, but everything else seems to check out. Could it be a graphics card issue? I did notice some funky visual glitches occurring prior to the breakdown. Any other ideas?

I wouldn't trust Apple Disk Utility to do a hard drive repair, but I would go with TechTool Pro 5/6 if you have that instead of Disk Warrior from Alsoft.
Clone the drive, though you should have some bootable backup clones already; repair the clone; then boot and work from that drive. Always have a working copy of the system.
And off load all your data to other drives.

Two Macbook pros circa 2009 in our temporary household in Turkey suddenly failed to boot and got stuck on the grey screen. They were able to boot at the Apple store, but not when we brought them back to our apartment. Could this be a coincidence? A

Two Macbook pros circa 2009 in our temporary household in Turkey suddenly failed to boot and got stuck on the grey screen. They were able to boot at the Apple store, but not when we brought them back to our apartment. Could this be a coincidence? A

THank you Ogelthorpe. When my wife's computer I went on line to the site that you sent and tried everything But nothing worked. When my son came to visit and his MacBook Pro did exactly the same thing we became suspicious - too much of a coincidence. We took both computers somewhere else, out of our apartment, and they both booted. We ran disk utility on both, but the report in both cases was that there are no issues with the hard drive. Back in our apartment neither will boot up. My MacBook Pro is a later model with a solid state drive and it seems to work fine here.. I tried an external drive and it works fine. We think that this has something to do with some kind of magnetic interference in our apartment to which the 2009 drives are susceptible. It is indeed a mystery!
alf

My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen.

My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen. What can I do?

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
If using 10.7 or later, the Installer/Utilities DVD has been replaced with a special emergency partition on the Hard drive called "Recovery_HD"

Imac is stuck on the grey boot up screen!

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