My mac doesnt start. All i get is the gray screen with the apple and the loading icon but nothing more happens. I tried to start it in safe mode but it doesnt help. What can i do?
My mac doesnt start. All i get is the gray screen with the apple and the loading icon but nothing more happens. I tried to start it in safe mode but it doesnt help. What can i do?
If you have a external USB enclosure - trying installing your hard drive in that enclosure and connect it to your usb port - restart your macbook while holding down the options key. If you Macbook boots to your desktop then you have a faulty cable. If you get the same error, then your hard drive just died on you.
good luck.
Similar Messages
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I updated by iPad 2 to os 7 when the screen went black. I hit the power and home buttons and got an outline of a charger cord to a blue circle with iTunes under it.
YOU ARE IN 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. If you did not do step 4 properly, start all over again. -
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 -
I cannot turn on my MacBook pro. When I turn it on all I get is a grey screen with a grey spinning thing under the apple. Can anyone help?
Reinstall OS X.
Reinstall Snow Leopard without erasing the drive
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 Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
====================================
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. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is
three times faster than wireless. -
I can't log on to my I mac Desk top, every time I switch it on all I get is a white screen with the apple log , can anyone help pls?
Hello,
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitirion & use Disk Utility from there. -
What do I do when I start my iMac I get a white screen with an apple and a moving circle?
All I get when my iMac is turned on is a white screen with an apple and a moving circle. What should I do to get the iMac to boot?
Do you have reliable backup you can restore from, as an erase and re-install may be required?
Before you got down that route, it's possible that it might get fixed if you try again. Not sure about that particular error, but I have had errors in the past that Disk Utility wouldn't fix on the first attempt but then subsequently did.
It's also possible that the (around $99, I think) Disk Warrior might resolve it - but not guaranteed.
However, I just found this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3862376?start=15&tstart=0 have a look at Nirvi's post at the end - there may be hope (I've not tried this, although it seems to have helped a few, although not everybody - so at your own risk and I wouldn't try it if I didn't have backup). -
When I start my computer up, all I get is a gray screen...
Last night my macbook froze on me. I couldn't even restart, so I pulled the battery and the charger to restart it up. When it came up, all I got was a gray screen with a flashing folder with a question mark in it. I wasn't able to get onto the internet last night, so I don't think its a gasp virus, but for some reason the computer just crashed on me.
1. What has to be done to get my computer working again? I don't have my restart discs (I am at school and they are at my home 2 hours away), and I tried holding OptionCommand+RP and nothing. Are there any other quick fixes I can try besides taking it to a specialist?
and
2. Anybody know my chances of saving my information on my hard drive? I have all my notes on there for school, as well as over 1,000 pictures and nearly 13 gigs of music. I am going to be sick if they are gone. I know that it is hard to say one way or another without actually troubleshooting the computer, but being that I didn't do anything to it, it just went down, is it more than likely just an OS problem and my files will be okay?Basically something is preventing access to the system folder if all you see is a continuous flashing ? folder. It could be a bad directory, a misplaced file, or a damaged drive. My recommendation is to get a Firewire hard drive at least as large as your internal drive from http://www.macsales.com/ and Subrosasoft Filesalvage to see if it can recover your data. If that can't try Prosoft Data Rescue II. Both may be available from your school store at a school discount. If neither works, sometimes Alsoft Disk Warrior 4.1 might work. If that still doesn't work, unfortunately a data recovery specialist which may cost thousands will have to be used such as http://www.drivesavers.com/ This is why I recommend you ALWAYS backup your data*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Good luck!
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation. -
My MacBook Air can't get past the gray screen with the apple logo. What's the fix?
My MacBook Air can't get past the gray screen with the Apple logo, so I can't login. Does anyone know the fix for this?
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 boot failure is to secure your 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 your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
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
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot 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.
Before reconnecting an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode.* The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
Safe mode is much slower to boot 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 your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Post for further instructions.
When you boot 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, your boot volume is damaged and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.) If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see above for instructions.) Select your 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 produces. Look for the line "Permissions repaired successfully" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Boot into Recovery again. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup.
Step 8
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested. -
My iphone will not turn on.... it froze earlier today and now it will not turn on all i get is a black screen with the apple symbol every once in awhile... also it will not connect to my computer so i can reset it to factory settings
Sammyhunter lets get you back in action! Has there been any physical/water damage to the device? Try pressing and holding the home and power button together. Once the Apple symbol appears release both buttons. Keep us posted!
AshleyS_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport -
Mac won't boot up..get gray screen with a folder and ? mark what do i do?
my mac pro won't boot up..get gray screen with a folder and ? mark on the folder..help
Hi,
Rather than write up what I did, here is a link to an Apple support document with the instructions to follow.
I hope this is helpful. Good luck.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1440 -
****,I have done this successful in the past but on my IPad it shows I have 4 apps that need to be updated so when I hit the update tab all I get is a white screen. When I hit the purchase or other tabs it opens up. What could be the problem?
There have been numerous reports on the forum today regarding this issue. It seems to be an issue at Apple, but no information has been posted on the status site.
http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/ -
After refusing an update now all I get is a white screen with the firefox logo. If I have to reinstall firefox 3.66, how can I transfer my firefox profile with bookmarks etc, to the new installation?
== This happened ==
Every time Firefox opened-> press '''F11''' to bring the computer out of FullScreen
-> Tap '''ALT''' key or press '''F10''' to show the Menu Bar
-> go to View Menu -> '''Zoom''' -> click '''Reset''' -> '''Page Style''' -> select '''Basic Page Style'''
-> go to View Menu -> Toolbars -> select '''Menu Bar''' and '''Navigation ToolBar''' -> unselect All Unwanted/Incompatible Toolbars
-> go to Tools Menu -> Options -> General -> '''When Firefox starts : select "Show My Home Page"''' -> Type the address of the website which you want to be your HomePage e.g. http://www.google.com
-> go to Tools Menu -> Options -> Content -> place Checkmarks on:
1) Block Pop-up windows 2) Load images automatically 3) Enable JavaScript
-> go to Tools Menu -> Options -> Privacy -> History section -> '''Firefox will: select "Remember History"'''
-> go to Tools Menu -> Options -> Security -> place Checkmarks on:
1) Warn me when sites try to install add-ons 2) Block reported attack sites 3) Block reported web forgeries 4) Remember Passwords for sites
-> Click OK on Options window
-> go to Tools Menu -> Add-ons -> Extensions section -> REMOVE All Unwanted/Suspicious/Incompatible Extensions (Add-ons)
-> go to Tools Menu -> Add-ons -> Appearance section -> REMOVE All Unwanted/Suspicious/Incompatible Themes (Persona)
Now Restart Firefox. Check and tell if its working. -
I downloaded upgrades available. The installation of those took a long time after re- initiatin the system and had to off. After this I could not get it to turn on again. Just stays in the gray screen with apple in the middle. What's wrong?
Sorry to hear of your problem, but any hardware in a computer can fail - that includes the hard drive, the logic board, etc, etc. Fortunately, it usually doesn't happen that soon; however, I've read of hard drives failing within 6 months.
So, since you did not purchase the extended Applecare Protection Plan (3 years coverage), you will need to make a decision to repair or sell it as is. I would always purchase 3 year coverage for an all in one or a laptop because repairs are expensive and at least I'd be covered for 3 years.
We can't speculate on whether there should be a recall or not; these forums are for user to user assistance with technical problems. In your case, there is nothing we can help with since you've already gotten a diagnosis. -
I don't know what's wrong with my 3GS. It only shows the black screen with white apple. Home button and turning the phone off then on doesn't seem to do anything.
Thanks Lucas,
I've tried doing that with no results. Same screen keeps showing. Maybe it'd be more helpful if I told you a bit more info. My phone was randomly playing music, and the voice control would also suddenly start without me touching the phone. Then I let the battery die and started to recharge when on the screen it indicated to plug into my computer/iTunes, I tried to restore but was getting an error message (can't remember what it said now). Battery died and now my current issue of the black screen with white apple. I'd love to be able to restore my phone but now its not showing as a device on my iTunes. HELP! Any other suggestions? -
My computer will not start up. It powers up, I get the gray screen with the apple, then the loading progress bar starts loading to about 25% the the screen goes black. what can I try to get my computer up and running?
Carolyn Samit wrote:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
Use Command + R for Lion Recovery
Try restarting, when you hear the startup tone hold down the Option key. Then choose the Recovery Partition.
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