My imac wont get past the white screen with logo and rotating wheel

i was trying to turn on my imac when suddenly ot took forever on the white screen
i tried taking off everything connected to it-no change
i tried a safe mode after a few minuted a heard the second chime then a blinkin
question mark folder showed up so i turned it off again and tried a nvram/pram reset but it still stuck on the white screen
is it time to visit the apple store or is there something else i should try?

A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

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My iMac wont go past the grey screen with Apple Logo and question mark a caution mark

My iMac wont go past the grey screen with Apple Logo and question mark a caution mark

You may find this support article helpful:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Ciao.

Can't get past the white screen with the grey apple in the middle

When I start up my PowerBook G4 I first get a gray screen with a small white box in the middle of the screen that contains planet earth. After this icon has flashed 14 times it disappears and then a small file appears in its place. Inside this file folder is an alternating flashing question mark and the Finder icon. After a few seconds this icon disappears and the screen turns white with an apple in the middle. I can not get the computer to do anything after that.
My problem is I got the computer from my mother and she can not find any of the disks that originally came with it.
Does anyone have any useful suggestions?
Thanks

Unfortunately, I just got off the phone with Apple Care and they do not carry them anymore. They're recommending I upgrade the system to Leopard. They want $120 for the disks. Any other suggestions?

Macbook not loading past white screen with logo and spinnning wheel?

ok, so basically i have a macbook 10.6.4 Snow Lepoard that is making me want to literally bash its brains out but, unfortunatly i cant because it is owened by the school...
As mentioned in previous posts, my school It dept are incredibly slow and their idea of fixing something is to wipe everthing and reinstall all the programs once again. if that dosent work their other way of fixing something is to send it off to apple. for obveous reasons i want to avoid that.
it ONLY started today, (last night i was happily doing last minuite homework) when its was lagging so much that i did the inevitable, i quit tetris and restarted my computer...
This led to me sitting infront of a white screen and a spinning wheel for the whole lesson. The next lesson i got fed up with waiting and restarted. nothing. I have also notied that my macbook seems to heat up REALLY FAST toward the bottom of the screen (where is says macbook).
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Favvi

well i went to hand it in today but the fails that we call 'the qualified IT deptarment' (even though they are only two), decided to take the day off. they were supposed to be there recess and lunch but the room was pitch black.
When you say that "you do not need admin rights to perform the different solution", i actually am the admin of the laptop but there is another hidden admin so that they can change any settings in the computer without our passwords.
i have previously tried that whole command letter thing for various other things such as safe mode and starting from the disk and have had no sucess. i dont know if my timing is off or something but it never works. however, i have been able to retrive a disk from the disk drive by pressing the mouse button when it turns on.
this is an exerpt from a previous post:
favvi wrote:
so im really starting to get annoyed now. I have tried that single user mode start up thing (command + s) after the chime, before the chime, hold it down for a second, hold it down forever BUT IT ALWAYS JUST GOES INTO MY LOGIN SCREEN!!! i cant seem to get around this. I cant get into the 'utilities' from my install disk because it asks for an admin name and password. i am literally tearing my hair out…
Barney-15E:
That doesn't make any sense. When it boots to the install disk, there is no user to authenticate.
Does it have an Open Firmware password set?
i assumed that this was set. but to be honest i have no freaking idea.
also i was talking to a friend today and she said that she had the same issue and they had to replace the battery. although i have no idead on how the battery could be affecting this?

Just the gray screen with logo and spinning wheel

Hello
my computer acted up funny while typing every 10sec or so i got the spinning wheel. i tried to restart but everything just stopped and just got the spinning wheel so i shut down the computer with the power button and now I am just in the grey screen. I used the installation disc and used disc utility I was able to use disk repair and it did something but i can not do anything on the permission they are grayed out. After the disk repair no change the computer just sits in the gray screen and nothing happens . any idea

You need to reinstall OS X. Do this:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
If the drive was OK continue with the reinstallation. It's automatic and none of your files will be erased.

My macbook pro wont get past the grey screen at startup. Help!!

After doing a run of the mill software update on my macbook pro (running snow leopard) it froze during the "moving items into place" stage. I forced a shut down and now it wont get past the grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel. I have tried booting from the original DVD but it still freezes. When I boot it in verbose mode it seems to stop at "jnl: unknown-dev: update_fs_block: error reading fs block # 3597880! (ret 5)", the Apple AHCD Disk Queue manager :: set power state is timing out and there is a disk I/O error. I have tried to reset the power manager (not sure if it worked or not) and I have also tried clearing the PRAM (again, not sure of that worked). When I try to look at the hard drive using target mode on my imac the hard drive doesn't come up but the DVD does. I'm concerned that my hard drive is fried. Any suggestions?

It would help to state in your post which remedies you tried that didn't work.
Start here > OS X Lion: If you see a gray screen at startup
If nothing there helped, try Starting up in Safe Mode
Safe Mode deletes some system caches that may help.
A Safe Mode boot takes longer than a normal boot so be patient. Once you are in Safe Mode, click Restart from the Apple menu.
If a Safe Mode boot didn't work, since your Mac has OS X v10.7 installed, restart your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys so you can access OS X Recovery built in utilities. The startup disk may need repairing.
Tip: Hold down the Eject key while starting up your Mac to eject a disc.

IMac won't start up, can't get past the white screen

I have an older iMac, I believe it's the g5, the white one, got it about 6 years ago or so. It was acting up recently, crashing programs, taking a long time to respond etc. I figured I just had too much stuff on my hard drive so I went out and bought an external hard drive. After I copied over a bunch of files (not everything, my music and my photos aren't backed up!) I then deleted the files I transferred from the iMac to make room. It took a very long time for the trash to empty, and then I tried to restart. It shut down but never rebooted. When I press the power button it will only get to the white screen with the gray apple and gray progress wheel. It stays like that for a minute or two with the wheel turning but barely any progress on the progress bar and then it turns off. I tried unplugging everything including the power cord but nothing works. Any ideas? Thanks.

will it start in Single User Mode ? (Hold Command + S after hearing the chime)
If so, follow the fsck section at http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417
and when/if you (finally) get a 'volume appears to be OK' message
don't restart afterwards.
then, still in single user, type the command df/ followed by enter
making sure that the result shows Capacity at some reasonable level, like 90% or less.
df means 'display free disk space', you're checking that the drive isn't so horribly full that attemoting to start might further risk your data
if Capacity is ok- reboot as per the article; if not, post back.
If you can boot in Single User & have done the above, but still can't start normally - try
Safe Mode to see if you can copy your files off.
If Single works, but nothing else, it's probably possible to copy your files in that mode, using typed commands.
if you can't start at all -
Checking your exact model at http://www.ifixit.com/ will show how hard it is to remove the HD yourself... some are pretty easy with the right-sized screwdrivers, and the drive can then be taken to anywhere with a computer & the right cable/adaptor to copy your files.
or
Target Disk Mode : http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
if it works for you, would let someone with a computer & firewire port access any of your files that are intact. Apple may, as mentioned, say it's too old for them to look at.
finding the dvd's/getting replacements would be best.

How can I get past the white screen?

When I start my iMac I see a message that my start up disk is full and that I need to delete files. After I type in my user name and password, all I see if a white screen. This problem started today. The error message about the start up disk started two days ago, and when I looked at the disk, I saw that over half of it has files described as "other". The hard drive is 250 GB. I have Time Machine backups but I don't know how to get to them to help me. So, I guess that I have two questions: how do I get past the white screen, and what are the files that are catogoraized as other? Thanks.

I did not put the OS info in my question because I am not sure what I have. I upgraded to Lion so that I could use the cloud between my devices, however I do not know the number.
Apple menu item->About this Mac and the version is listed there. Click on that and get the build number. Click again and get the machine's serial number.
I am stuck on the white screen. Any other advice?
Start with a google search for white screen mac. This one might do the trick: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-desktops/138137-imac-wont-get-passed-whit e-screen.html

Ipad screen is white. Restored it on iTunes. Press home and on switch goes black then back to white with no logo at all. Can't get past the white screen. This happened after running app updates. 16GB OS 7.1.1

The ipad screen is white. Holding buttons didn't work so I restored it on iTunes. When I press home and on switch, the screen is white, goes black then back to white with no logo at all. Can't get past the white screen. This happened after running app updates. Is there any fix besides going to Apple store? In iTunes on computer can see what is on there. 16GB OS 7.1.1

FORCE IPAD INTO RECOVERY MODE
1. Turn off iPad
2. Turn on computer and launch iTunes (make sure you have the latest version of iTune)
3. Plug USB cable into computer's USB port
4. Hold Home button down and plug the other end of cable into docking port.
DO NOT RELEASE BUTTON until you see picture of iTunes and plug
5. Release Home button.
ON COMPUTER
6. iTunes has detected iPad in recovery mode. You must restore this iPad before it can be used with iTunes.
7. Select "Restore iPad"...
Note:
1. Data will be lost if you do not have backup
2. You must follow step 1 to step 4 VERY CLOSELY.
3. Repeat the process if necessary.

Can't get past the white screen at start up

I can not get past the white screen when it starts up. It will chime and then stay at the white screen. I have replaced the hard drive, memory, battery. I have reset the PRAM and the SMC.

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

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 Pro has been having difficulties at startup. It sometimes locks and doesn't get past the white screen. It has also locked up several times and gotten a green stripes across the entire screen. What is causing this and how do I fix it?

My MacBook Pro has been having difficulties at startup. It sometimes locks and doesn't get past the white screen. It has also locked up several times and gotten a green stripes across the entire screen. What is causing this and how do I fix it?

You don't, take it to Apple for repair.
This might interest you if it's too old to fix.
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?

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Pavilion p6-2117c won't get past the splash screen with a pci express parallel card installed. I take the card out and the machine works just fine. The screen says press "esc" for startup menu but nothing happens.
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Take a careful look at the slot and see if any of the pins are broken or smashed to the bottom of the slot. Do you have another pci slot to try or just the one?
Reminder: Please select the "Accept as Solution" button on the post that best answers your question. Also, you may click on the white star in the "Kudos" button for any helpful post to give that person a quick thanks. These feedback tools help keep our community active, so you receive better answers faster.

My macbook pro will not get past the gray screen with the apple logo and a loading bar.

My macbook pro will not get past the grey screen with the apple logo after attempting to load for hours. I have already tried resetting the NVRAM/PRAM and a couple other tricks and no luck. Anyone out there have suggestions for my problem? Help would be much appreciated since i use my computer for everything at school and i am in desperate need to get this baby working again.

You didn't say which OS in your tag, but maybe you might find something here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4191
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7213
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4125
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2213

I messed up badly by trying to restore my brand new macbook pro by doing restart then command R and choose disc utility repair now when I start ,all I get is the white screen with a folder and a question mark,What can I do???help please

I messed up badly by trying to restore my brand new macbook pro by doing restart then command R and choose disc utility repair now when I start ,all I get is the white screen with a folder and a question mark,What can I do???help please

Can you still boot to the Recovery partition using Command and R whilst booting? Or did you wipe the Recovery partition as well?
If your Recovery partition is still intact, you can simply boot to it and reinstall the OS via the Internet. If you wiped the Recovery partition, you can hold down Command, option and R keys whilst booting and boot into true Internet Recovery mode. You'll be able to reformat the hard drive, erasing all partitions (format it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with a dingle GUID partition) and then reinstall the OS that shipped with your machine.
Note that you should use a physical Ethernet connection when restoring over the Internet - it's three times slower if you use wifi.
Try your Recovery partition first and if that doesn't work, use Internet Recovery.
Clinton

My imac wont get past the white screen with logo and rotating wheel

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