Macbook won't boot up stuck at white screen

My computer has been running a little slower lately and I noticed that disk space kept disappearing. I would empty trash or get rid of programs I didn't need but it will only fix it for a little while.
I was using the computer playing Angry Birds Seasons and I got a dialog box telling me I was running out of disk space and needed to free some up.
I exited all the running programs and tried to restart computer but it would not shut down. I held power button and tried to reboot that way but now I am stuck at the white apple screen with the timer circle going around and around but no boot up.
Please help. I have some documents on the mac that I don't want to lose. Is there a way to reinstall/fix this without losing my documents?

You could alway boot to your Recovery partition (Command-R on boot) and verify and repair, if needed, your hard drive. And repair permissions while your at it.
If that doesn't work, call back...
Clinton

Similar Messages

  • Won't boot and stuck at white screen.

    I've got a late 2009 model MacBook, and it won't start up. It shows the folder with the question mark. I've performed all tests provided by Apple in the manual, but cannot get any farther than the white screen. Takes forever to show the folder with question mark also.
    Things I've tried:
    - Reset by holding power button for 5 seconds.
         When I did this, I got the apple to pop up, but after a couple of minutes it changed to a circle with a dash through it. Not sure what that meant.
    - Reset the PRAM
         After this, I saw the Apple logo, then the little loading circle popped up (this went on for quite a while).
    - Hardware Test
         Selected the language, and then got an alert that said "Apple Hardware Test does not support this machine." Restarted the computer and got the white      screen with the circle with a line through it.
    - Holding down the C key during startup.
         Got a blank white screen. Nothing happened.
    - Rebooting into Safe Mode
         Saw the Apple logo, then waited for about 5 min, then the computer restarted itself.
    The major problem I'm having is that with all of these options I don't get anywhere besides on this white screen. No options are available to choose, so I can't back anything up, select disks to use, etc.

    The hardware test finally worked. It's running and I am performing the extended test now. The initial hardware test concluded no issues. Extended test came up with nothing. Memory isn't full. No clue what's going on.

  • Mbpr won't boot up, stuck on white screen with apple logo when I turn it on

    This morning I noticed the apple logo on the outer shell of my mac was lit up, I thought this was very odd because the lid was closed and like all laptops when thier lids are shut the display ect. are supposed to switch off/go to standby?
    Anyway I quickly opened the lid of my laptop to find that iconic white boot up screen with the grey apple logo and the small spinning loading circle under it
    I've waited nearly 5 hours and tried multiple thing like booting up in safe mode, single user mode, and evan reinstalling OS X mavericks somebody help me please

    Read this article... It recommended something you did already but there are other troubleshooting tips I'm not sure you've tried.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
    If none works, then a trip to the Apple Store is needed. It's most likely a hardware issue that you yourself cannot resolve.

  • My 2007 MacBook pro won't boot up beyond a White screen any ideas what to do?

    My 2007 MacBook pro won't boot up beyond a White screen any ideas what to do?

    Odd how this hasn't been archived yet.
    I'm getting the same thing with my Macbook, but can't boot past the white screen. An Apple store in KS suggested I needed a new hard drive, but I've already put two in there and it's still doing the same thing. I really don't want to buy another motherboard like I had to a couple of years ago.
    My choices are either buy a cheap drive to boot from and remove the current one to put into an external case, or save the money by not buying a new motherboard and putting it as a down payment toward a Mac mini.

  • My iMac won't boot up past the white screen with a grey apple and spinning icon

    My iMac won't boot up past the white screen with a grey apple and spinning icon...please help!

    command R did not result in anything different - still the white screen, etc. I do you Time Machine with and external hard drive, but I unplugged that.  I have the installation DVD, but it doesn't seem to be reading it either.

  • My MacBook will not boot up past the white screen and rotating circle

    Tried to start up my MacBook. Can't get past the white screen and rotating circle. Left it on for 10 min. same results. Any solutions before I bring it in for repair? Thanks.

    Zap the pram
    Maybe wait longer and see if it does anything or if anything comes up.

  • How do I back up my MacBook Pro from an external hard drive if my macbook won't boot up from the white start up screen? HELP!

    I went to the Genius Bar a week ago, and the guy helping me there was nice enough to help me save some money by telling me I could replace the bad hard drive my MacBook Pro had by myself. I bought everything I needed (hard drive, screws, external hard drive) and my computer won't boot past the white start up screen. It doesn't even show the Apple sign at the start up screen. How do I back up my computer so I can save all my music, school files, etc.? Could really use someone's advice on what to do! Thanks!

    Ok, to be sure I understand what's going on. You were able to boot the Macbook from the existing "damaged" internal drive, and it has been backed up to the internal.
    If that is correct, your internal drive is working. Just to be sure, try booting with the R key down. Then run Disk Utility to repair the internal drive. That drive may in fact be useable.
    You should be aware that you cannot boot the MBP from a Time Machine back up.
    Please post back so I am sure I am understanding the situation.

  • 2010 iMac 21.5 won't boot up , froze at white screen! HELP!

    Hi, everyone I need help! This morning the batteries ran out in my wireless magic mouse so I put in new batteries... Then all of a sudden by computer began to freeze and the colorful pin wheel began to spin and it was unresponsive! As my mouse couldn't get connected to my Mac ...
    Every time I start my Mac It won't load past the white screen :(
    And so I turned off my iMac and restarted it, it turned on and I heard the chime, it looked ok although it froze at the apple logo for 4 mins and a loading bar came under it and then as it finished loading the apple logo disappeared and the whole screen just went bright white and it just freezes, I can't use it !
    Although when I boot up my iMac in safe mode it starts after about 10 minutes ...  And everything appears ok  just laggy but I guess that's what safe modes like, well anyway I went into disk utility and I verified the disk and permissions and repaired the disk and all that... And still nothing works, i also tried resetting the PRAM and still nothing has fixed it
    My Mac is backed up with time machine, although when I bought my iMac it only came with snow leopard and now it's running lion... Although my friend installed it onto my computer a week or two after lion came out . And it's been perfect until now...
    Please help! I don't know what to do next!

    Ok now when I turn on my Mac, I don't even hear the chime, just displays a white screen. That's it, please someone help me I'm desperate here, In less than 5 days my warranty is over! :(

  • MacBook won't boot past the apple logo screen!

    So my MacBook started freezing up and I went to restart it and it wouldn't boot past the grey logo screen with the spinning gear. Its pretty old and therefor still has the Leopard operating system. I've been trying to run Disk Repair using a Snow Leopard install disc but it just gets about 30% done and then doesn't go any further. Eventually I stopped the disk repair and just tried installing OSX but when it asks me what drive I want to install on there are no options available to click. I've got alot of unsaved work on this old thing and would love to get it running soon! Any help would be extremely appreciated! Thanks

    I've been trying to run Disk Repair using a Snow Leopard install disc
    Install discs are "machine specific" .. you can only use the install disc that came with the Mac for repairing the hard disk.
    You may not have enough free space on the startup disk.
    Follow the directions for starting up in Safe Mode
    A Safe Mode boot can take a little longer then a normal boot so be patient.
    When you see the Desktop, right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure there's a minimum of 15% free disk space.
    If there isn't enough free space, help here > Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
    You can use Disk Utility to verify the startup disk from Safe Mode but you can't repair the disk. You will need the install disc that came with your MacBook for that. While you have Disk Utillity open check S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom of the window. Make sure it says:  Verified
    When you are finished, click the Apple menu icon top left in the screen. From the drop down menu click Restart.
    If you don't have the original install discs you may be able to request a replacement. You can get replacement System Install & Restore CD/DVDs from Apple's Customer Support - in the US, (800) 767-2775 - for a nominal S&H fee. You'll need to have the model and/or serial number of your Mac available.

  • Help! My Tour won't boot, gets stuck on loading screen.

    Earlier today, while my tour was charging it randomly rebooted itself, but it wouldn't boot all the way - the load screen froze about 2/3 of the way through and then didn't do anything (for like 15 minutes) I did both a hard and soft reset, but the phone still won't boot past that point. Because it won't boot, I can't connect it to the computer to reinstall the OS or anything. 

    Hi there,
    Unfortunately it sounds like you might have what is called a bricked or "nuked" BlackBerry.  There are ways to fix this, but it can take a couple of extra steps.
    Start off by downloading the OS from your carrier to your computer.  You can find your carrier's BlackBerry download site here: http://us.blackberry.com/support/downloads/download_sites.jsp.  Once you've downloaded the OS for your device, install it to your computer.
    Next, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Research In Motion\Apploader and open the Loader.exe file (note: if you have a 32-bit OS, there will not be an (x86) after Program Files).  Click Next to go to the Communication Port Selection page.  Now here is where you need to watch carefully and be on the ball to ensure it works.
    Take your battery out of the your BlackBerry and plug your device into your computer.  As soon as you see USB-PIN:UNKNOWN in the connection spot, click Next.  If you miss it, don't worry, just unplug the device and plug it back in again to start the boot cycle again.  Once you've made it to the next page, you should be good to go to reload the OS.  At this point in time, you can also reinsert the battery. 
    Then just follow the steps to reload the OS and you should be set.  As a warning though, if you have not recently backed up your device, there is a chance that you may lose the data on the device. 
    Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions.
    If you want to thank someone for their comment, do so by clicking the Thumbs Up icon.
    If your issue is resolved, don't forget to click the Solution button on the resolution!

  • IMac will not boot. Stuck at white screen after chime.

    I am starting a new thread this because it seems that other people with this problem are able to get their Macs working with some sort of keyboard combination on boot. I am not. Nothing is working. My computer is currently a 27 inch brick... Actually a lamp, since it is frozen on a really nice white screen.....
    Installed Yosemite on my 27" iMac (early 2010, i7) when Yosemite came out a couple weeks ago. Everything was working fine but it wouldn't read my external drive, so I did a reboot. After the reboot, it freezes on the white screen after the chime. No keyboard combinations work to get it to do anything....also, if I hit the power button it shuts off immediately.
    Nothing is working to get it moving. And yes, I am using a usb keyboard, not the Bluetooth, to try to hit any of the keyboard combinations posted in various discussions.
    My AppleCare is expired, so I'm going to be very upset if I have to go pay to have Apple fix their problematic software. Any help you guys can give will be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you,

    See if you can boot into the Safe Mode using your normal account.  Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear and again when you log in. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don’t do them all at once.
    Safe Mode - Mavericks
    Safe Mode - About
    Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
    Startup - Gray Screen
    Startup Issues - Resolve
    Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

  • Macbook Pro won't boot. Stuck on blue screen?

    Boy does my Mac have problems, ok here we go!
    Originally, the display on my mac was distorted during operation and when trying to boot up, including in safe mode. Now the distortion is gone (except in safe mode), but when booting up, my Mac either gets stuck on the blue screen or, if it successfully boots up, can't handle anything more than safari without freezing up completely. I have a partition on my hard drive with Windows installed and tried booting up from that, but no luck. I've also gone in as a single user and changed the drive permissions (that worked once, but hasn't since then). I've done a hardware test and that didn't turn anything up. I can't think of anything else to try. Any ideas? I'm stumped.
    Boring details:
    Macbook Pro approx. 3 years old.
    4GB 1600MHz memory
    Approx 100GB free on hard drive
    OS X 10.6.8

    I did that when using singe-user startup. That worked at first but not anymore. I would reinstall the OS, but I'm out of the country and without a disc.

  • Lion won't boot. Stuck on gray screen

    Was trying to work with HP support to troubleshoot a problem communicating with the scanner portion of an HP OfficeJet 6500a E710 bought at an Apple Store. They had me run the HP uninstaller to remove all HP software in scrub mode. They then asked to run verify disk permissions. Then reboot.
    Upon reboot I get the gray screen with the spinner, and it sits there forever.
    Any ideas what could be wrong or how to get around it?
    I've used Command-V to get verbose output during boot. Last thing it says is that its running fsck_hfs. But I see no other messages after that. The CPU fan is spun up as if the CPU is busy.
    I've booted using the recovery image and checked the disk. Everything checks out ok.
    I've booted into single user mode and run fsck and fsck_hfs. Both ran fine.
    I tried to startup in safe mode verbose. I let it sit for hours and after 3 hours it booted. But then I rebooted and it got stuck again.
    Any suggestions appreciated. This is a machine I use for work and income. Neither of which are happening right now.
    I've been trying to research how Lion starts up to see where it invokes fsck_hfs, but I haven't found any reference online to describe how Lion starts up. All references I've found refer to Tiger or earlier which has a very different boot sequence.
    Thanks

    Call Apple. Seriously.

  • Macbook won't boot past gray/light blue screen- Help!

    Hello,
    I've had my Macbook for two years (no problems until now). I was using Safari, and suddenly, my screen froze and strange whirring noises were emitted from the laptop. I manually shut down the computer, then tried restarting a minute or so later. However, the only screen that comes up is gray/light blue- there are no icons present at all. No programs load, even after a few minutes.
    So far, I have removed the HD and connected it to another computer via external enclosure. Everything seems to be fine from that end- the HD mounted and all of my files were present. I tried insert the OS X install disk, but the disk does not appear to be recognized. I have also tried using safe mode, but nothing. Now I can't even eject the disk from the laptop.
    Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance...

    The boot sector of the drive is fine or you'd never get to the gray/blue screen.
    fligex is correct in the fact that a sector or two may be corrupted. Most of the time you can run "repair permissions" and "Repair Disk" with disk utility and it will fix the problem. Unless the drive is just dieing then the problem will come back or it just will not boot again.
    This is why you need to boot from install DVD, another Mac or and external drive with OSX installed.
    You cannot seem to get the install DVD to boot. Unless you take it to an Authorized Apple repair you are just going to be in limbo until you can get one of the above listed to work.
    Did you ever get the DVD out of the drive?
    I can only offer the same suggestions from before, I'll give them again just for grins.
    1. The install DVD (a gray dvd) has to be the same DVD that was shipped with that Mac. Unless you have a retail DVD (a black DVD) in which can see OSX on that disk cannot be older than the OSX that shipped with the Mac. If these are not followed then the Mac may not boot from the DVD.
    2.Sometime you PRAM and or SMC can get into a state that needs to be reset. They can cause many sporadic problems and the Mac not booting is one of them, and the Mac not ejecting the DVD is another. This is why it is important to make sure that they get reset, and properly.
    Pram:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
    SMC:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
    3. You can boot from an external drive that has OSX install, by the following.
    Plug the external drive into the Mac, then power on the Mac and immediately press and hold the "option" key until the Startup Manager appears. Select the external drive from the GUI interface and press the right arrow button on the lower right bottom of the screen. This will force the Mac to boot from that drive. At this point you can run disk utilities from the external firewire drive against the internal Mac drive.
    4. You can also put your Mac (with the disk install) into Target Disk Mode. Then plug the TDM Mac into another Mac with a firewire cable. Then TDM will populate on the desktop of the other Mac as an external firewire drive at which point you can run the disk utilities against the external (TDM Mac).
    5. Since you had the drive out you could easily put it into an external enclosure and plug it into another Mac to run the disk utilities against it.
    Good luck...

  • Early 2008 Macbook won't boot after 10.7.5 update?

    Updated to 10.7.5, when it rebooted to do the install, there was an error message, and now the machine won't boot.  Stuck on grey screen with spinning wheel.... reset PRAM, Disk utility says drive is OK... still no luck. ??
    Looks like this has hit the news.  Any update from Apple?  I would take it to the apple store, but there's a mob becuase of the new iPhone, so..... yea.
    Apple, please fix this.  And bring back Google Maps to IOS while you're at it.

    Updated to 10.7.5, when it rebooted to do the install, there was an error message, and now the machine won't boot.  Stuck on grey screen with spinning wheel.... reset PRAM, Disk utility says drive is OK... still no luck. ??
    Looks like this has hit the news.  Any update from Apple?  I would take it to the apple store, but there's a mob becuase of the new iPhone, so..... yea.
    Apple, please fix this.  And bring back Google Maps to IOS while you're at it.

Maybe you are looking for