My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen.

My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen. What can I do?

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
If using 10.7 or later, the Installer/Utilities DVD has been replaced with a special emergency partition on the Hard drive called "Recovery_HD"

Similar Messages

  • I am in mavericks disk utility recovery mode as my mac book will not boot up & stays only on the grey apple screen. When I verify the disk I get open error5 :input /output error on Syst stuck on 1 minute pouring out over 50 error messages & still counting

    I am in Mavericks disk utility recovery mode as my mac book pro will not boot up & stays on the Apple grey screen . When I verify disk permissions I get
    Open error 5:"input/ output error" on syst with over 50 of this messages & still counting . Disk Utility says 1 minute
    But this has been going on for over 10 mins .
    I can not verify disk or repair disk .
    I have tried to reinstall mavericks operating system but it says my hard drive is locked which is very strange .
    Does anyone know what is going on here ?
    My system looks like it has been totally corrupted . Thanks Andrew

    Could be. The "lock" isn't actually looking for a password.
    WARNING: This will completely erase the ENTIRE hard drive.
    What you would need to do is boot to recovery > disk utility > select the MAIN drive on the left side > partition > change partition layout from CURRENT to 1 PARTITION > ensure on the right side it says Format : Mac OSX Extended (Journaled) then push APPLY.
    Then if it will allow us, close the windows until you see the 4 options popup again and select "Reinstall Mac OS X" select the Mac HD and you should be good to go!

  • 2009 Mac Pro will not boot up under Windows

    I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro system (Mac Pro 4,1) and I've had this system for 3 years already and have been working under OS X with this system ever since I purchased it.
    However, when I tried to boot off my Windows disk, something very interesting happens. The Mac Pro WILL NOT boot up off the Windows disk or a known working Windows partition if two monitors are connected. Upon holding down the option key and selecting the Windows partition, I will get a black screen on one monitor (the one connected via Mini Displayport) and the other screen receives no signal and will enter standby and the system is halted. It does not respond to keystrokes, there is no hard drive activity, no measured power increase on the UPS, no apparent network activity, nothing. The only way to exit this scenario (from what I can tell) is to power off the machine, disconnect the display on DVI, power on the machine again, select the Windows partition wait for the system to reach the login window and reconnect the DVI monitor (at which time Windows recognizes it immediately and the system works fine again).
    My question to the community is, does anybody know why this is happening and is there a known fix for this? Quite frankly, having to disconnect a monitor just to restart is very tedious and frustrating. 
    I have two Samsung P2350 monitors attached to an ATI Radeon HD 4870 (512MB, from Apple). One is monitor is connected via directly DVI and the other is using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter. Both monitors work fine under OS X with no issue. At first, I thought that this may be a driver issue on the Windows side and after installing all the latest updates and drivers the issue is still apparent. From what I can tell, this doesn't seem like a software issue but rather a firmware or EFI issue as this happens before Windows even loads.
    If anyone knows of a fix or what to do in this situation, or if you are also having this issue, I would love to hear your input!
    Thank you!
    For the record, I am running all the latest software builds on the OS X side (10.7.4, not that it would really matter at this point). I have also disconnected all unnecessary equipment in a trial and error scenario but the results are still the same.
    The system passes all ASD testing.
    The full specification of the computer and all connected equipment are as follows:
    2009 Mac Pro (4,1) 8-Core
    2x Intel Xeon Nehalem 2.66GHz Quad-Core CPUs
    16GB DDR3 ECC 1066MHz RAM (Apple Branded)
    Two OWC 120GB SSDs (One for OS X, the other for Windows 7 x64) - These are in place of my optical drives.
    4x 2TB WD Black Hard drives for storage.
    Two Samsung P2350 Monitors connected via DVI. (One using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter).

    In Windows I am using the latest (12.4) Catalyst Software Suite, 64 bit of course, downloaded directly from AMD's site after installing the drivers from Boot Camp.
    As for installing Windows I used an original (not burned) installation media (Disk is in a pristine condition). And yes, Windows is fine, the problem just seems to be getting the system to boot up Windows with that second monitor. However if the "problem monitor" is disconnected the system boots fine 100% of the time and connecting it later after booting the system will still operate properly.
    For the sake of arguement I swapped monitor cables and connected the "second" monitor to the mini displayport adapter to verify that it wasn't a cabling issue and I'm still yielding the same issues.
    As for GPU testing, I've played games (Crysis, Grand Theft Auto IV, Battlefield 3, etc.) and I've had no issues with the card or stability.
    You would think that Apple would try to find a fix for this, especially considering the caliber of this machine.

  • Mac pro will not start keeps getting password window

    My mac pro will not startup keep getting startup login window

    I keep getting the login window and user ID each time I put in the correct password it starts and immediately return to the login window.
    I have rebooted with the installation DVD and still getting the same responses. Please help.  Do I need to take it apple. My MacPro is only five months old.

  • Mac Pro gets stuck on the grey screen and won't finish booting

    I have a Mac Pro 1, 1 recently (successfully) upgraded to snow leopard that gets stuck on the grey screen with the spinning rainbow cursor (after the apple logo and brief blue screen) and won't finish booting up. This happened after my computer froze up and I had to force quit.  I checked out the forums and I tried all the all the suggestions (like disconnecting peripherals) and appropriate disk utilities, saw no errors with the HD reported, and had no trouble doing a safe boot  (everything works o.k. there) or starting up from the software disk to perform the repairs.  I did notice that during the repair permissions command, it gets stuck in the last few minutes, the CD starts to chug along, and everything freezes and I have to force quit.  This happens every time I try it.  I eventually backed everything up, erased the HD and reinstalled the OS, reset PRAM and NVRAM, but I'm still getting the grey screen on restart.  Tech tool deluxe reports a "fail" on the video RAM, but everything else seems to check out.  Could it be a graphics card issue?   I did notice some funky visual glitches occurring prior to the breakdown.  Any other ideas?

    I wouldn't trust Apple Disk Utility to do a hard drive repair, but I would go with TechTool Pro 5/6 if you have that instead of Disk Warrior from Alsoft.
    Clone the drive, though you should have some bootable backup clones already; repair the clone; then boot and work from that drive. Always have a working copy of the system.
    And off load all your data to other drives.

  • Two Macbook pros circa 2009 in our temporary household in Turkey suddenly failed to boot and got stuck on the grey screen. They were able to boot at the Apple store, but not when we brought them back to our apartment. Could this be a coincidence?   A

    Two Macbook pros circa 2009 in our temporary household in Turkey suddenly failed to boot and got stuck on the grey screen. They were able to boot at the Apple store, but not when we brought them back to our apartment. Could this be a coincidence?   A

    THank you Ogelthorpe. When my wife's computer I went on line to the site that you sent and tried everything But nothing worked. When my son came to visit and his MacBook Pro did exactly the same thing we became suspicious - too much of a coincidence. We took both computers somewhere else, out of our apartment, and they both booted. We ran disk utility on both, but the report in both cases was that there are no issues with the hard drive.  Back in our apartment neither will boot up. My MacBook Pro is a later model with a solid state drive and it seems to work fine here.. I tried an external drive and it works fine. We think that this has something to do with some kind of magnetic interference in our apartment to which the 2009  drives are susceptible.  It is indeed a mystery!
    alf

  • My Mac won´t load. When I turn it on, I type the password, then it starts to load, but nothing happens. It gets stuck on the grey screen with the apple logo. I can´t go to an Apple store since I´m working in Bolivia. Thanks

    When I turn it on, I type the password, then it starts to load, but nothing happens. It gets stuck on the grey screen with the apple logo. I can´t go to an Apple store since I´m working in Bolivia. Thanks

    RhysWills1,
    which model MacBook Pro do you have, and which version of OS X is installed on it?

  • After updating to Lion my macbook pro does not startup, it is stuck to the grey apple screen

    After updating to Lion my macbook pro does not startup, it is stuck to the grey apple screen

    See Here for Troubleshooting Grey Screen on Startup:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

  • My macbook pro keeps getting stuck on the grey screen

    my macbook pro keeps getting stuck on the grey screen eventually im able to get it into safety mode yet i dont have the disc needed to restore or reboot it what should i do

    See Grey Screen
    https://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
    You didn't mention your MBP model or OS X version. But the link above should help you.

  • My mac pro will not boot up

    My Macbook Pro will not boot up.  I've tried the recovery, but it says that the booting system is good.  What else can I do to restart my Mac?

    Morning Tlira,
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    If your Macintosh computer won't turn on, here's how to troubleshoot it.
    Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1367
    If that doesnt work try this.
    Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
    Hope this helps,
    Mario

  • Mac Mini will not boot after getting SBOD

    Hi,
    I was having problems with my Mac Mini being really slow to respond last night. I kept getting the SBOD every time I tried to move between applications or even between sites in Safari. It took an age to log on, sitting on the 'checking password' screen for minutes at a time every time I woke if from sleep/screensaver.
    In the end I shut everything down this morning and tried a restart - however I ended up having to leave it before it had started up and go to work. Returning tonight it was still stuck on the grey screen with the wheel.
    I tried both a couple of suggestions I found on a 'freezing after upgrading to 10.6..' thread - one was to reset the SMC, the other was to rest the PVRAM (or something like that - it involved holding down command-option-P-R) at start up. Both were unsuccessful - it's still sat here with the grey screen & the spinning wheel.
    Any suggestions on what to do next? I've assumed that I'm on the latest version of Snow Leopard as I always tend to install the latest updates - but I can't be sure ... and obviously I have no way of checking!
    HELP!

    I tried the Disk Utility, which was unable to repair the problems. It then got worse, after not finding anyway to shut down (the only options I had were restart or start up disk) I just switched it off. Completely forgetting that this wouldn't eject the DVD! I then tried starting up again with the install DVD in an effort to try and find a way to eject the DVD, but now it just gives me a grey screen, no Apple logo, no gear wheel.
    I now have an appointment with the Genius Bar today.

  • Help! My Mac Pro will not boot up

    I knew I shouldn't try to use the Boot Camp on my MP, but I thought it would work.
    I have three HD in my MP and followed the instructions for the installtion of WIN XP on Mac drive 3, but when I was faced with the formatting choices in the Win setup I got confused with all the drive letters (I have two CD drives and three HDs), and must have formatted my Mac OS drive and partially drive 3.
    My Mac Pro will no longer boot to the Mac OSX, even with the "option" key held down. All I get is a black screen that says: "NTLDR is maissing. (press CRTL-ALT-DEL to reboot).
    Is there any hope of a recovery?
    Thanks,
    Tony

    Wow...this is good to know! After many years with PCs I "assumed" that it would name the 1st drive "C" and then each one after that in order.
    My problem was that I have three identical drives, all 250 GBs, so it was confusing, but that is exactly what the instructions said. So, with your encouragement and a little bit of faith, I will try this one more time. At least I learned how to recover after deleting my boot drive.
    Thanks so much...
    Tony
    Tony,
    If I remember right from my boot camp / xp
    installation, boot camp aliases the drives, and when
    it tells you to format C: for windows, that's the one
    to select from the screen.
    I panicked when I saw that, but then I realized that
    the C: drive shown on the installation screen was
    actually my secondary drive (and that boot camp had
    shuffled the drive letters around). If you notice,
    C: is actually not the top of the list, and in my
    case I had two different drive sizes and so I could
    reason that C: matched my secondary drive's size.
    In short, pick C: for installation, as the program
    says...
    I thought for sure it nuked my OSX installation at
    first, when it didn't seem that I could boot back to
    OSX, but in the Control Panel of Windows (or in your
    System Properties on OSX) you'll see an icon called
    "Startup Disk" which will also allow you to pick OSX
    or Windows and then restart.
    Mac Pro 2.66, 3 GB   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

  • Mac Pro will not boot from Leopard or any CD or DVD install disk

    My Mac Pro wont boot from my Leopard install DVD. It never gets by the gray screen, then after several minutes the screen scrolls down black and says I need to restart my computer. I tried my Tiger install disk and it still wont boot from that DVD. Held down the "C", used "option" and selected DVD and still no boot. I can boot from one HD that has Leopard 10.5.8, but another HD with Snow Leopard 10.6.3 will not boot. The HD with Snow Leopard shows up as "EFI Boot" not the name I gave that HD when I startup using the "option" key. Any help would be appreciated.

    At first I was just going to say it sounds like you have a bad optical drive, but then you had to go and say that it also won't boot from a HDD.
    That just makes things a whole lot worse.
    Start by removing the side cover and checking the RAM to see if any of the LEDs are lit up indicating bad RAM. Usually if there's any bad RAM found, it will just automatically disable that stick, but maybe yours isn't for some reason.
    Look for any other LEDs that may be lit. Generally speaking, the only time you should see an LED (outside of the power LED) lit consistently is if there's a problem.
    You should also see if you can get Apple Hardware Test to run, which may or may not find some problem.
    But sorry to say, it's sounding very suspiciously like a bad logic board.
    One other thing to try, is putting the SL drive into a different slot. So if you were putting it in slot 2, try slot 3 or 4. If you just have a bad SATA port, you might be able to just work around that until you get a new system.
    If by chance this system is still under warranty, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, RUN to the nearest AASP or Apple store to make it THEIR problem to sort out.

  • Mac Pro will not boot on mac os but will in vista

    Hi I have an early macpro that recently will not boot mac os after I have selected the relevant hard drive. I get a grey screen saying reboot every time i cannot start from the CD also BUT I can start using Windows. I have removed the hard disc taken it to work and put it in another mac pro and it worked fine
    Please help anyone
    cheers
    b3rn

    Windows won't give a kernal panic or BSOD because it is a Mac related hardware issue.
    If you can't boot from CD/DVD:
    http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050311073316780
    What resetting NVRAM does:
    http://devworld.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1103.html
    Your asking about a Mac Pro, but those are not "G5" and the OS can't be transferred between PowerMacs and Mac Pro.... are you sure we are talking about only Mac Pros?
    Putting XP and Mac OS on the same drive, that doesn't strike me as what one would do; keep them on different drives.
    And, if they are on the same drive, then you really haven't reformatted the drive, which would involve wiping any and all partitions, and then creating your Mac Standard (HFS+ Journaling) and backup XP with WinClone or install it to another drive.
    I don't have trouble with Windows, but I do with the Boot Camp Assistant and drivers.

  • Mac Pro will not boot - HD and Machine are fine.

    Greetings, and thank you in advance for your wisdom.
    I have a 12-core Mac Pro, and she has been running like a dream. Once a month I run Onyx. Yesterday I did the same and upon reboot I got the grey apple screen and the spinning progress wheel that never stops spinning.
    1. I repaired the HD via Disk Utility. All is fine.
    2. The contents of the start-up drive are accessible - so the drive itself is not physically damaged.
    3. I installed a new HD and made a copy of this Start-up disk via the Disk Utility. It will not boot from this drive as well.
    4. I installed Snow Leopard (still using this) on the new drive to make sure the computer was happy. It fires up fine.
    5. Everything is disconnected from the Mac Pro
    So, I have obvious, and idiotically damaged the start-up disk using Onyx (assumption).
    My life would be much better knowing I could do something that would enable me to boot from my current start-up and that's where I seek your wisdom.
    Another question would be: If the above is not possible, if I install a fresh OS on the new drive, and then begin to replace all of the folders from the old drive (applications, library, etc.) will I be able to access my files as I did before. My issue is that I use this for music production, and there are literally close to 100 plugins that all have been registered. Going back through that process again would be days of labor, as some of these were purchases years ago. Tracking down serials would be a task. I think you understand.
    So any advice that might prevent me from having to do as I said above will be wonderful.
    Thank you all so much.
    Lance

    Under some circumstances, you may need to reinstall Mac OS X. You can reinstall Mac OS X while keeping your files and user settings intact.
    from:
    Mac OS X 10.6: Reinstalling Mac OS X
    If your Hardware is functioning correctly, and your disk has no un-repaired Directory problems [Hint: run Disk Utility ( Repair Disk ) first] then re-installing Mac OS X modifies ONLY the files that are part of Mac OS X. Your Added Applications, User files (which contain preferences and serial numbers) are not supposed to be touched.

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