Macbook pro will not boot, gets stuck on great apple logo with spinning wheel.

I have a Macbook Pro A1287 13" Core2Duo Intel running Mavericks. This morning it would not boot and got stuck at the grey apple logo with the spinning wheel. I have tried:
1. Resetting PRAM
2. Resetting SMC
3. Starting in Safe Mode
4. Boting to recovery partition and verifiying and repairing both disc and permissions
Unfortunately none of these have worked.
I thought after reading other discussions that it may be the sign/start of hard drive failure and that the hard drive may be corrupt.
The strange thing is that I swapped the hard drive with another macbook pro that I use in work and it boots to the HD no problem, all my files and desktop are as expected.
So, I thought this must be a hardware issue, maybe something to do with the hard drive cable, the battery or worse the main board, but when I put my work macbook hard drive in my macbook it also boots. Other than swapping the machines, I'm not really sure what to do.
One thing to note is that I have noticed over the past few months that the clock will have re-set when booting up and that occasionally the machine will turn off with no warning and reboot.
I would have thought if it was a hard drive problem, the drive would not boot in any machine, and if it were a hardware problem then the machine would not boot with different drive in it.
Any ideas, would be appreciated.

Thanks Linc for the swift answer. From what I have read on this discussion board and from other sources the model of Macbook I have does not have a logic-board battery, but may have a soldered on capacitor.
Also, would this not cause the other drive I tried in the laptop to fail to boot also, as I said in my original post, the machine works ok with a boot drive from my work macbook pro. Just trying to eliminate all possible causes before taking it in somewhere to be looked at by a technician.

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Power it down by holding the power button down. Then try to power it up again. Post back. It would help if we knew what OS you are running, the model MBP...

Macbook Pro will not boot on external Firewire drive. Mybook with 2 partitions containing 2 OSX images using CCC. Volumes will not display when booting but do display when the internal drive is running OSX using Startup utility.

I've reset SMC and PRAM several times. Activiatng Terminal from Recovery HD displays the following:
-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            249.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.3 GB     disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System    1.3 GB     disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk2
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   2:                  Apple_HFS MyBook1                 999.8 GB   disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS MyBook2                 767.2 GB   disk2s3
Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Applejack is just a command-line "front-end" for a number of different command-line tools you can use in single-user mode, and I'm not sure whether it's Lion-compatible. You can always try booting into single-user mode and executing:
/sbin/fsck -fy
That's unlikely to solve your problems, though. Since you can't boot from two different hard drives and your optical drive, that indicates there's a more serious hardware issue, or multiple hardware issues.

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my macbook pro will not boot. It gets the grey screen with the apple until the bar is half way across and then shuts down. The only screen I can get to is in safe mode and I don't know what to do with that

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

MacBook pro will not boot. I get the gray screen, an apple icon and spinning wheel. Tried to start in safe mode but get the same screen. The only thing different was that I loaded the zedge sync app yesterday. Now getting this problem.

Macbook pro will not boot. I get the gray screen, an apple icon and spinning wheel. I tried to start in safe mode, but get this same screen. The only thing different is that I added the zedge update app to do a sync for adding ringtones to my apple cell phone. How can I get a good boot. I am fairly new to apple computer.

Reset PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4405 and then try a normal boot.
Run the Startup Manager to select Startup disk: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310
If those did not work your disk may be sick or dying. The top priority at this point is to make a backup copy of your data.
Check the health of the disk. Boot in Recovery Mode (Boot, Command-R). Run Disk Utility. Click on the upper left disk icon. Does the S.M.A.R.T. status say “Verified”? If not the disk/SSD is unhealthy and needs to be replaced. Even if it does not show “Verified” you can still attempt a backup.
Click on the icon indented below, usually called “Macintosh HD” and Verify Disk. If it finishes with a green “OK” message then all is well with the disk. If it shows errors in red then you have found a problem to address once the system is backed up. Do not attempt software repairs until you have secured the data.
If the disk will not show up at all in Disk Utility as your ran the tests above then it may be dead or it may have a bad internal SATA cable. A trip to an Apple store for confirmation would be in order.
If you have an external disk drive you can use as a backup drive then do so. If not Google “Hitachi USB 3.0 external hard drive 1TB” to purchase one or go to a brick-and-mortar store (including an Apple store) to pickup one. Any 1 TB external drive will do.
Assuming it is still breathing you can try to recover the data without booting from the sick disk.
Reformat the external disk. (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
Boot in Recovery Mode. Start Disk Utility. Plug in the new disk. Select it’s disk Icon (the second one down, left justified). Select the Partition tab.
Partition Layout > Single Partition
Name: Emergency Recovery 1 (or whatever name you wish to use)
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Options… > GUID Partition Table > OK
Apply
Select the Restore tab.
Drag the old system volume (Macintosh HD) to Source.
Drag the new disk volume (Emergency Recovery 1) to Destination.
Click on Restore.
It may take a long time for the backup.
If that will not complete post back for other emergency data recovery methods, including those from a brody.
If the backup succeeds, use the First Aid tab in Disk Utility to select the old volume (Macintosh HD) and Repair Disk. If it does not finish with a green OK message try to repair it once or twice more. If it repairs with a green OK message, will it boot normally? If not, boot from the Recovery Partition and reinstall OS X.
If it is still not healthy, post back for further instructions.

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My Mid 2010 MacBook Pro will not boot regularly, in safe mode, in recovery mode or from original OS DVD. Is this the logic board?
I've tried resetting the SMC and pram numerous times and even tried switching out hdd's to try and do a clean install on a new hdd.
If I attempt to boot regularly or from recovery drive the grey apple logo appears for a period before the screen goes black and the power LED operates as though in 'sleep' mode. I'm unable to wake it from this state and the same applies to booting in safe mode.
When attempting to boot from the OS DVD that was originally packed with the computer it just freezes on the language select option, this occurs with the other hdd's I have attempted to use.
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It sounds like you have been on the right track in trying to troubleshoot this issue. You may want to see if your MacBook Pro will boot directly to the Apple Hardware Test, as outlined in the following article:
Apple Support: Using Apple Hardware Test
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509
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Archive and Install just affects the System files, so any apps you have should still be available afterwards. The Installer on the disk that came with your Mac, when you bought it, will tell you this before you proceed. Of course, you can always back out of the Installer if you feel chicken.
Notwithstanding it is still necessary to backup everything. You need to check that Time Machine is set to also backup your Applications folder. It might be set not to do this.
It may not be necessary to worry about this if you have the original installer disc(s). I think any stuff downloaded from iTunes etc can be re-downloaded. However, it's probably quicker to get Time Machine to backup your apps if you can afford the HDD space. It's bound to be quicker than re-downloading the stuff plus any updates. And of course there's those Apps that you have but forgotten about. What about them?

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Sorry. What I mean is I selected the SL boot up in the start up panel and it would not boot into the cd. The CD rom sounds like it just keeps reading with it slowly loading from grey screen to blue screen to the Block screen. Almost like it is booting into normal mode from the hard drive.
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Okay... so i have this issue with my MBP where it will not power up.
The light on the magsafe does not show up at all when connected to the MBP. I have tried another magsafe but failed. I have not tried another battery so im not sure if that is wheret the fault lies.
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Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities.
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Macbook pro will not boot, gets stuck on great apple logo with spinning wheel.

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