TS3676 Why does MacBookPro screen stay grey while gear disc keeps spinning endlessly?

Question

MacBook Pro would not shut down using the shut down mode. Had to do it manually. When I tried to boot it up again, the screen stays grey with Apple icon displyed while gear disc keeps spinning endlessly. Have had to shut it down manually and then tried to boot it up again to no avail.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Hello! Try running fsck. It runs the same repair routine that disk utility does. I do recommend that you have a set of install disks or at least a bootable clone of your hard drive. If fsck doesn't repair the disk then disk utility on the install disc probably wouldn't either. The next alternative is DiskWarrior. Tom
fsck
Startup holding down the apple key AND the "S" key
You'll start up into a command line interface.. it'll look strange but just hang in there.
When it's done booting up, you should see something that looks like this:
localhost:/ root#
at this point, type in 'fsck -f" please note the space before the dash, and of course, ignore the quote marks, then hit return
You computer will no go thru some low level checks on your HD. Most likely you'll get a list of a few files that have problems and this procedure will fix them.
This should take about 2 or 3 mins, so don't be in a rush.
When the line says "VOLUME WAS MODIFIED", this means that changes were made.
At this point you should be back at the same
localhost:/ root# prompt.
run fsck -f again.
Wait for it to finish.
if you continue to get the "Volume was modified" message,
continue to run fsck -f until you'll get a prompt that says
The Volume(your HD) appears to be ok,
again with the localhost:/ root# prompt.
AT this point, type reboot, hit enter and your computer will start up normally.