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.

Similar Messages

  • HT1379 my macbook pro wont boot past the grey screen with the little swirly thing constantly turning

    I tried all the remedies that apple support suggested and got nothing.  I cant even eject the cd from the cd rom

    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.

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    Your boot drive is damaged in some way. If you have an original installation disc, you can boot from that and run Disk Utility. From DU you can select your internal hard drive ("Macintosh HD" is the name Apple puts on it - you may have renamed yours) and select "Verify Disk". If errors come up, try "Repair Disk". If it repairs, then you should be able to restart and boot from it. If it doesn't show up or won't repair, your drive is probably hosed.
    Clinton

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    My macbook wont get passed the grey screen, I rebooted it, any suggestions?

    Work your way throught this knowledge base article:
    Gray screen appears during startup
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
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    DiskWarrior has an excellent track record at repairing problems that Disk Utility cannot (especially Disk Utility versions prior to OS X 10.4.2).
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    I shut down my imac and when I went to restart it, I can't get it to get   past the grey screen.  I can't even get to the apple screen.  I have unplugged everything and nothing works.  Help!!

    See if this helps:
    Gray screen appears during startup

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

    You may find this support article helpful:
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    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1939
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    This problem concerns an old mac g5 that I had replaced three years ago because it hadn't been working properly. I am getting it out because my son needs a computer and I was hoping that the thing would work for a little while.
    I can't get past the grey apple screen. I have the installation disc in and restart while pressing the c. I just am not getting any further than that. The fans begin to sound like a jet taking off. I have tried resetting the pram while starting up, but that doesn't seem to be working either. I have heard about a hair dryer trick and don't really know what is supposed to get warmed up by that.
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    No hair dryer.  What you need to do is make sure the PRAM battery is new.   It is a coin shaped battery on the logic board.   Radio Shack sells them.
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  • My emac won't get past the grey screen with spinning indicator

    before i went to bed last nite it was fine. when i woke up i click on the screen and got the little rainbow ball. that lasted for about 5-10 minutes so i had to push the button. when i try to turn it on now it gets to the grey screen with the spinning indicator but won't get past that. any help would be appreciated

    An Archive and Install will preserve you user settings and data. You will need a minimum of 5 GB free on the hard drive to perform an A&I; you can reduce the space required by about 1 GB by selecting the option to install language support only for the language you use (assuming you don't need multiple languages).
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    DiskWarrior has an excellent track record at repairing problems that Disk Utility cannot (especially Disk Utility versions prior to OS X 10.4.2).
    If the drive cannot be repaired, you may be able to keep it by doing an erase install with the write zeros (one pass) option. That will update the hard drive firmware record of bad disk sectors to avoid using. If there are only a few bad sectors, that may let you keep using the hard drive for several more years. An erase install will do just that to your data, through. If you have access to another Mac with either a large amount of free disk space of a DVD burner, you can try using the other Mac as host and the eMac as target in FireWire target disk mode. You can run the host's copy of Disk Utility on the eMac hard drive, and hopefully be able to mount the emac HD so that you can back up the data in your Home directory.

  • My MacBook won't boot past the grey screen.. help!

    Today I was having a problem with Safari. For some reason, it kept restarting. This annoyed me, so I restarted my MacBook. Unfortunately, it won't boot past the grey screen, with the thing spinning in the middle. I've been into disk utility and it says my HDD is fine. I restarted from this, and yet it still won't boot. Can anyone suggest what's wrong/what to do?
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    Retrieving data using Target Disk Mode:
    1) Shut down both computers
    2) Connect the two computers using a Firewire cable
    3) Start up the working computer.
    4) Once the working computer is ready, startup your MacBook with the T key held down.
    5) Your MacBook's hard drive should appear as an external hard drive on the working Mac. Drag & drop any files you want to save.
    ~Lyssa

  • POWERBOOK G4 14 1.33 WONT GET PAST THE APPLE SCREEN

    I have a powerbook G4 14 inch 1.33 mhz processor with 256 mb of ram. The screen will not get past the apple screen. I have tried 3 seperate hard drives none of them would boot past the apple screen. The disk drive is broken, I will be replacing it shortly to put a OS X CD or disk warrior cd in it. Does anybody know what would cause this? I reset PRAM, PMU and tried booting in safe mode. It gets to the apple and then the little circle spins and spins and it doesnt load..

    Heres some history of the computer. I orginally put a 12 gb hard drive cuz it came with no hard drive in it and it was working great, but then became slower and slower until it got stuck on the apple screen. i tried 2 other hard drives and they didnt work. i then replaced it with a brand new 60 gb hard drive. i also bought a new optical drive and put that in because the optical drive never worked. i have tried two different ram sticks. i have tried pressing shift,c,option none of that works. option makes it freeze on the boot screen. open firmware works...command S did work until recently...command v does not work...reset pram and nvram. reset PMU. I AM AT A LOSS. is there something i forgot to leave connected during the process that could be causing this? I get USB BOOT ERROR 0 1 1 in open firmware. I DOUBT its the logic board, because it makes the chime and I can get into open firmware and the start up screen.

  • Can't get past the Blue Screen during startup

    I decided to upgrade the 4/8/08 firmware on my aluminum bluetooth keyboard this afternoon using my mac mini. Shortly after the procedure started, something happened to the keyboard and it could not complete the install. I tried a second time, but again no luck. I then decided to replace the keyboard batteries and try again, but I was no longer able to connect the keyboard to the mini.
    I decided to restart the computer and try the whole procedure again. But after the grey screen comes up with the Apple logo, the mini went to the blue screen with the spinning gear, then the mouse appeared in the upper left hand corner, then a little later the gear, then nothing, then the mouse, then the gear... I could never get past this blue screen.
    I plugged in a wired keyboard and was able to startup 10.5 using the install DVD, which allowed me to check and repair the permissions and the disk. After a restart, still stuck on the blue screen.
    I tried zapping the pram. Still couldn't get past the blue screen.
    I was not able to start up in safe mode (is the timing critical for when to hold down the shift key?)
    I started up in single user mode and attempted to move the preference files as described here:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp1
    but got an error that I did not have the correct permissions. I assume that is because I was trying to save the preference1.old (and preference2.old, etc) files to the root part of my hard drive.
    Any suggestions? Does it make sense that upgrading the firmware on a bluetooth keyboard could take down the whole computer???

    Disconnect all peripherals from your computer.
    Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
    Select your language.
    Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
    Select Disk Utility.
    Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
    Click Repair Disk.
    Restart your computer when done.
    Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963 and restart your computer.

  • Hi!macbook pro wont go pass the apple logo!please help!!

    hi guys,well i bought this macbook pro on ebay from the states for about 1400 dollars!well its just the third day and its not bootng uo,the first time i tried to turn it on it took around 20 mins,i deleted some acounts tht we there too but tht didnt help either,and now on the third day i hv tried to reset the pram and tried to turn it on in the safe mode but its just stuck on that grey apple page with that thing curson running clockwise!its a 17inch laptop and its got 2.93 ghz of processor and 8 gb of ram,it has 500gb of hard drive,i m pretty new to apple stuff so i dont knw wht to do now,and i didnt get the repair and the other discs either!!please help!!!!!!!!!!thanks

    You will need a compatible OS X installer DVD to do anything. If the machine qualifies i would purchase a copy of Snow Leopard ($29 USD.) Then I would contact AppleCare to order replacement discs for the computer.
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    Drive Preparation and Snow Leopard Installation
    1.  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.
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    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    7. Upon completion of formatting quit DU and return to the installer. Now install Snow Leopard following the onscreen instructions.
    Apple Store Customer Service at 1-800-676-2775 or visit online Help for more information.
    To contact product and tech support visit online support site. I don't know the Australian equivalents but  you can start with this info.

  • My macbook pro doesn't bootbeyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel.

    My macbook pro doesn't boot beyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel.  I used the "Option" button to access the Disk Utility function and run Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions.  Should I restart my computer?

    The following support article is somewhat outdated. Where it refers to booting from an installation disc, you should boot from your recovery partition (if running 10.7 or later) by holding down the key combination command-R at the chime.
    Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

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