IMac will not boot, just runs apple screen with turning circle

Trying to turn iMac on, but only get the gray screen with Apple icon and turning wheel. Any advise on how to get iMac to boot?

That isn't a good sign, it's rying to repair the drive & cannot useually with that.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, or are running 10.7+, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitiion & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Permissions.

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Hi s.cheslik,
It seems your MacBook Pro will not boot properly and it displaying an error message. Based on the information you have provided, it appears your MacBook Pro needs to be serviced. The following link should help you get started with the process and has links with additional information on topics such as warranty and service pricing, battery replacement, and express replacement service.
Apple - Support - Service Answer Center
Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Bobby_D

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Can you run Apple Hardware Test. In you case it is not so much to see what it finds but to see whether you can boot it at all.
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My Imac will not move beyond the Grey Screen with the spirl spinning any ideas

Recently I rebooted my IMac, it now will not move past the grey screen with the spinning spirl.
Please help

Turn off your machine, then power on whilst holding down cmd+alt+p+r until the screen goes off and you hear the chime again.
Also, what iMac do you have/how old?

Brand new iMac will not boot, just make's funny "bonk" sound.

I have a brand new iMac (Intel, 20-inch flat panel). Just out of the box. Ran through set-up wizard. Used firewire to transfer files from an old CRT iMac. All was good for about an hour.
Tried to empty the trash. Finder says Trash was emptied, but, if I open the Trash, the 50-odd files I just deleted are still visible! If I try to select one, its icon immediately disappears. Hmmm....
I decide it's time to restart.
Upon restart, computer will not boot.
I push the power button. I hear the startup chime as usual. Screen lights up gray. But no apple logo on the screen. There is a long pause. Screen remains gray. Computer then starts making a soft "bonk" sound every 4-5 seconds. (Kind of hard to describe the sound, just imagine clipping the very first fraction of a second of the normal Mac startup chime, and repeating it every couple seconds.) This continues indefinitely.
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Boot from the Install Disk 1
I cannot boot at all (see my post above). The
machine just sits there with a blank gray screen.
I appreciate the article link, though. I've already
read it and it will make a great reference for the
future, provided I can get back to a place where this
iMac actually runs.
Since you're new to Macs, I'm sure you don't realize that while your iMac is sitting there with only a gray screen, you can insert/push in "Install Disc 1" - and it will be accepted. Then press and hold down the power button until iMac shuts down. After waiting a few seconds until everything has settled, press power button and immediately upon hearing the usual Mac startup tone/chime/chord hold down the "c" key until you see the spinning progress indicator below the Apple logo. It will boot to the DVD, you will be able to use (from the Utilties pull-down menu) Disk Utility to "repair" the hard drive directory, then you will be able to quit the installation process, choose Startup Disk from that same Utilities pull-down, and restart your iMac:)

Mac book will not boot up,only grey screen with ? on it,Why?

Why won't my Mac book boot up,start up only grey screen with ? showing?

That folder with the question mark icon means that the MacBook can't find the boot directory. That can either mean it can't find the hard drive or the Operating System data on the hard drive is somehow corrupted.
With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. 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.
Or if you are running 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7, 10.8 or 10.9 partition.
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.

3g (3.1) Will not boot past the apple screen

I have been having the random shut off issue intermittently for a while now. I woke up Wed morning and my phone worked fine. I checked it 20 minutes later and the screen was black. Completely unresponsive.
I plugged the phone into the wall and thought all was fine as I saw the apple appear when I pressed the sleep/wake button, but the phone shuts off. The phone will continuously show the apple on bootup and then shut off when I press the sleep/wake button. I booted the phone and managed to get the "connect to itunes" to display, but the second I disconnect from the power source again the phone shuts off.
The phone is completely unresponsive when plugged in via usb. I have tried multiple computer and different cables.
I have tried, resetting, hard resetting, DFU mode and nothing works. My phone is out of warranty and I am running out of options outside of having the unit replaced.
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Hi,
Try leaving the iPhone directly connected to a high-speed USB2 port the computer, using the cable that came with it, for 5 minutes. Then try to restore the iPhone from recovery mode as described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808
If that doesn't resolve the issue, the iphone will need service. This webpage: apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/ provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions about iPhone service.
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IMac will not boot, hard drive file problem? Can't install OS in 2nd part.

The iMac will not boot. The Apple displays on the screen, the cursor spins for awhile, and then it loops into a reboot effort.
Last night, I was doing a lot of custom file sharing settings using the include enclosed folders option at the bottom of the Get Info window.
Question 1: Could that file sharing process have messed things up?
In an effort to get things going........ A few weeks back, I used Disk Utility to create a 2nd partition, with the intent of installing Ubuntu Linux there. I never attempted the install, as far as I can remember, while playing with the Ubuntu Live CD. So, I thought I would install 10.5.6 from the CD in the 2nd partition. But I get an error message that says "The installer could not create the folder "/Volumes/Ubuntu 9.10/BaseSystem.pkg.161nDNDdQ.""
Question 2: I also shared that partition, could that have caused the OS install failure?
Question 3: If I understand the book correctly, I can try to install the OS from the CD on the 1st partition, and not lose my data, correct? Unfortunately, I don't have any backup for the data, as I don't own any drives large enough yet to accommodate the data on the drive.
Question 4: Anyone have any other thoughts as to what ent wrong?

Hi, Grant.
Sometimes, it just pays to think on a problem. I awoke thinking, if it will boot the OS X install CD, it ought to boot my Ubuntu Live CD. And then, maybe I can change permissions on the first partition. As soon as I thought that, it occurred to me, if the problems are with the permissions, what if I used the OS X disk, and erased (formatted) the Ubuntu partition. That should set all the permissions on that partition back to default. Would OS X install then to the Ubuntu partition?
You better believe it did!! I'm typing this from the Mac after updating my 10.5.6 to 10.5.8 in the 2nd partition, and I'm booting from the 2nd partition.
I then did as you suggested, and from the Mac, I repaired the permissions to the first partition. But, the result was the same, there are a few permissions that do not match, and Disk Utility cannot, does not, or will not correct them.
I'm currently downloading the 10.5.8 combo update .dmg file. My thought is to burn that to a disk, and then install it over the version in partition 1. And trust that the current installation on partition 1 does not have any cross linked files that will destroy some data.
I do have some old ATA IDE drives I can hook externally to the Mac, and copy some of the information I have from the Mac to those drives before doing the 10.5.8 install.
Can you think of a better solution?

My 2011 IMac will not boot up past the White apple logo screen with the whirly circle

My 2011 IMac will not boot up past the White apple logo screen with the whirly circle. I have tried various commands but to no avail. does anybody have any advice?

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.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
c. 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.
d. 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 the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d 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 11. 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
If the startup device is an aftermarket SSD, it may need a firmware update and/or a forced "garbage collection." Instructions for doing this with a Crucial-branded SSD were posted here. Some of those instructions may apply to other brands of SSD, but you should check with the vendor's tech support.
Step 10
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 11
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 12
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 13
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.

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?

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.

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen

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

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

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First carefully read and then methodically follow Apple's troubleshooting steps in Gray screen appears during startup

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see > OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery
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see > Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk

IMac will not boot, just runs apple screen with turning circle

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