Macbook won't go past grey screen

ITs mac book a1181 its pretty old I was on it deleting a bunch of random stuff (like an idoit) now I try to trun it on and it won't get past the grey screen the apple turns into a cirle with a cross through it. Tried installing a later mac os x but it wont take it! help pls

Try resetting the PRAM:
#1 turn one computer
#2 hold command, option, P and R until the computer chimes for a 2nd time and then let go.
Hopefully it's running again after that.

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Macbook won't boot past grey screen with Apple logo and spinning wheel.

For some reason, after about 1 year and 10 months of owning my Macbook, it decided this morning not to load past the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinning cog/wheel.
I used it for a couple of hours beforehand, and it was working fine. Software Update prompted me of about about 4 or 5 updates; I can't remember exactly what was downloaded, but I think there was a Security Update and iTunes among them. I restarted, left it to install with no errors, but when I logged in, Safari and iTunes were running incredibly slowly. I also noticed that the volume keys weren't responding, as well as the power key to bring up the "Sleep, Restart, Shutdown, etc" dialog box. I forced shutdown, hoping a restart would solve my problem, and that's when my troubles started. I originally just left it, but after about an hour the wretched thing was still spinning.
So far, I have done a number of troubleshooting tips on a variety of websites. I have tried taking the battery out and holding down power for 5 seconds, resetting the PRAM with option, cmd, p & r, and holding down power until the sleep light flashes rapidly and the computer lets out a large "BOOOP".
I have booted off my Leopard install disk with both option and c, repaired the hard drive a number of times, with there being no errors whatsoever. I have tried repairing permissions, but everything seems to freeze up, except the mouse.
For some reason my computer will not boot into safe mode, either, and holding cmd & s at startup doesn't get me to the stage where I can enter commands with the keyboard.
Unfortunately, because of my puny 60GB hard drive, I only have 1GB of free space left and cannot reinstall Leopard without wiping my hard drive.
I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could assist me with this unfortunate dilemma. It's such a shame that my computer has been fantastic for so long and now decides to play up. (Maybe it's just Apple trying to get me to buy a new 2.4Ghz aluminium Macbook sooner than I was planning...)
Thanks very much.

Hi ds,
Sorry to hear you're having such trouble!
Unfortunately, the best thing you can do at this point is reinstall Leopard (and then attempt to install the combo updater, too). If you don't have a backup of your machine, you could boot it into Target Disk Mode (by holding down T at startup) and then attach it via FireWire to another computer to salvage your files.
I recently had to repair a machine with this exact same problem, and after messing around with that for several hours, I'd have to say that I think that an Erase and Install is the way to go. If you then migrate over your user data and start having troubles, you at least know where the problem lies. I suspect, though, that having a clean machine with all of the new updates applied will be the end of the issue.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. There are a few other things you could try first; you could, for example, manually download the relevant combo updater from Apple's website and attempt to install it to your damaged machine while it's in Target Disk Mode. If you have a copy of Disk Warrior, that too is certainly worth a shot (and in some cases may be the saving grace). In my experience, though, a failure of this magnitude isn't easy to resolve.
Hope that helps.
—Hazy

Macbook won't start past grey screen/apple; won't start OS disc

I know this issue has probably been talked about a million times, but I still can't seem to find a working answer... and what better to make my first post than this problem?
Anyway, I was streaming a movie online on my 13 inch black Macbook (OS: Leopard; Bought: 2007), when I suddenly had to leave... so I closed my computer and left. A while later when I came back, the computer was off. I tried to turn it on, but it only got to the grey screen with the Apple and spinning wheel, which I've let sit for upwards of an hour before giving up. Anyway, I reset the PRAM, and of course even tried to start from the OS disc (Leaopard Disc, original OS dvd that came with it, and even a Snow Leopard disc), but the disc never loads. I have rebooted while pressing Option, and the disc shows up but when I click on the arrow it just goes back to the grey screen/apple logo/spinning wheel for a while before I get frustrated and turn it off.
Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions or can help me out I would be eternally grateful. I don't want to have to take it to the Apple store (I'm a pretty broke college student), and I have backups of everything on my HD so reinstalling the OS is no issue to me. I'm just willing to do whatever I can to get it working. Thank you, and again sorry for probably repeating what millions have before me.

Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
Startup - Gray Screen
Startup Issues - Resolve
Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

MacBook won't boot past grey screen

Today I was using my MacBook 2008 aluminum, and I ran out of battery so the system shut down the computer to save the files. I plugged in my computer to start it up but the screen turned grey for a while. I shut down my computer and turned it on and it started up to the grey login screen but it won't let me boot passed it. I have tried to get passed it in safemode but it did not work. I have tried to repair my hard drive and my permissions and reinstall osx lion but it didnt work. Can any one help?
Thanks!

Work through this knowledge base article about Mac OS X stuck at the gray screen during startup and see if it helps.

My iMac won't boot past grey screen and it didn't come with a os x disk

My iMac won't boot past grey screen with apple. I've tried booting in safemode but that didn't help and my iMac didn't come with a os x disk.

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 startup failure is to secure the 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 the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from 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, start 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
If the startup process stops at a blank gray screen with no Apple logo or spinning "daisy wheel," then the startup volume may be full. If you had previously seen warnings of low disk space, this is almost certainly the case. You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use either of the techniques in Steps 1b and 1c to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.
Step 3
Sometimes a startup failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 4
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 5
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 6
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to start up, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can start up 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.
Step 7
If you've started from an external storage device, make sure that the internal startup volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Start up in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start 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 the login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you start up 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, the startup volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 10. If you ever have another problem with the drive, replace it immediately.
If you can start and log in in safe mode, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on the startup 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 restart as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the startup process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 8
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select the 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 restart as usual.
Step 9
Reinstall the OS. If the Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 10
Do as in Step 9, but this time erase the startup volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically restart into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer the data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 11
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 startup 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 12
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.

Macbook Pro won't boot past grey screen with Apple logo and then shuts off

This is a long story...
This morning, I would turn it on and it'd go to the grey screen with the Apple logo for a few seconds and then go to the icon that is a circle with a line through it. After reading online, I was able to boot it up in Safe Mode. I messed around a little bit in system preferences thinking I could fix it on my own, not really knowing what I was doing (I'm a *******). I went to Startup Disk in Preferences. I chose the MAC OS X, xxxx and then clicked the lock to prevent further changes and then clicked restart.
Now when I turn on the macbook, it goes to the grey screen with the Apple logo for at least two-three minutes and then just shuts off. Won't boot into Safe Mode now. Please help. I already tried the Command-Option-P-R keys trick like five times.

If you have a full retail DVD for 10.6 you can boot from that by holding the C key during startup...but you will then be in install mode if that is what you want to do. At least go ahead and see if it will boot ok from the 10.6 disk and then you can decide what you want to do further.
Apple does not have 10.5 for sale anymore from what some other users have said on here so if you want to go that route you will have to find a copy for sale such as from eBay or one of the Mac resellers.
Before taking the machine to someone, try booting from 10.6 and see if that works...that way you can narrow down problems the machine may be having.

MacBook won't go past startup screen

My MacBook won't go past the startup screen.
This happened after I tried reseting my battery because it was not being recognized since it was drained completely. After removing the battery and re-inserting it was still not being recognized. So the support website advised to try downloading the latest update. However, before downloading the last item, it showed a message saying that there had been an error in the download, to go ahead and erase the current download and try again. However, when i clicked "ok" on the error box, it automatically went to re-start and I have not been able to go past the gray screen with the apple...the waiting circle just keeps going round and round.
I have tried to start it pressing the c key and the shift key but it did nothing. I then tried to start it with disk 1 and it does nothing either, plus the disk will not eject either.
Please help!!! what should I do???
Thank you so much for your time to help me with this.
MacBook 1,1 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

To eject the disk, hold the trackpad button down as the machine restarts.
Is your data backed up?

G5 won't boot past grey screen

G5 2.0 Dual will not boot past grey screen. Running 10.5.8 on an old maxtor 160gb drive, drive is available as a startup disc in StartUp disk in system preferences. But when it is chosen the machine shuts down in the usual manner then switches to the maxtor disk and only gets to the grey screen with the apple log no progress clock appears. Using disk utility from install disk reports that drive is ok, running techtool pro 4.6.2 reports the drive is fine and all file structures, volume structures and directories are fine. So of course i am keen to find out what the issue is and wether it can be resolved without resorting to a clean install. When booted from another internal drive the icon for the errant drive is visible and all files and folders are visible and readily accessable.
It would be great to get back to booting from this drive as it is the main drive I use and has so much more on it than the secondary drive.
Any help will be of immense use
Thank You

I assume you have already tried a PRAM reset. If so, then the following three items may yield a clue.
Number one thing to try is a Safe Boot by holding the shift key down at boot. You may have a something in the non-minimal Apple kext set that is causing the hang. (If it safe boots, you may have a problem in kext caches which can be cleared. See below.)
Second is to disconnect all peripherals except monitor, keyboard and mouse and see if something there is contributing to the hang.
Third is to use verbose boot (hold down cmd-V at boot until you see a black Unix terminal screen come up) and see where the system is hanging.
Clearing the kext Caches (if indicated)
This is probably easiest done booted from the other drive, so I'll describe that method.
Open the Maxtor's System folder, then open the Library folder and drag the following two files to the trash:
Extensions.kextcache
Extensions.mkext
Empty the trash.
Open a Terminal session from the Terminal application in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
Type cd followed by a space in the command line and then drag the icon for the Maxtor into the window, which will put a properly formatted Unix path into the command line, then press the return key. Type the following three commands
cd System <cr>
cd Library <cr>
sudo touch Extensions <cr>
then give your password when requested and close the terminal session. Select the Maxtor as the statrup drive in System Preferences and give it a go.

Macbook won't get past grey apple screen

So my computer was being stupid so I had to manually shut it down. When I went to restart, it would never get past the grey screen with the apple logo. It didn't even get the spinning wheel thing. I don't have the discs for it, but I do have them for a white macbook (early 2008). I tried clearing the PRAM etc but to no avail, and instead of booting from the disc it seems to just do the exact same thing, only sometimes it turns off, back on, and does the same thing. When I started it holding cmd v it gave me stuff saying it couldn't find file (insert many file names here)
Help!

I went to the mac store and they told me it could be two things 1. need an archive update or 2. need a new hard drive. It ended up being the hard drive is shot. It seems many people are having this problem even though it hasn't been out for long, so if you are having trouble restarting it (error reading 0x7 or any error reading driver messages) you should take it to the mac store.

Late 2008 MacBook won't start past grey Apple screen

I am currently running a late 2008 13 aluminium MacBook. After I updated to 10.6.7 I started having start up issues. I'd either need to wait a really long time, or I'd need to restart it while sitting on the grey screen with the spinning gear. This morning, nothing will help get it past this screen. Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, what did you do to resolve this? Thanks.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417
17" 2.2GHz i7 Quad-Core MacBook Pro  8G RAM  750G HD + OCZ Vertex 3 SSD Boot HD 

Help: Macbook Pro Retina won't boot past Grey screen w/ Logo

All,
My computer died last night with each application not responding. I couldn't shut down normally so I held the power button to turn it off.
Next morning, I tried to boot the MacBook Pro and the boot process stalled at the grey screen with the Apple Logo and spinning wheel. I let it go for an hour and there was no change on the screen. Based on Apple's help desk I ran Hardware diagnostics (extended with looping disabled) and got the following error
4HDD/11/40000000: SATA (0,0)
The screen shot is below
I ran this again with standard testing (no looping) and standard with looping and all gave the same results.
Any ideas? The compute will not boot.
Thank you
Phillip

That's what I thought but was able to do CMD-R and verify/repair permissions the disk. My hard drive is actually a flash drive so I'm guessing the controller or motherboard.
I do have it backed up with the last 24 hours ago.
Thanks
Phillip

Macbook won't boot past grey Apple logo.

Hello! My mother's unibody white MacBook will not get past the grey apple and spinning gear when you first boot up the computer. This was after she opened a link in an email from a friend who had her email compromised. Now I'm getting spam emails with the same link from my mother's hacked email, and her computer won't even get to the login screen. I took it to the genius bar only to be told it was likely HD failure, but the windows partition works without a hitch! What could this be? A trojan? Is there any way to retrieve data (really just pictures) before I attempt to reinstall OS X?
Thanks!

P.S. The one or two times it did get past the mentioned screen, it moved it horribly slow speeds. It took near an hour to get the spotlight feature to open!

Won't get past grey screen while starting up....please help

ya my g4 powerbook will get to the grey screen with the spinning gear but won't go no further. If this is a simple fix please let me know.

I had exactly the same problem after updating my pb G4 to 10.4.7 (combo). It crashed and would not restart up past the grey screen. I tried everything for hours...from safe mode, single-user mode, start off cd, target firewire, to reset PMU, PRAM and NVRAM. Nothing worked. The HD wasn't even appearing !
Thinking the HD was dead, I just almost went to buy a new one (or even a new MacBook .
Fortunately some time ago I bought a version of DiskWarrior and started from the CD. After running for 9 hours and freezing several times, it found and repaired hundreds of errors. But still it wouldn't start. At least the HD appeared now in target mode so I backuped my files, started from the OSX CD, deleted my HD and reinstalled OSX, updated 10.4.6 and my Powerbook runs like new... I'll wait a bit before updating to 10.4.7 again !
Hope this helps.
Wycat

MBP kernel panics on startup - won't get past grey screen

So out of nowhere my unibody MBP (specs, etc below) locked up yesterday while I was watching a video using VLC. It stopped responding to anything so I held down the power button until it turned off. I waited about 10 minutes and turned it back on. Grey screen with spinning cog showed up for about a minute and then kernel panic. Held down power button until it turned off. Tried repeatedly - same results. Won't boot into Safe Mode - still get a kernel panic everytime. It will let me boot the machine into Target Disk Mode. It will boot from my Snow Leopard install disk where I ran Disk Utility and "repaired disk" and "repaired disk permissions" on both the drive and the volume. All the "repair disk" and "repair disk permissions" ended with messages in green type saying that the disk/permissions appear to be OK.
I have an external FW drive used for TM backups for the machine. A fair amount of data has been added since the last TM backup (which was less than 30 days ago) that, ideally, I'd like to not lose by resorting to restoring from a TM backup. It's not the end of the world if the last (roughly) 30 days of data/changes ends up being lost, but I'm willing to work on getting it back up and running without doing an erase and install and then restoring from a TM backup if at all possible.
Definitely if any other information or data is needed from me in order for anyone to assist, please let me know what it is and I'll do my best to provide it.
All help/assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
J
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP51.007E.B06
SMC Version (system): 1.41f2
Below is what comes up when it kernel panics at the grey screen:
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x47f5ad): "Process 1 exec of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 13\n"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1504.15.3/bsd/kern/kern_exec.c:3145
Debugger called: <panic>
Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x51383e48 : 0x21b837 (0x5dd7fc 0x51383e7c 0x223ce1 0x0)
0x51383e98 : 0x47f5ad (0x5cf950 0x831c08 0xd 0x0)
0x51383ef8 : 0x4696d2 (0x76e1d20 0x1fe 0x736cee0 0x80000001)
0x51383f38 : 0x48fee5 (0x72b7b7c 0x50f46000 0x51383f88 0x226e2f)
0x51383f68 : 0x219432 (0x72b7b7c 0xffffff7f 0x51383f88 0x2a45c9)
0x51383fa8 : 0x2aacb4 (0xffffffff 0x1 0x22f8f5 0x227c4b)
0x51383fc8 : 0x2a1976 (0x0 0x0 0x2a17ab 0x6e24060)
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: init
Mac OS version:
Not yet set
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBookPro5,1 (Mac-F42D86A9)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 69666095555

As (bad) luck would have it, I don't have the discs that came with the machine . Isn't that always the way?
At any rate, I figured that would be a suggestion and searched the web for looking to see if what I need (AHT) could possibly be downloaded. Looks like some folks have found a way/location to download AHT from the web from some of the posts I've seen, but I've come up empty handed.

Macbook won't boot up - grey screen only

Hi,
I have a core duo MacBook from summer 2007.
All of a sudden the MacBook won't boot up. The battery is fully charged and AC adapter plugged in (same symptoms if not plugged in). The following occurs upon pressing the power button:
1) Start-up chime sounds
2) Can hear hard drive and fans start up
3) Screen turns grey
4) Nothing happens (screen still grey)
Thoughts? I tried resetting PRAM and PMU with no changes.

I have the same problem, just the grey screen and tried
- resetting PRAM (second chime, so this should be OK)
- Safe Mode (just the same)
and pressing Option (or C) to choose the Mac OS X Install Disc gives me the wonderful cursor which can be moved by moving the mouse. No harddisk and even no Install DVD are displayed on the screen.
Also The Apple Hardware Test (by pressing D) doesn't get further than the, now familiar, grey screen.
I pressed the keys with different keyboards, with the original white keyboard and with the aluminium keyboard.
As I've tried everything, I think there's something seriously wrong. Does anybody have some last tips that I can try?

Macbook won't go past grey screen

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