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.

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RhysWills1,
which model MacBook Pro do you have, and which version of OS X is installed on it?

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https://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
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Hey Christian,
I'd follow the troubleshooting steps below, from this article:
Apple computers: Troubleshooting issues with video on internal or external displays
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1573
Reset the system
You can reset the Mac's parameter RAM and SMC.
Reset the resolution
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Start up in Safe Mode.
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You might have a failing hard drive. If you're running 10.7.x, try booting into your Recovery partition - holding down the Command and R keys whilst booting. Once at the installatio screen, use Disk Utility to verify and, if needed, repair your hard drive. If it can be repaired, you should be good to go - if it can't be repaired then you're going to need to go shopping for a new drive.
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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?
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How can I get rid of The Grey screen and boot my macbook?

Today I was on my MacBook Pro (bought July 2011) and it went to a blank blue screen. I powered it off and tried to restart it. It loaded the apple and spinning circle but it went to a grey screen and froze there. I've read and tried a lot of different things already but nothing has worked. I did the hardware test and it found no problems. I tried to safeboot it. I tried everything on here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 except the last suggestion (I'd rather not have to lose all my files unless absolutely nesseccary). I also tried the "hold Command + R keys" to try and get to utilities. Anything else out there that I could try? Not sure what the exact operating system is either.

I wouldn't assume that's the hard drive. The fact that the screen turned blue all of a sudden isn't necessarily an indication of a hard drive failure. Check out this post I made yesterday:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21756819#21756819
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If you're not in the US, you may need to go through the regional Apple Store that serves your location to find the contact number - http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/intlstoreroutingpage.html
Mac OS X versions (builds) for computers

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It's been acting strange lately-- I tried to run DiskWarrior 3 yesterday and it wouldn't boot up from the CD-- I did the hold down the C key as well as going in and clicking off the 'ignore' box. I thought that it was because I needed a newer version of DiskWarrior-- but now I'm thinking maybe it was something bigger?
Is there a safe way to make it boot up? BTW-- I can't remember exactly which OS it has-- I'm 99% sure it's Snow Leopard, if that helps?
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Reinstall Snow Leopard:
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Macbook pro gets stuck on the startup screen...

This question is a little odd as i am typing it off of my macbook pro right now, but my macbook fell of my bed and then it froze. I then resarted it and it just sat on the start up screen with an ideling circle under the apple logo along with a loading bar at first. I let it sit for about 25 minutes and then realized that it was going to work. I then tried to restart it in safe mood and that didnt work and i dont have the disk so i cant boot from that but then i tried this...
Hold command S on start up and then type
/sbin/mount -uw /
and then
chmod 775 /
and then
exit
After that it booted up and now i am using it as previously stated but my only probelm is turned it off to see if it would come back on no problem and it doesnt i had to go through the same commands over again to get it to work. So any suggestions on how to get it back to normal?
Thanks

Try resetting the Pram
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
and Smc
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Hi i am having a big trouble. MY mac wont start past the gray screen. I tried starting on safe boot, single user user mode , recovery mode. Everything it gets stuck on the gray screen i even tried reinstalling it , same thing what should i do?

MY mac wont start past the gray screen. I tried starting on safe boot, single user user mode , recovery mode. Everything it gets stuck on the gray screen i even tried reinstalling it , same thing what should i do? it lets me reinstall sometimes Sometimes.... it is weird.

orshikhfromsc,
boot from the Mac OS X Install DVD that originally came in the box with your MacBook Pro (by holding down the C key as it starts up). When the desktop appears, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and erase your internal disk. After it’s been erased, reformat it. After it’s been reformatted, exit Disk Utility and reïnstall the version of Mac OS X from that DVD onto your internal disk. After that version of Mac OS X has been reïnstalled, boot from your internal disk and run Software Update to get it up-to-date within that version; that should allow you to redownload and reïnstall Mavericks, if desired. If Mavericks is reïnstalled, run Software Update again to get it up to date.
If you no longer have the two grey installation DVDs, you can purchase a replacement set from either Apple or iFixit.

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

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