Macbook doesn't load on startup-Annoying.

Question

When I turn on the macbook it stays on the grey screen and never loads. This has been happening more, even when I hold down option on start up it doesn't load sometimes. I have had problems with safari freezing and even force quit wouldn't work so I have had to manually shut down the computer. When I try to start it back up that is when it doesn't load. But the safari problem has gotten much better and doesn't freeze much anymore, but today on start up it stayed at grey screen. This is a annoying problem and please help! Thanks.

Answer 1

dictionary. wrote:
I ran the disk utility and it said that the the volume Macintosh HD appears to be ok. What is the
purpose of running off the install disk?
Because earlier you said:
Well I did the disk utility, and the permissions worked fine, but on disk it froze and I had to restart.
and then:
I tried running the mac os x install disk and it wouldn't even run on that...
So, it looked like you couldn't run the disk verify. However, if you were able to verify the startup disk using Apple's Disk Utility you don't need to check it again with the Mac OS X Install DVD. However, don't confuse the permissions check with the "Verify Disk" test.
I hope your problems don't reappear, but frankly computers crash for a _reason_ and if you haven't changed anything to fix the problem then it will mostly likely reoccur.
Given what you've told me and assuming that you did run the "Verify Disk" test and not simply the verify permissions, I'd say that you _may_ have a problem either with your hardware or with your Mac OS X installation (not the DVD, I mean the OS image that is installed on the hard drive). To eliminate hardware as the problem you might want to rerun Apple's built-in hardware diagnostics and select the extended testing mode. The extended test can take a good amount of time so I'd start it when your are finished using the MacBook for the day and make certain that you're running on A/C power and not the battery.
Next, Safari shouldn't be crashing. I run Safari for several hours each day and it is _very_ rare for me to have any serious problems with that program (let's say one crash every few months, if even that often). Of course, the frequency of problems may depend highly on what you are doing on the computer and that's why it is important to look for patterns in your work (i.e. nearly every time I do this on this website Safari crashes).
By the way, when Safari crashes do you restart your MacBook? That would probably be a good idea if you are planning to continue to use your MacBook for a significant amount of time (after the crash). Also, do you ever need to do a forced shutdown of your MacBook? What I mean is does your MacBook/mouse/keyboard ever completely "freeze" so that you can't do anything until you hold down on the power button to force a system shutdown? If you _are_ having to do frequent forced shutdowns I'd suggest that on your next restart that you run the Disk Utility to check both your permissions and disk before you begin again to use the computer.
In any case, good luck in the future.