IMac OS X Snow Leopard does not boot. Turn on and it stays on gray screen with spinning wheel. Shuts down after approx 1 minute. How can I get in to troubleshoot?
Need tips for troubleshooting
Put the disk that came with the Mac in the DVD/CD drive and start up holding down Command+C and hopefully the Mac will boot, albeit very slowly.
At the first screen choose your language (you are NOT going to re-install at this point) and from the menu bar select Utilities>Disk Utility. Once DU has launched select your Macintosh HD on the left and click on 'repair disk'. If it says it fixed anything click on 'repair disk' again until you get a clean pass. Restart as normal from the Apple menu.
Similar Messages
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I am trying to use powerpoint but when I open a document I want to work on it does not open on my desktop. It appears as open on mission control but it disappears offscreen. How can I get it to open where i need it and can work on it?
It's almost certainly too late.
The time to create a backup is before a catastrophe. After a catastrophe, it's too late. -
Hi Frnds,Small Favour for me,...
MAC OSX 10.3.6 having Boot Problem(Gray Screen with Spinning wheel all the Time) ,How to restore all the files without Mac Startpup Disc,still is not possible i want to download full CD from Apple Site, Is It Possible to Download!, Windows 7 is working perfectly , can i restore any files in MAC OSX 10.3.6 through Windows 7, or i need the MAC OSX 10.3.6 Bootable Files i need to enter the MAC OSX....Hi Frnds,Small Favour for me,...
MAC OSX 10.3.6 having Boot Problem(Gray Screen with Spinning wheel all the Time) ,How to restore all the files without Mac Startpup Disc,still is not possible i want to download full CD from Apple Site, Is It Possible to Download!, Windows 7 is working perfectly , can i restore any files in MAC OSX 10.3.6 through Windows 7, or i need the MAC OSX 10.3.6 Bootable Files i need to enter the MAC OSX.... -
IMac has gray screen with spinning wheel, but cannot login
After power failure last night, iMac has gray screen with spinning wheel when turned on, but does not go to login screen.
Having the same problem myself. iMac locked up and I had to hold the power button to turn it off. Ended up with the apple logo screen and spinning wheel. I tried the disk repair and got the same message as yourself, in that it couldn't repair it.
I linked up an external hard drive and installed OSX on it and booted from it. I was able to recover some files, but most I couldn't. I'm currently giving it a one pass erase in the hope (long shot) that a complete pass through the hard drive will show up any faults. Has anyone had this problem and been able to continue using the same hard drive? I really don't relish the thought of having to send it off to be replaced :-/
Assuming that the erase goes well I plan to put OSX back onto it and then run disk utility from directly on the drive and see if any faults show up. I'm kicking myself for not taking advantage of TimeMachine, but we live and learn. -
My imac is stuck in gray screen with spinning wheel
My iMac is stuck in gray screen with spinning wheel. I'm running Mountain Lion, any idea how to fix it. Pls help.Thx.
Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Press Shift key on boot and check that the computer starts. Finally, restart -
Both my backup drives show up, but fail to boot, staying in grey screen with spin wheel.
I did some maintenance, copying lots of files, running Cocktail for the first time (failing to note exactly what I did) and after running Disk Warrior on both my bootable external drives (one OWC, one LaCie) they both hang in grey Apple screen with spinny wheel and never boot up, though both did earlier in the day, and have never failed to boot in years of service. Both appear on the desktop, show vertified in Disk Utility and booted up fine one day before all the maintenance. I don't know what Cocktail may have done, but it may have created a (now solved) problem for Photoshop 7, which crashed thereafter while loading, something that's only ever happened twice in six years. I managed to track down a TWAIN plug-in that had always been in Photoshop, something to do with scanning, but was now causing the crash. Anyhow, Photoshop is now working again, (after just removing that plug-in) but neither backup will boot up. Please don't suggest a system archive and install. I'm hoping for some miracle little file that once removed will restore the booting of the two externals. Your help is greatly appreciated. Please assume I am brain damaged and spell things out for the simple-minded. Thanks in advance.
I hope BDAqua sees this.
I only have one iBook, and it's less than half full; couldn't figure how to edit below that I'm now on 10.4.11. See what I mean?Since you are using your two external drives for booting, do you have clones on them?
If so, why not simply update the clones? I'll bet they'd boot for you if you do that.
I'll put out a call for BDAqua. -
I've had an old firefox installer which I have been using for some time, though a few days ago it tried to update to a new version. Up comes an update bar as usual. Problem is when it is done firefox does not start. Left in processes in task manager is a firefox which refuses to be killed. Any further tries to start firefox will just add another process also unable to be killed. Before I had to reboot the computer every time it tried to update, just to be able to uninstall firefox and install the older version I had. Now, unfortunately, I deleted that old version, so now I have no functioning firefox at all. Same thing happens with the latest beta version.
i forgot the exact text of the original error message, but it was looking for a *.dll that was not there - as if the install had not completed.
tried re-installing & it would stop in the middle of the download with a completely different error message - i was going to screen grab it, but then i got it to work!
Anyway, after uninstalling everything related to iTunes, emptying my recycle bin, cleaning up a bunch of unnecessary files, and stopping some programs that were running in the background (using task manager) - i did a complete re-install from the Apple iTunes website & it worked fine.
thanks!
dw -
Macintosh HD will not open, stays on grey screen with spinning wheel
Recently things have been funny with my computer. Safari suddenly wouldn't fully open, but Explorer would. Often my computer would not go to sleep. Sometimes the mouse freezes on the screen after the computer has been idle for awhile. When the computer was opening it made a very quiet clicking noise. Sometimes the screen would go dark grey and up in the left hand corner there would be white typing talking about a "kernel". I have no idea what it meant.
I decided to try and reinstall Safari and use disk utility from my start-up disk (Tiger) to try and fix errors on my HD. The disk utility could not complete repair or verification. Here's the messages.
Verify Disk:
Invalid catalog record type
Error: The underlying task reported failure to exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume need repair
Disk Repair:
Invalid catalog record type
Error: The underlying task reported failure to exit
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
I've done numerous searches on the internet using my other hard drive (luckily I have two). I've tried everything I could find: Safe Boot; fsck; disk utility. Nothing could finish or work properly. I would like to be able to get back to my main HD and save pictures and documents that I really need. I can than erase and reinstall the operating system if needed.
Any suggestions?Hi Silverc, welcome to the Apple Discussions! Great job describing some of your symptoms, they really help those who read the post in trying to understand and troubleshoot the issue without actually seeing the issue.
The symptom that stands out to me the most is the clicking sound you're able to hear from within the case (if I understand your description correctly). From my experience, a clicking sound can originate from a hard drive that is physically failing. It's good that you have a second HDD that you can boot the system from!
Does this problematic HDD show up on the desktop when you boot from your other drive?
Even if it does not, there's a good chance the system sees the hard drive on the IDE channel, which means you should be able to run a SMART test (SMART = Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) to see if that drive is failing. SMART technology is included with many HDDs and can help you determine if a drive believes it is physically healthy, failed, or predicting failure.
The third case (predicting failure) recently happened to me. From within Mac OS X, copying files to the drive suddenly became very slow. When I opened the case while the system was running and attempting a file copy operation to the problematic drive, I could hear the dreaded clicking sound. Upon running a SMART test, the results indicated a pending failure. After copying as much data as I valued from the drive (which, in its state took a very long time and is submit to integrity verifications), I shutdown the system and removed the drive.
Good news in terms of SMART testing is there are freeware tools available to perform the task, and the results are user-friendly (i.e. no need to understand the technical stuff of SMART).
The freeware tool that comes to my mind for checking the status of your problem drive (providing the system can see the again...though again, it might not show on your desktop even if OS X can see it) is SMARTReporter:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23232
Be sure to carefully read the documentation and explore the preferences. If your system has 2 internal hard drives installed, both should hopefully be possible to verify and report the results to you. Keep in mind that a failing drive can respond unpredictably and very slowly, so be patient when trying the program for the first time. Sometimes the system can appear to be frozen when it is not!
If you want a more complete disk utility solution, I always recommend DiskWarrior:
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
This commerical-grade utility includes a bootable CD which can be used to run SMART checks (using the Hardware tab), check/repair/optimize disk directories, and even has some file recovery functionality. DiskWarrior was actually the program I used to run my SMART test.
Finally, if you can access the drive, or if the drive is visible to the system but does not show up on the desktop, there are some software packages available that can attempt to recover data from failed drives. From a similar issue I discussed in another thread, a much more experienced person recommended is DataRescue (which I haven't tried, but it does include very limited trial functionality to see if it will even work for you):
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
A lot of information here, read it carefully, take your time, and please reply with questions and let us know how you progress through the problem. Best of luck! -
The download of version 4 had a circle with a line in it, but I had already said it was ok to replace the existing firefox application.
download here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html
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while downloading a new version of software the internet dropped out and now itunes Wont reconise my ipod and on the ipods screen their is the apple sign and a load bar running horizontaly can someone help me
- First try resetting your iPod. Than may make the iPod visible in iTunes o you can restore it.
Reset iPod touch: Press and hold the On/Off Sleep/Wake button and the Home
button at the same time for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Next see if placing the iPod in recovery mode will make it visable. For recovery mode see:
iPhone and iPod touch: Unable to update or restore
- Lastly see if DFU mode will make it visible.
How to put iPod touch / iPhone into DFU mode « Karthik's scribblings -
Install Disk for Snow Leopard will not boot on an iMac 27in
My Install Disk for Snow Leopard will not boot on my iMac 27in. The Apple Logo is the only thing the user will see. The current OS on the system is 10.6.6. Upon placing the Snow Leopard DVD in the system, the DVD players spins for a few seconds and displays the Apple Logo. Nothing happens after 20 minutes.
Yes, it is ridiculous how it is impossible to install Snow Leopard. I have two Snow Leopard DVDs: one that I purchased for a Macbook soon after it's release (10.6.0), and one that came with my iMac (10.6.4). Both of these boot up my Macbook (running 10.6.7) just fine. My SL 10.6.0 DVD mounts onto my iMac (Lion 10.7.0), but you cannot run the install. I attempted to boot from this DVD and got the infinite white screen and Apple logo, as some have reported above. The other SL 10.6.4 DVD will not even mount in Lion, and will not even show up as a bootable drive when I attempt to select it after holding alt/option on reboot.
I created a bootable external drive from SL 10.6.0, attempted boot, same infinite white screen/apple logo.
I created a bootable external drive from SL 10.6.4 on my macbook. I attempted to boot from this drive, and got the white screen of death, except that this time I actually got the loading symbol underneath the Apple logo. After about a minute of attempting to boot, the Apple logo changed to a circle with a diagonal line through it (the "NO!" sign).
I took my iMac to the genius bar. They inserted SL 10.6.0, which would not boot. Then they determined that my computer had to run 10.6.4 and later. So, they restored an image of SL 10.6.4 onto my partition (not an install from an image, but an image of SL already installed). Hurray! Snow Leopard was successfully shoved onto my iMac!
I then deleted a third partition on my hard drive I did not need anymore, which somehow screwed up my SL partition (even though it said "Will not erase partition SL or Macintosh HD). Now I am back at square one, and I guess I need to take my flippin iMac back to Apple for them to do what I should be able to do.
I like Apple, but sheesh do I hate Lion right now. -
My early Intel iMac running Snow Leopard will not boot past the apple logo. I have tried holding the c key and inserting the install disk, but nothing. What do I try next?
I have tried resetting PRAM and all other items listed in the Apple support site. This happened after an update to iTunes was added. Also this is happening to other people. Please help.
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i tried to soft reset my ipod touch with the top button and the screen button. it turned off and then went to the blue screen with the apple like it should. however, it now just stays on that screen. it has a sort of clock looking thing at the bottom of the apple that does not move either. it has stayed on this screen for over 4 hours. i also can not hard reset it in itunes. i am not really goood at this sort of thing. does anyone have this problem or a possible solution? thanks
See Here for
Frozen or unresponsive iPod touch
The Basic Troubleshooting Steps are:
Restart.. Reset.. Restore...
Try this First... You will Not Lose Any Data...
Turn the iPod Off... ( if it isn’t already )
Press and Hold the Sleep/Wake Button and the Home Button at the Same Time...
Wait for the Apple logo to Appear and then Disappear...
Usually takes about 15 - 20 Seconds... (But can take Longer...)
Release the Buttons...
Turn the iPod On...
If that does not help... See Here:
Backing up, Updating and Restoring
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414 -
HT1455 imac wont start up and grey screen with spinning wheel appears
imac wont start up and grey screen with spinning wheel appears
See this Apple note on steps to take.
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All the CD's I have imported will not play. The only music that will play is cd's I have purchased from itunes. How can I get all my albums to play, please??
iTunes Store- Transferring purchases from iOS device or iPod to a computer
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
How to dowload purchased music
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