OS 10.5 macbook pro won't start up out of the blue

Trying to help of friend in need. She has a 15" MacBook Pro, about three years old.
She got up this morning and opened her computer which was sleeping and found the following.
The display is grey with an apple icon in the center and a circulating loop. There is a status bar below with nothing happening.
She can't find her discs to boot from disc. I have a install dvd from an early 2009 macbook. Can I install the operationg system and run disc utility to see if it can be repaired?

Max5fire wrote:
The display is gray with an apple icon in the center and a circulating loop.
There is a status bar below with nothing happening.
Gray screen issue with stuck status bar.
Could be two things, a failed firmware update or a automatic "Safe Mode" kicked in while booting and is attempting to repair the drive of corruption and it got stuck.
She can't find her discs to boot from disc. She has a 15" MacBook Pro, about three years old.
I have a install dvd from an early 2009 macbook.
Can I install the operating system and run disc utility to see if it can be repaired?
Nope, your disk is machine hardware driver specific if it's anything other than white with a Snow Leopard on the front.
Her machine might have came with 10.6.3 or later, which the 10.6.3 white retail disk won't work.
If it originally came with 10.6.2 or earlier, then the 10.6.3 white retail disks can be used.
Well your going to have to call Apple via phone (only) and talk to them, perhaps they can find out something about the machine that tells them what 10.6 disks to send her.
No use going on until then.
However if you have a Firewire cable to the two Mac's, then hold T boot the sick Mac, then boot the good Mac, may able to grab files off the machine as it's hard drive appears on the desktop..
When you get the disks look here
Step by Step to fix your Mac
Most commonly used backup methods
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
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OS 10.5 macbook pro won't start up out of the blue

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