Imac wont get past white startup screen after updating today

Downloaded new updates today for lion from software updates from Apple menu. Computer restarted and sat on white screen for a long time. 20 mins or so. Seems somewhere after 20 mins we had a power failuer and everything went out. Tried to restart my iMac after power was back on and it just hangs on white screen with apple and gear rotating for over 40 minutes. Nothing seems to work.

A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

I can't get past the gray screen after update of 10.10.3

downloade the new software on my 2011 Mac this morning, and after the download when the computer restarts a gray screen appear. I don't know how to get rid of it. It was working fine before the updat. Anyone have this problem?

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
To restart an unresponsive computer, press and hold the power button for a few seconds until the power shuts off, then release, wait a few more seconds, and press it again briefly.
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 a desktop Mac hangs at a plain gray screen with a movable cursor, the keyboard may not be recognized. Press and hold the button on the side of an Apple wireless keyboard to make it discoverable. If need be, replace or recharge the batteries. If you're using a USB keyboard connected to a hub, connect it to a built-in port.
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 in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is 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 macbook pro wont get past the grey screen at startup. Help!!

After doing a run of the mill software update on my macbook pro (running snow leopard) it froze during the "moving items into place" stage. I forced a shut down and now it wont get past the grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel. I have tried booting from the original DVD but it still freezes. When I boot it in verbose mode it seems to stop at "jnl: unknown-dev: update_fs_block: error reading fs block # 3597880! (ret 5)", the Apple AHCD Disk Queue manager :: set power state is timing out and there is a disk I/O error. I have tried to reset the power manager (not sure if it worked or not) and I have also tried clearing the PRAM (again, not sure of that worked). When I try to look at the hard drive using target mode on my imac the hard drive doesn't come up but the DVD does. I'm concerned that my hard drive is fried. Any suggestions?

It would help to state in your post which remedies you tried that didn't work.
Start here > OS X Lion: If you see a gray screen at startup
If nothing there helped, try Starting up in Safe Mode
Safe Mode deletes some system caches that may help.
A Safe Mode boot takes longer than a normal boot so be patient. Once you are in Safe Mode, click Restart from the Apple menu.
If a Safe Mode boot didn't work, since your Mac has OS X v10.7 installed, restart your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys so you can access OS X Recovery built in utilities. The startup disk may need repairing.
Tip: Hold down the Eject key while starting up your Mac to eject a disc.

HT2173 my iMac will not get past the start screen, after i restarted it after it not being able to upload my photos from my iPhone 4S to iPhoto app on my iMac bc a visa vas about 3:15 min

my iMac will not get past the start screen, after i restarted it after it not being able to upload my photos from my iPhone 4S to iPhoto app on my iMac bc a visa vas about 3:15 min. What should I do to get my imac past this?

According to your posted Profile here you are running a PPC based iMac. This Forum is only for "Intel iMac's", and so to get the expert and correct help you need you should repost your question in the "PPC iMac Forum".
Hope this helps

My iMac wont go past the grey screen with Apple Logo and question mark a caution mark

My iMac wont go past the grey screen with Apple Logo and question mark a caution mark

You may find this support article helpful:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Ciao.

MacBook Pro won't get past grey startup screen

I have a late 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro running Mavericks. Around a month ago, maybe more, it began to sometimes completely freeze or just turn off while Inwas using it. Sometimes it would start up again, sometimes it wouldn't and would beep three times. Eventually it wouldn't start up at all and would just beep. I started it up in recovery (holding command +R) and ran a disk repair, it said the disk couldn't be repaired. I had it backed up on Time Machine so I replaced the HD and restored from Time Machine. It was fine for a couple days after that, then the old symptoms returned. I took the RAM out and replaced them with some RAM of the same size (2 chips, 2GB each) taken out of a Windows laptop that I had. Again, it was fine for a few days then started turning off and beeping. Then it would turn on but not boot up, i.e. get stuck on the grey screen with the spinning circle. I tried booting in recovery, booting into safe mode, holding option and choosing a disk; in all cases it would just stay stuck on grey screen with the spinning thing. I tried PRAM and SMC reset, no result. At one point, it got through boot up in safe mode but took like an hour to do so. I restarted from safe mode and it took another hour and booted up normally. Then it turned off again and wouldn't turn back on. I opened it up, reseated the RAM and cleaned he fans, which were filled with dust and build up. It turned on and ran normally for a couple days in which I wasn't doing much on it, just watching stuff on VLC or reading, so not really using it and clicking and stuff. Next day, I open it (from sleep, it hasn't been shut down at all since I got it to run again), and try to open Firefox and actually work; it keeps freezing and being incredibly slow, to the point where it was totally frozen and I couldn't force quit or anything. So I held the power key to shut it down; since then it's back to not getting past the grey screen, even when I leave it for over an hour. No idea what to do, anyone have an idea? Thanks in advance.

You have to use Mac specific RAM chips.
You have to buy new RAM modules, I guess.
If you have extended AppleCare, contact Apple.
Best.

Old Ipod classic 160 gb wont get past battery charge screen has been sitting for months

I have an old Ipod classic 160gb,that has been sitting for a long time so im sure the battery has no life in it at all,im charging it via usb cable and it wont get past the battery charge screen,how long would a completely dead battery take to move off the charge please wait screen untill you know its a deeper issue at hand if so how would you get it to start up pass the charging please wait screen?to see the true issue?
Thanks for your help
Ice

Try to do a reset and see whether it can be solved
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1320?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

POWERBOOK G4 14 1.33 WONT GET PAST THE APPLE SCREEN

I have a powerbook G4 14 inch 1.33 mhz processor with 256 mb of ram. The screen will not get past the apple screen. I have tried 3 seperate hard drives none of them would boot past the apple screen. The disk drive is broken, I will be replacing it shortly to put a OS X CD or disk warrior cd in it. Does anybody know what would cause this? I reset PRAM, PMU and tried booting in safe mode. It gets to the apple and then the little circle spins and spins and it doesnt load..

Heres some history of the computer. I orginally put a 12 gb hard drive cuz it came with no hard drive in it and it was working great, but then became slower and slower until it got stuck on the apple screen. i tried 2 other hard drives and they didnt work. i then replaced it with a brand new 60 gb hard drive. i also bought a new optical drive and put that in because the optical drive never worked. i have tried two different ram sticks. i have tried pressing shift,c,option none of that works. option makes it freeze on the boot screen. open firmware works...command S did work until recently...command v does not work...reset pram and nvram. reset PMU. I AM AT A LOSS. is there something i forgot to leave connected during the process that could be causing this? I get USB BOOT ERROR 0 1 1 in open firmware. I DOUBT its the logic board, because it makes the chime and I can get into open firmware and the start up screen.

G5 wont boot past white Apple screen.

To anybody that may have some advice. I hadn't used my power mac in about 4 days then when I turned it on last night it wouldn't boot past the white apple screen. I still have the chime my fans and processor still spin up. I tried resetting the SMU, and I also took out 3rd party ram I had installed and tried booting up to see if that was the problem. I'm prepared to take it to the apple store, I just thought somebody might have some advice before I take it there. So again when I boot up it reaches the white screen with the grey apple and then it just gives me the little grey spinning dial and just spins and spins. Thanks in advance to anybody with any advice.
Dual 2.0 GHz Power mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Well first I booted holding option and it just booted into target disk mode or something like it, a screen that would allow me boot from a different drive if I had one that was formatted with Tiger. So then I rebooted holding >shift and OPtion. And it kernel paniced, it said it didnt have the driver for this version Tiger 7,2 or something along those lines and then it gave me apples screen of death asking me to restart.

Photoshop Elements 10 Trial wont get past "accept license" screen.

Hi
On a Mac. OS: 10.6.8
Have downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements 10.
Tried launching it.
Get a window asking me to accept the license for Elements Organizer.
Click accept.
Window disappears.
Window reappears - again asking me to accept license for Elements Organizer.
Click accept - window disappears when I click "Accept" - then just reappears, etc...
Can't get past this window.
Uninstalled the software.
Re-downloaded it.
Exactly the same thing.
Tried the online chat-help thing.
Waste of 15 minutes.
Was sent here.
(Just a thought, but I previously had a trial version of elements 9 - but uninstalled it - could that be messing something up?)
Thanks

This forum is for Adobe Digital Editions software, not Photoshop.....
===============

My imac wont get past the white screen with logo and rotating wheel

i was trying to turn on my imac when suddenly ot took forever on the white screen
i tried taking off everything connected to it-no change
i tried a safe mode after a few minuted a heard the second chime then a blinkin
question mark folder showed up so i turned it off again and tried a nvram/pram reset but it still stuck on the white screen
is it time to visit the apple store or is there something else i should try?

A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Help! Can't get past grey apple screen after Time Machine restore

Today I did a complete restoration of my HD using Time Machine. It seemed to successfully complete, prompting me to his <RESTART>, which I did. After the grey screen with the apple, I get this black and white pattern, almost like patchwork. Anyway, I've rebooted a zillion times, each time with the same result. I haven't had any luck starting in safe mode, but I'm wondering if the wireless keyboard is even being recognized. I've got a phone call request into Applecare, but I am really freaking out. Anyone ever heard of this before?

navyshrink wrote:
Today I did a complete restoration of my HD using Time Machine.
Did you use a Leopard disc for that? If so, that's your problem: you must use a Snow Leopard disc to restore a Snow Leopard backup.

URGENT, Phone wont get past start-up screen and iTunes doesnt see it

My 3.0.1 problems just got WAY worse!!!
After the 3.0.1 update I started having the same issues as everyone else until today. I noticed that my clock was just picking a random time( hours and minutes were off) and would not take to my manual setting of the time or on auto. So as i have been doing several times throughout the day, i performed a hard reset. Only this time it never came out of the reboot/start-up apple symbol screen. I then attempted to perform the hard restart several more times to no avail. I am now stuck with a phone that will not boot nor can i connect it to my computer. While connected, iTunes does not detect it and i can not do a restore either. any suggestions would be great but i fear for the worst!!!

Try to connect in recovery mode and restore: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808
If you can make it, restore "as new iphone" , maybe your backup contains corrupt files and these would be copied back using the "restore from backup" function.

My imac wont boot past the apple screen

I installed a Java update and now my system wont start

Was this from Software Update, or some direct download?
"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 the 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 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.)

How do I get past a blue screen after full restore from time machine and rebooting?

Wife had her hard drive replaced by apple, they reinstalled the os. After boot up system questions, the option to restore everything from timemachine backup was selected. System came up to login but would not take what the password should have been. I rebooted the macine and it has not come back.

That;s really not enough free space... you can use a tools such as OmniDiskSweeper to find out where your large files reside and begin pruning (or copying to an external if they're files that you want to keep).
One thing is certain - if you're going to continue your current usage you're certainly going to need to install a larger boot drive.
Clinton

Imac wont get past white startup screen after updating today

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