Mac Mini Stuck at Gray Screen

Hi, I have an Intel based mac mini running 10.4.6 I believe what ever is the latest tiger version. Upon restarting after installed updates computer can not go past the apple logo with the spinning wheel underneath it. I have restarted and tried all of the different key combinations the only one it will recognize is the option key. I have used the option key to select the c drive where the operating system is installed but it goes right back to being stuck at gray screen. I have used the option key to also let me use the install disc to run disk utility and repair the disc which said volume is verified and repaired and good to go. Only thing I haven't tried is firewire boot but at this point I don't think thats the right answer. Im thinking its hardware issue any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help me out- Ryan

Will it start up in Safe mode?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
If it can start up in Safe mode, that would point to a problem specific to your account, and probably a Login Item given that it hangs the way it does at the gray screen with spinny wheel. In that case, take a look at this procedure, too.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/21210.html

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Mac mini stuck at gray screen HELP!!!!!!!!!

Hi,
i have my mac mini stuck at a gray screen can you help me

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 boot failure is to secure your 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 your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 3
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 4
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 5
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot 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.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 6
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot 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 your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you boot 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, your boot volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 6.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot 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 reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 7
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your 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 reboot as usual.
Step 8
Reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 9
Repeat Step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 10
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 boot 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 11
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.

Non-booting Mac mini (stuck at gray screen with no Apple logo or others)

We've got a G4 Mac mini whose motherboard was recently replaced. I've put it back together carefully following the instructions on pbfixit.com, but I can't get it to boot.
When powered on, the chime sounds normal, and the screen comes on after a few seconds with a gray background--no Apple log, no spinner, no error, no flashing icons, nothing.
I've already zapped the PRAM 3 times using OptCmd+PR, no go.
I'm able to get into OpenFirmware using OptCmd+OF and have done reset-nvram and reset-all, restarting the machine, but no luck. The system date remains current also, indicating perhaps it's not resetting the PRAM either way somehow.
The disc drive won't accept a boot CD or DVD as if it's unpowered, but it's snugly connected.
I'm unsure what to test next. Suggestions? Thanks.

Greetings,
I just had the exact same problem with a Mini. Would only boot to a gray screen no matter what I did. Booting into the OpenFirmware did help, booting into the Startup utility (by holding "T" down at startup showed no hard drive and no CD/DVD drive.
Hold on to your hat . . . .
The issue was the battery. These guys have a Lithium battery that allows them to boot up, a battery that can be purchased anywhere that sells those kinds of thing. I bought 2 for $3.50, it was more time and trouble to get into the case and get at the logic board but once the battery was replaced everything works like a dream.
Here is an excellent step-by-step tutorial about getting into the case http://www.sterpin.net/uk/ddMacMiniuk.htm. Just make sure that doing so doesn't void any warranties.
Good Luck!
Gail

Mac mini stuck on gray screen with spinning icon

I can't startup from either the hard disk or even a CD (pressing down the C key while restarting) now on my Mac mini. I tried reseting the PRAM, the PMU and multiple other restarts. I also did the command-V restart and get the following as the last lines of text:
Feb 26 19:12:55 launchd: /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow port /dev/console exited abnormally: Trace/BPT trap
Feb 26 19:12:55 launchd: getty repeating too quickly on port /dev/console, sleeping
After a few moments, it continues to loop through these same messages again but with updated times by about 30 seconds.
My Mac is dead and it's afterhours and I can't get tech support. I'm typing this from my Sony Vaio... Can someone help?
Thanks

too old to remember how resolved, replace the Mac mini with something else

Mac mini stuck on white screen with logo during startup

Hi,
For the past couple of days my mac mini has been stuck during startup. It plays the startup chime, loads the white screen then the logo appears and it freezes there.
The RAMs were upgraded a few days ago, but it worked fine for a while after that.
Nothing is connected to the mac mini except the monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse. I have tried removing the power cord from the wall for some time, but it is still refusing to start up. I have also tried cmnd+options+p+r to reset the PRAM but nothing changed, I'm not even sure if this applies when startup isn't complete.
Please help.

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
When it says boot using install disk you can, if you have Lion or later, boot using Recovery:
OS X: About OS X Recovery
What model MIni?

Mac Mini Lost to Gray Screen

I recently purchased a 1.25 GHz mini and started the upgrade process. I immediately saw a few glitches I had intended to quickly fix. I installed onyx to check the drive and os with no errors, however I noticed when I went to connect to the internet and download the updates for 10.4 it would quit halfway through the install, so I downloaded the update to my macbook and transferred the file and the install failed. Then I noticed that other programs would fail without notice so I decided it was time to reinstall. I made the error of opting to erase the install since there was nothing loaded or saved I intended to keep. However, it failed the install. I can get it to begin the install but it encounters errors almost immediately and quits. Now, when I boot it up without an istall disc inserted, it goes to a gray screen with a changing small image in the center rotating between the different mac application icons. I am stuck with no OS and an inability to load a new one. I installed my OS 10.5.1 family pack dvd and tried to run the disk check utility and it gave me the error that it could not unmount the disc.
Any help you can offer is much appreciated. Thank you.

If you can't even get the OS to install from an OS X installation disk onto a newly formatted drive, that is definitely a problem. That source disk error sounds strange because it sounds like the installer is telling you the OS X DVD has problems. Does it look scratched or anything like that? Fingerprints maybe? Can you get another OS X DVD installer disk to try?

Help =( Mac got stuck on gray screen

Hi
Update went ok a couple of days ago.
Tonight it suddently got "stuck" and after rebooting it, it is now stuck on a gray screen.
Impossible to reboot from the installation disk or from my Lacie disk or from the HD.
When attempting to reboot from the Leopard installation disk, I then get a message telling me that the Mac needs to be restarted, but when I restart, I get stuck again on the gray screen with the Apple logo in the middle.
I am at a loss as to what to do.
Help, please!!! I am now on a friend's computer to access help. So a quick response from someone would be fantastic.
Anyone?

update on current situation:
i took my macbook to be repaired first thing this morning.
it is apparently a small part that is damaged and therefore preventing the macbook to reboot.
hence why the hardware test indicated that it found no problems and that when attempting to reboot from a disk or a drive, it finds them, but cannot reboot from either.
the part should be here tomorrow afternoon and i should get my macbook back either tomorrow or thursday.
apparently, it is nothing serious and no loss of data should occurr.
but they will only know this for sure once the part has been replaced and they can actually reboot it. they say this is not linked with the leopard update.
just sheer bad luck from a defective part.

Help Please.. Mac is stuck on gray screen

I am tring to install tiger and when I put the disk in the only thing that happed is, the gray screen and the spinning thing. It won't let me get the disk out or any thing. I have tutned the mac on and off but it seems to just get stuck there. What can I do to by pass this?

It would be helpful to know which Mac model (specifically) you are trying to install Tiger on. Please provide as much information on the computer to identify the specific model, amount of installed RAM, size of hard drive, what OS is currently installed, if any.

Mac Pro stuck on gray screen after installing software for a new keyboard

I am having a huge issue with my very important work computer! For a few weeks, my Mac has been freezing on the gray screen during start up. Since I had two external hard drives plugged in, I would unplug one of them and the Mac would always restart correctly once one was unplugged. Well today I was installing software for a new keyboard and the mac prompted me to restart. Once I restarted, the gray screen came up again and no matter what I did it would not start up correctly again. I tried unplugging everything except the keyboard and monitor and nothing works. I tried ejecting the crash-causing CD with the keyboard using all of the commands I found on this forum board and nothing worked. I saw forums about manually ejecting the CD by pushing a pin-hole but I cannot find that pinhole anywhere! Then again, the CD might not even be the problem but since the computer gave me the gray screen of death right after using the CD I am thinking that it is the problem. I use this computer for editing a TV show and creating websites so there is a ton of files on it and I need to get it up and running again ASAP. Any suggestions would be appreciated and I am sure by now you can tell that I am not a Mac expert so please dumb it down for me. Thank you!!

I would start by breaking your thoughts and sentences out from one long paragraph.
Start at the basics.
Always have backups.
One at least that is a spare boot system you can use.
Clone your system. SuperDuper does a great job for only $29
Boot from another hard drive or last OS X DVD
Repair your drive with Apple Disk Utility along with 3rd party disk maintenance and repair
Hold Option key until the boot manager, then hold mouse to open optical drive.
You can hold mouse on startup and it will eject also.
Hold and continue to hold Shift key during startup to repair the boot drive in minimal fashion.
What device and driver? hint: never use CD, just go online as the CD is usually out of date anyway.
Fill in Mac OS X version and more about hardware would help in posts and in your profile signature.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/index.html#d12aug2010
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior

Mac Mini stuck on grey screen, what to do?

A friend of me has got a Mac Mini (Late 2005) with some problems. She was looking at a Powerpoint presentation, but in the end it froze (spinning wheel). Then he turned off the machine, rebooted it, but it would display nothing then the grey screen and nothing but that.
From a distance, I tried her to boot into the boot disk screen (the screen did appear, but with no disks inside). After inserting Install Disc 1, it did not appear either, the drive was making some noise though, but even after the noise stopped, no drive appeared).
After a reboot, the machine still wouldn't reboot, nor boot from the drive (with C), nor start the Hardware Test (with D), nor eject. After a very long wait it would only display the icon with the folder and the MacOS icon.
So... what are the options:
1. I could still try to get the data via Disk Mode, but if it fails, do I take a risk (there are no backups)?
2. Should I still try to zap the PRAM or any other clues?
3. Or should I directly take it to an AASP and what should I expect?
Thanks for your advice!

Get them to try and recover data*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Once that is done, ask them to sign on here so we can help them directly. It is hard to work via third parties as there is ample opportunity for misunderstanding.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Mac mini stuck at white screen, pre-Apple logo.

Having some troubles with my 06 mini. Doesn't want to boot up. Upon turning it on, I get the proper Mac chimes, but after that, it just hangs. No Apple logo or spinny gear, just white. Also can't hear the HDD spin up. Tried putting in my OS X DVD and booting to that, no luck. DVD spins and makes sounds like it's working, but I can't seem to boot to it with or even bring up the boot menu.
Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
-Chris

Hi,
Did you manage to rectify this problem? I am in the same situation, although i can seem to pin point mine to doing a reboot after an apple update. When the mac mini rebooted it continuously chimed, so i turned it off at the power and left it for a few minutes, turned it back on, and the same thing happened. Again i turned it off at the power and left it for 24 hours, the continual chiming has stopped but it wont progress any further than the apple logo!
If you managed to get this fixed any suggestions would be much appreciated.

After yosemite upgrade my Mac Mini stuck on Install screen.

Selected the upgrade from the apple store. For several days I have tried to restart and still the computer is stuck on the install screen. Also did a disk repair using the Disck utility. Still no go.

Try booting into Safe Mode.
If your Mac won’t shut down, press and hold the power button for 5 seconds to force a shutdown.
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262
Follow these steps to start up into Safe Mode.
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key.
The Shift key should be pressed as soon as possible after startup, but not before the startup sound.
Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.
After the Apple logo appears, it may take longer than usual to reach the login screen.
This is because your computer is performing a directory check as part of Safe Mode.
To leave Safe Mode, restart your computer without pressing any keys during startup.
Then: look in System Preferences for any automatic log in items you may have there. Remove them. Then try regular restart.

TS2570 My Mac is stuck on grey screen what's wrong with it and am I going to lose everything

My Mac is stuck on grey screen what's wrong with it and am I going to lose everything

Hopefully you have a backup, but...
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, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.

Stuck in gray screen

Im stuck in gray screen at startup with a spinning gear. Dont have a os disk, worried because i have tons of pics that are not backed up. :"O(

HI
My Macbook Pro also struck in gray screen at startup . I have Mavericks OS on the MAC. Don't have OS Disk.

Mac Pro Stuck at Grey Screen, then will only boot into OS X Utilities.

My Mac Pro is stuck at Gray Screen. When I reset PRAM, it loads the OSX Utilities screen, prompting me Restore from Time Machine, Reinstall OS X, Get Help, or Disk Utility. I ran Disk Repair and Repair Premissions, same thing.... stuck at grey screen.
What will happen to the data on my HD if I choose to Reinstall the OS X? IS that the best choice? Thanks.

Off hand I think your drive may be bad. But to find out you need to erase the drive, so you will need to have a recent, bootable backup.
Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard 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.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
If this does not work, then you need to replace your hard drive.

Mac Mini Stuck at Gray Screen

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