Stuck on Grey Start Up Screen / Won't run safe mode

Hi
My MacBook Air is about 6 months old. It is a 13" 2GB thing, running.. the OS before Lion, which is all up to date. Err. These are things I'd normally have to look at on my Mac, but I can't!
This afternoon it was running slowly / a bit crashy, so I decided to reboot it. It has never rebooted. It got stuck on the grey page with the Apple and the loading circle. I left it, but half an hour later it was still on that. I managed to find out safe boot using my iPhone so I've done that, but it's the same - a little progress bar pops up, fills about a third, and then it just goes back to the apple and circle page. I left that 40 minutes but no luck.
Is there other stuff I can try? What is wrong with it? Please don't make me go to the Apple store haha, it's always too busy and stresses me right out!
Thanks in advance for any help you offer
Sam

Reinstall OS X. Use the original installer disc that came with your MBA.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
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 the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

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If you haven't burned a Windows 7 System Repair disc, download one by scrolling down to the link Windows 7 System Repair Disc 64-bit here.
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Stuck at Grey Start Up Screen

Hi, I've been trying to figure this out for a little while, and it looks like other people have had similar problems but I just want to see what I should be doing.
My new macbook pro was charging all night, and when I flipped it open to take it to school today it seemed to be frozen; the dock was stuck in zoomed in mode on one thing, and the cursor was non-responsive. I didn't have time to mess about so I just turned it off and stuck it in my bag.
Now, when I try to start it up, I hear the fan and the disc drive start, but the thing will not make the start up sound, or continue past the grey screen. There is no spinning gear like some others have got. One time, I used the option key to try and choose which disk to boot to, and the cursor came up. After about 10 minutes the cursor would move but there was nothing to click.
I am worried that this has something to do with BootCamp. A few days ago I installed XP on a partitioned drive, and although everything seemed to go well I have a completely horrible record with my well cared for technology failing without reason. This MacBook Pro is one of the brand new ones and is only about 5 weeks old, so I'm extremely frustrated that its frozen like this. I don't have a car, but on the weekend I can take it to the Apple Store in town.
What should I do? And is there any way that I can get the files off the drive so I can do the work I need to do?
Thanks!

If it boots to a gray screen, you can try a Safe Boot by holding "Shift" on startup until you get to gray screen, Apple logo, spinning gear. If it boots, remove /Library/Startup Items and System Preferences > Accounts > Login items (everything in there).
If it still doesn't boot, an archive and install will fix the problem. You will need to boot to the install disc to do this. Continue through, select destination, select "Options" and choose "Archive and install."

My computer won't load pass the grey start up screen

    MacBook pro won't load pass the grey start up screen?

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 the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
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. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
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
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 3
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 4
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.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 5
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
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.
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 corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then 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 6
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) 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 may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 7
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.
Step 8
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 Time Machine or other backup.
Step 9
This step applies only to older Macs (not current models) that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery. Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a boot failure. Typically the boot failure will be preceded by loss of the startup disk and system clock settings. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
Step 10
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. If you can't get to an Apple Store, go to another authorized service provider.

Please help, g5 won't go past grey "start-up" screen

Apologies if there is a better forum for this question:
G5 doesn't get past the light grey start-up screen now, and after a while the fans begin to slowly ramp up in speed until they reach maximum. Problems began when in Itunes the machine locked up totally, mouse wouldn't work nor keyboard. I have unplugged power cord and waited various amounts of time, reset the PRAM, and replace the system clock battery.
Not sure what to do next, Apple Service?
Thanks in advance!
Larry

Problem solved! Luckily this one didn't require a visit to a service center. Here's what worked.
At power on, launched open firmware (command option o and f)
ejected disc tray with "eject disc", put in OS X.
at this point I actually had to re-power up the computer because I then typed "mac-boot" and of course got the same problem.
On power up, held down C, joy of joys machine booted from disc!
Opened disk utility and checked my boot volume for errors, tested okay.
Checked the logs and found unusual "bootsrap....unkown error code".
figured, well i've gone this far, repaired disc permissions as well, found quite a few permission errors (had been a while since I last repaired).
Closed disk utility and restarted from boot volume.
TA-DA!
At some point, I reset the PMU with a button push on the inside of the machine, which didn't apparently do anything, bacause the machine didn't boot after i did that.
I also had replaced the system clock battery, which of course didn't fix the problem, but owing to the fact that I had experience several clock type errors previously, I most certainly needed to replace it anyway. Thanks to all who responded, especially Dale for pointing me in the direction of Mac 101 and open firmware.

I restarted my macbook and now is stuck in the start up screen, what can I do?

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I am experiencing some major problems with my MacBook Pro. I have had some issues with it turning on/off at random times, but today, when starting, I get the grey start-up screen and a recovery bar. After filling in approx 1/4 of the way, the machine dies

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How to get past the grey start up screen after mavericks update

I have recently installed a free update of Mavericks on the App store. However after installing this, the Macbook Pro that i've installed on will not boot beyond the Grey start up screen. I was running Snow Leopard on a machine with intel core 2 duo processors 4 Gb of RAM and over 100Gb of free memory.
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I have attempted a safe boot (holding down shift while while holding the power button down), and Reseting the NVRAM by pressing 'command', 'option', 'P' and 'R' at the same time.
I do not have an installation disk or a time machine back up.
Does anyone know how to get passed the Grey start up Screen?
Any Suggestions would be mucho appreciated.

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I have zero out all data on my imac, as i brought it second hand and the disk the guy supplied dont seem capatable with my imac to install the operating system again so it is frozen at the grey start up screen. show i buy a new snow leopard disc fromapple

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My iMac is stuck at white start up screen. I have been having problems
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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.

When i turn my computer ON the grey start up screen looks corrupted

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Screen freezes, even in safe mode and in BIOS

I’m working on a friend’s laptop: Toshiba, Satellite M65 - S9092
Original problem: The laptop started shutting down after few minutes of use. (Probable overheating)
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Worked for few days and then USB wasn’t being recognized again and the screen started freezing up. Re-installed os again but it is still freezing up after few minutes, and stays that way till hard shut down.
Screen freezes even in safe mode and in BIOS. (No blue screens)
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Any assistance is appreciated.

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When you see a beachball cursor or the slowness is especially bad, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.
Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Stuck on Grey Start Up Screen / Won't run safe mode

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