Start up problems/grey screen/question mark

Reset the NVRAM and remove all power for 5-10min.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

What to do if you get a flashing question mark when you start your Mac.

Similar Messages

Grey screen, question mark folder flashing.

I have G4 powerbook with a grey screen and question mark folder flashing. I also have the Leopard dvd stuck in the slot. I tried the eject, and holding down mouse unsuccessfuly ejecting dvd. Any suggestions.

The flashing question mark means the system can't find anything to boot from. See this on the gray screen.

System startup Problem grey screen is going regularly and automatically shutdown

Hi
kindly resolve us this problem urgently
error msg. :- System startup Problem grey screen is going regularly and automatically shutdown
thanks
Dhaval Oza

Use RECOVERY MODE.
Boot from another drive with a copy of OS X too is always good.
A Safe Boot at a minimum.

HT1455 imac wont start up and grey screen with spinning wheel appears

imac wont start up and grey screen with spinning wheel appears

See this Apple note on steps to take.

Macbook won't start up, white/grey screen appears folder and question mark.

My macbook was freezing up, so i pressed the power button to shut it down and it won't restart. It just goes to the blank white/grey screen and a picture of a folder with a question mark on it shows up. What should I do?

I am going to try and explain this.
When you purchase a Mac, that machine comes with a license to run the current Mac OS at the time of purchase. The license resides with the computer, not with the installation media. Therefore, if I purchased 3 iMacs, at the exact same time, and they were the same model, I could use the install media from one on any of the other machines (and don't tell me it won't work, because I have done it before). This does not violate the EULA. Do you really think that a company that purchases hundreds or even thousands of computers would keep the install media for each one? The media is not tied to the computer; it's the license for OS X that is bound to the computer. Consider when you purchase a family pack of Mac OS X, you don't get 5 discs, you get 5 licenses, and one disc.
What the EULA is stating, is that you cannot have one license running or installed on two computers. It does not say that you cannot use the same install media on different computers (assuming you have the proper number of licenses). You are also wrong in saying that you can uninstall Mac OS X from one Mac, and then use its restore discs on another computer legally. That is only legal for "Retail" copies of OS X. I believe the restore discs are the equivalent to an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer in the PC world of computing) version of OS X. I am almost positive they are non transferable.

White screen with grey folder question mark

hi,
i was trying to restore my mac pro 10.7 to factory setting. so i restarted my mac and pressed command+R erased my HD but while installing it back my mac turned off becuse it was not charged know when i am starting my mac its showing me white screen with grey folder with question mark. please tell me what to do

It's showing that screen becuase the OS didn't finish installing and the computer can't find the files that it needs to boot the OS. Have you tried going into the setup again by pressing the "Command+R" buttons again? If you can get back in there, try setting the OS up again and that should help.

Start Up Problem: Grey (Gray) Screen

Yesterday, I did a system update, which required me to restart my computer. Everything was installed and it went to the grey start up with the logo and the spinning wheel, and there it stayed. I figured it was doing something so I left and came back a few hours later and it was still doing it.
So now, when I restart it I get the chime, the grey screen with the logo and the spinning wheel, and fans or something whirling around inside. The fans stop after a little while, but the screen stays the same.
I've tried unplugging it and plugging back in, detaching everything except for keyboard and mouse, and repairing the disk. When I tried repairing the disk it said (in green) that there were no problems to repair. I also ran the Hardware Test and it said there were no problems.
Is all hope lost?
Thanks

You could always try an archive and install.
lenn

MacBook won't start - gets to grey screen with clicking noise.

I think I know the answer to this one - my hard drive is fried. But before I head to the Apple Store I'd thought I'd see if anyone else had any ideas of what I can try.
I was happily surfing the web when my computer froze. I could move the mouse cursor, but everything else was unresponsive. Opt-Cmd-Esc would not work, so I had to force a restart with the power button.
The computer restarted, I got the Apple chime, but then all I could hear was a clicking. I've tried restarting several times, but to no avail.
I've also tried:
Attempting to boot into a BootCamp partition.
PRAM reset.
Boot into safe mode.
Boot from my Leopard disk (spins up, but then ejects).
Boot from my original MacBook disk (spins up, but then ejects).
Boot into target mode.
The best I've got is a flashing folder with a question mark, mostly I'm just getting a grey screen.
Can anyone else offer any ideas to try?
And, assuming I have to return it (it's under a year old), what is the story? Do I just get a replacement, or is it sent off for repair? Do I need my receipt, or can they verify ownership from my credit card/serial number? Do I need a Genius Bar appointment, or do I just show up?
Sorry for all these questions, this is the first real problem I've had with a Mac and it's come at exactly the time I need to have a laptop!

That happened to my macbook too!!!!
I emptyed my trash can, it had over 1000 items there and it took a really long time to erase all of them. Eventually it was done. I turned it off, went to bed, next morning, my reliable Macbook would not start! Grey screen, apple logo, a spinning wheel. i can hear some clicking mechanical sound.
I loaded my installation cd, pressed C key while starting. It did loaded the cd, followed the screen of installation... It failed the first time, aborted half way. I had to do it again. Second time, it did go through without issue. But now, it always takes WAY long to boot, the system is very slow, very unresponsive, I am very scared to shut down the system, i dont know if next time it will reboot again.
My macbook has been very stable and reliable, compared to my PC and Dell notebooks. It is only 1.5 year old, It is not under warranty anymore. I guess it is hard disk problem most likely. There is not even one Apple Store in Idaho. Should I go out of state to fix it? how much will it cost? I have been a long time PC user and i can fix it myself if it were a PC, I love apple but really have no idea when it has problems.

G5 wont start up....question mark icon appears

Hi, all im new to the forum. I really like it. My problem...
1. while running protools. it crashed and said that its taking too long to retrieve audio files. due to fragmented drive...etc.
2. upop shutting down, and restarting. it asked me to log in, not a usual occurance.
3. i tried to open itunes, and the icon kept jumping, than it wanted me to start itunes from scratch...all my folders and music were missing, erased.
4. finally upop last shut down and restart. there was a grey screen with a folder in the middle with a flashing question mark and finder face. and it wouldnt move from there\
Now im running tiger and an old version of itunes. i just want to fix the problem and ugrade everything. I have a second HD installed. its full. can i save that or remove it and install it in a newer quad G5. and are my itunes deleted for good. and if the system HD is bad can i retrieve any data, do you think this is a software issue or hardware. or both. Thanks in the time for reading. i will appreciate any help. THANKS!

Sounds like you need the full "how to maintain and repair hard drives" and system.
Sounds like you don't use SuperDuper to backup and clone your system, or Alsoft Disk Warrior to repair your drive.
You need to have a couple backup sets, and an emergency boot drive basic system to deal with repairs and maintenance with latest version of OS X.
That will give you a firm footing and foundation to rebuild and repair things to get back working. Sounds like you are short on backups and drives, and short on drive space (never good).
"Newer Quad G5?" Mac Pro I assume hopefully.
A new system drive for sure, and a new backup for system to work with.
A new data drive and backup drive.
Both of those could be $140 for pair of 640GB WD Caviar and be faster and avoid the trouble you have.
Your hard drive crashed, lost the 'path' to where the boot drive is. The "?" screen. At which point use your DVD or use OPTION key and repair the drive while booted from another drive.
Buy some FireWire drives for backup and either put your internal drives in those, and a pair of drives for backup. And install new drives to 'build' and recover yoru files to.
The files are there, but the index to where they are is lost/corrupt damaged. The books are in the library, but the card catalogue isn't, and you may need Data Rescue II to find them again.
But don't try to use or touch your drives for now.

Start-up problems, black screen or open firmware

My iBook G4 1.33GHz Dual USB, with 1 gb RAM memory has been troublesome lately. It's installed with the latest version of OS 10.4.9
When starting up the ibook, it will sometimes only show a black screen after the boot chime. Repeated force restart sometimes makes it boot up the open firmware (white screen).
Then I see the error message:
"Illegal instructions at: %SRR0:ff85e778 %SRR1:00081000"
When I continue on with "mac-boot", I get the blue screen with a question marked box. So it can't find the startup disk.
This usually only happens when I'm done working for the day and close the lid on my ibook without manually clicking on the sleep mode when I put in in my drawer,. I've seen several times that the screen is still on when I close the lid, so it will continue to burn battery time.
I've managed to get the ibook to boot properly after removing the battery and letting it "cool-down" for 15-20 min. Also, zapping pram, vram sometimes works, but I don't know how much that actually helped. It worked once when I typed in the reset-nvram in the open firmware screen too.
I'd rather not have this happen at all! Any suggestions? Is this the much-talked about RAM memory failure?
Any suggestions would be very appreciated.
Message was edited by: antony chen

HI,
*"I get the blue screen with a question marked box."*
That can mean several things. One, the drive is failing. Two, your iBook can't find a System Folder to boot from. Try booting while holding down the Option key which will prompt the Startup Manager window.
MemTest
Boot from your install disk and check the hard disk for errors.
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger and later) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your start up disk and click Restart
While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window where you see Capacity and Available. Make sure there is always 15% free disk space. Not enough disk space can cause directory corruption.
If you cannot boot from your install disk, try booting in Safe Mode
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Carolyn

My macbook pro will only start-up in grey screen

hi, i have a potentially big problem
I have just purchased macbook pro 15 inch 2.0 GHZ and tried to transfer data using the migration assistant.
i started have numerous problems like i did not have permissions to open folders - i found out how to solve that from this forum and it worked
i had more problems though with Teamviewer - it would not open - came up with an error message 600, so i downloaded the newest version which also wouldn't open.
and basically it just got from bad to worse.....
so i thought that i would then try to do a restore from 'My Passport for Mac' external hard drive.
then i got numerous messages popping up saying 'system extensions cannot be used' etc
i tried numerous times to restart new laptop, shutdown or even hard re-boot and it would not
so i went into SYSTEM / LIBRARY / EXTENSION and started deleting the files that it said were not installed properly
the list went on and on and on so i deleted the whole contents of extension folder - it was only then that the laptop would restart
BUT - now that it has restarted i get the restart 'sound' a grey screen with the apple icon in the middle - no cursor and some small writing in the top left hand corner (looks like CMD mode) and amongst the jargon it does say 'unable to find driver for this platform'
what on earth have i done ?
please help
thanks
Serena

i found the answer to my question on this forum - see below, hallelujah.....
This solved my question by Franco16 on Jun 13, 2012 3:13 AM
I found the solution, thanks to MrE_the_Great (read following cut and paste)
I'm glad it worked out. I'll put the steps below again for others who join this discussion late and to clarify as I was typing on a phone last night while my MBP was re-installing.
1) Hold in command-r while rebooting (or from cold start) to boot to the recovery partition.
2) Chose re-install mac osx
3) Enter appleID credentials
4) After the re-install is complete (may take a while depending on your intenet connection etc) all your files, preferences, and software will be there, you shouldn't lose anything.
5) DO NOT reattempt the Thunderbolt update. You can update the iPhoto and other updates that Software Update finds...just DO NOT check the Thunderbolt one or you will be at step one again.
for more information go here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4020399?start=60&tstart=0

I've got nothing(gray screen, question mark folder) Please Help!

This problem is on my girlfriend’s computer, about the same as mine, PB G4 800mhz 768mb RAM, 10.4.x
I am a competent user and this one has me worried…
Problem
Last night she goes to the computer sends an IM checks her e mail, watch some tv, goes back to the computer to look something up on line and its frozen, I do not recall if the mouse was visible but I don’t think there was a beach ball. She asks me what to do I said just give it a few minutes maybe it will process through what ever it is and be back to normal. We both forget to take a look at it before bed.
This morning computer is still frozen/non-responsive and the fans are running... Shut down by holding down the power key. I try to re-start by pressing power key, screen lights up with gray background wait wait then the folder icon comes up with the question mark in it. This gets me worried.
What I have tried
I have tried to get it into target disc mode with my powerbook(computer B), I start up computer A holding down the T key and the screen goes to that moving firewire icon but the hard drive does not show up on my computer B.
I tried unplugging it, removing the battery and re setting the pram
I tried to run the hard ware test CD, but when I hold C to boot to the CD it spins up the disc and the little hardware test folder is in the middle of the screen but then it does not load any further. I had to shut down holding the power button. Computer would not eject CD so I had to start up and use unix eject cd command, this worked.
I tried target disc mode again.
I tried just a plain start up again.
I do not have the 10.4 CD at my house so I have not tried to start from that yet, but I can borrow one from grandparents this evening after work, but I am worried since it will not start from the hardware test CD that it will not start from the system CD.
I believe I have computer A backed up from either last week or the week before( I thought about doing it this weekend but did not get to it  ), she is not backed up daily as I am. Though she said there is quite a bit of important work from this past week.
I have no idea what to do next or what the source of the problem could be(software or hardware). I fear the worst, but hope that you can share an idea that will turn out for the best!
Please help me fix this computer, I can play with it some when I go home for lunch and then I need to get it fixed if possible this evening because she needs some important class work and grad school applications from it!
Jerome

So is the next step to try and re-format the drive and then use super duper to copy the back up over to that drive and then run disc utility and disc warrior on it? Which specs should I select for the re format, do they have to be the same as what is on my back up drive?
Yes, reformatting the drive is the next step. Use your Panther installer discs, choose Mac OS Extended format, and check the box to install OS 9 drivers, just in case. The "Verified" SMART status is somewhat less reliable than a "Failing" status would have been: "Failing" definitely means trouble was detected, but "Verified" could just mean nothing seemed to be wrong right at the moment when you happened to ask. So if there's any trouble reformatting the drive, replace it: you shouldn't entrust anything important to it. If all goes smoothly with the reformat, the drive probably really is OK.
What you can do with your backup depends on how you created it. If the backup is a bootable clone made with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, you can clone it back to the reformatted drive the same way you created it in the first place, then add the extra files that were created or modified after you made the backup. If you just Finder-copied the drive to another drive, the backup isn't bootable, and copying it back onto the reformatted drive won't make that one bootable either: OS X isn't Finder-copyable. In that case, I really shouldn't advise you on reconstructing the former contents of the drive from your backup — my only experience of backing up OS X disks is by cloning, which eliminates all the hassles of making sure user accounts, passwords, permissions, etc. are transferred correctly to the backup, and then transferred correctly back to the original disk in a restore. Nearly four years after my adoption of OS X, I confess I'm still far more mystified by many aspects of it than I ever was by the old-time Mac OS.
Message was edited by: eww

IMAC won't start. Folder Icon With Question mark appears

it will also not take the startup disc. I plop it in , hold 'C' ket to make a disc repair fut nothing happens, now screen is all grey.

HI,
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
If nothing at the link above helps, try booting while holding down the Option key. That will prompt the Startup Manager window.
Since you can't boot from your install disk, Start up in Safe Mode
Carolyn

Laserjet CM1415fn CMFP Black screen-question mark on screen-excalmation mark and dot flashing

Hello everybody
I've got a laserjet pro CM1415fn color MFP which seems to get power, starts up but suddenly the screen gets black and only the question mark is shown.
Also, above the screen there are two indicators: An exclamation mark and a dot to its left, both of them blinking.
Can anyone tell me what's the problem and how to solve it?
Thanks in advance
Jim

hello,
I got the same problem. could you fix it?

Macbook wont start up FlASHING FOLDER with question mark.

the other night my macbook froze.
then i tried to restart it all it did was give me a grey screen
with a flashing folder with a question mark inside it..
it also made a clicking noise.. for what ive read its a
hard drive problem????? does this mean ive lost all my
information? cause thats pretty messed up that my computer
just lost all its info.. randomly... i tried to put the mac osx cd..
but nothing happens except it tries to reinstall itself..
what should i do?

Booting up from the cd allows you to use disk utility in the top menu to check your mac though. Pretty handy.
Sometimes giving it a good check does the trick.
Or booting up from the hardware test cd (think Tiger has it on the same cd as install cd and hold down d) Then you can really determine whats broken.

Start up problems/grey screen/question mark

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