White Screen of Death-no boot

My iMac doesn't seem to find the hard drive on boot up, superdrive for that matter, either. I have a white screen of death. I can zap the pram, but that's about it. Won't start up in target mode or safe mode. After sitting for a while it might show a folder with a question mark on it. Any ideas?
Daniel

Contact Apple Service, iMac Service or Apple's Express Lane, as appropriate. Do note that if you have AppleCare's protection plan and you're within 50 miles (80 KM) of an Apple repair station, you're eligible for onsite repair since yours is a desktop machine.

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Frozen white screen of death on boot up

it started with vertical yellow lines,so i upgraded to Yosemite hoping this would clear the display issue,after many re installs finally got it to boot properly only for the screen to freeze again and again,when using disc utility to repair permissions keep getting ...........private/var/db/displaypolicyd user 244 should be 0 reset it and reboot only for the same problem to turn up again and again...I'm running a late 2009 imac and i'm slowly going mad.......HELP!!!

Try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear and again when you log in. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don’t do them all at once.
Safe Mode - Mavericks
Safe Mode - About
Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
Startup - Gray Screen
Startup Issues - Resolve
Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

White Screen of Death at Startup - Boot Camp Based Problem

I recently received my Intel-based 20" iMac yesterday and this morning I set it up and transfered all of my files from my old Windows XP computer successfully. I then played around with the iLife suite and a few other programs and decided I should probably run Boot Camp and set up Windows for a few Windows-based programs I need and some games that are Windows only.
I started to look up Boot Camp on the Apple website, then realized iMacs that came with Leapord pre-installed should already have Boot Camp on them. I searched in Spotlight for "Boot camp" and found the "Boot Camp Assistant." I thought that was close enough, so I started the application up.
First, it told me I needed to partition my hard drive and create a space for Windows. I figured I would have only a few esential programs on it, so I opted for a partion of about 10-12 GB if I remember correctly. The installer then told me to insert my Windows disc and I then put in my Windows XP SP1 installation CD. It read it, shutdown, then booted back up into what I recognized as the Windows setup screen.
It went through the normal setup steps, until it got to a point where it asked what partition I should install Windows on. There was only one partition listed, so obviously I chose that one, but what was weird was the partition said it was over 100,000 MB, which is not the 10 GB I told it to partition. I got scared when it told me it would have to format the partition since it wasn't suitable for a Windows installation yet. I figured it wouldn't hurt to recheck the amount I partitioned, so I quit out of the Windows installer.
Next, my Mac restarted and went to the infamous white screen of death.
I have tried basically every single way to fix this.
I tried:
Alt - Option - PR (Reset the PRam) And waited for both 2, 3, 4, and 5 dings
Alt
Option
Shift (Safe Mode)
Put in the Mac OS X disc and booted up holding:
D
C
None of these worked. Sorry if my key abbreviations are off, by the way, because I'm writing this on a Windows laptop and I haven't gotten the keys down for Macs yet.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Apple call support is curretly closed, at least in my timezone. I'll probably try calling them tomorrow, but mostly I'm afraid of having to get a whole new harddrive and/or iMac. I haven't backed up my data anywhere yet (this is just my first day with the Mac) so if I lose the data, there goes upwards of a few thousand dollars in music and other data expenses.
Thanks in advance for ideas, I'll try anything you throw at me now, as long it doesn't void the warranty or involve formatting my hard drive. (Though if you know a way to format my hard drive AND save my data, that would be even better)

All the data that you transfered to the iMac should still be on the PC which originally contained the content. Transferring to the Mac is in reality only copying.
A Boot Camp Windows installation requires Windows SP2 only;
To use Boot Camp, you need:
1. An Intel-based Macintosh computer with a built-in or USB keyboard and a built-in trackpad or USB mouse.
2. Mac OS X 10.5 or later
3. The latest firmware updates available for your Intel-based Mac.
4. At least 10 GB of free space on your startup disk (single partition).
5. A full, single-disc version of Windows Vista, Windows XP Home Edition or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later. Boot Camp does not include Windows. You must provide your own properly licensed installation disc.
  Important: A Windows XP installation disc must include Service Pack 2 (SP2). You cannot install an earlier version of Windows and upgrade to Windows XP, nor install an earlier version of Windows XP and update it to SP2. 
6. Boot Camp Assistant (find it installed in /Applications/Utilities/ on Leopard).
Just an idea for you. There is an entire Apple Discussion forum dedicated to Boot Camp and Windows.
Whereas, not everyone here with an Intel iMac has installed, tried to install or has experience with BC & Windows, everyone there has or at least has an interest. You may attract help more quickly there.
The Forums are at the bottom of the main Apple Discussions page under Windows Compatible Technology. Here is a link;
Boot Camp: Installation and Storage

IPod Nano white screen of death - RESURRECTED! :D

Alright, here's the deal...A friend of mine has a new iPod Nano and gave it to me because it had stopped working, and was hoping it was worth something to recover. Sorry about the long story!
It _wouldn't_ turn on. But, when connecting it to the computer via the USB dock cable, it comes on for a few seconds on a grey-whitish screen. Then turns back off, reboots, and tries again. Step 1 step 2. Nothing.
Although, 'Diagnostics mode' or whatnot it is, does work however. It would still be a faint grey screen, but whiter and more vibrant, as if it's saying "Hey, I'm alive! I'm alive!!!" and I can go through settings and make it (sometimes) change colors, and reboot the iPod.
I was thinking since iTunes never recognized it (It was plugged in the whole time) that I would drown in just for the sake of it.
Well, 3 hours later after attempting to kill the poor thing, it... resurrected itself.
I'm serious, it really seems to have unbelievably done it. When turning it on, I get 2 beeps, but no restart loop, the LCD stays on the white screen though, BUT, here's the good thing.
NOW, I hear the system 'click' sounds when using the buttons and such that it's going through the menu, good news so far! It seems like it because after the 'boot' sequence (it appears to boot very fast, strangely).
The good thing is (kinda) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1517571?start=0&tstart=0 ... So I suspect that somehow, this method of submerging it under water, letting it dry, blowdrying it, and then leaving it in the heat, somehow restored the SD chip inside of it... possibly only for now... I'm going to use this moment to hopefully get all data off the device, and see for one last time if it's fully restorable...
I have the power! Ok, so I hooked it up to the wall charger (just put the wall connector on the USB cord) and it now beeps two times, and after about 30 seconds or so, I get to the main menu, screen still white, but I can certainly hear the click letting me know I'm 'navigating' the iPod. It doesn't appear to have any music on it, or maybe it does, but I need to connect some earphones first. Or, it supposed to be display the 'sad iPod' icon, but I just don't see it, therefor, I'm blind as to the status of it.
I likely guess it's the battery, since every time I disconnect it, it goes dead. Yep, just looked back, still on. Yep, still menu clicking. Yep, I can start it with no problems now. Any clue what I can try to do to resolve this? Obviously it's turning on, and it seems to be doing something, it boots, (apparently) so that's a good sign.
Please, is there any hope at all in this iPod? At all?
AND, IT JUST BEEPED 2 TIMES AGAIN! And I was just typing... why did it do this? (Funny thing is, how it still works!) Is that really the menu button clicking? That would explain it, I mean it only plays the menu clicking sound AFTER about 30 seconds of it 'booting' to the iPod firmware, so it obviously has some sort of life to it. If I hook up my earphones... Holy Mac! I hear music! It's alive!!! It's alive!!! Oh my man!!! Yes!
It has hope, in a way!
Atleast, I hope, but it works! Freaking amazing! Jamming to some awesome beats right now, some cool hip hop, sound quality you ask? Great, actually! I don't know how, don't want to know, but it seems trying to kill this iPod actually resulted in it being resurrected? How? Who knows! This is awesome! iPod truly CAN have 2 lives, I guess!
Cool stuff, I swear on that! My favorite song was on here too!
How to adjust the volume on the iPod Nano? I don't care, it's playing at full volume, and it's awesome!
The sad thing is, it still has the white screen of death, and the battery is apparently fried still (or needs a good 24-hour charging).
This iPod has been sitting dead as a dud in the storage room for a good 1 year or so, unused. And now it came back to life in a flash. Unbelievable.
I love you Apple.

Your problem was moisture. It was wet inside and sitting around for a year let it all dry up.
If you get this kind of thing happening, speed the process up by putting the iPod into a zip lock baggie with a dessicant (you know those little silica pouches) or even some rice to absorb the moisture. Let it sit for a few days and it should dry it all out.
i

How to deal with the "white screen of death"?

My 1 hour old iMac (27 inch i5) just died. I had used it for less than 30 mins when it downloaded an OS update and rebooted. Then it refuses to boot, stuck in a white screen.
After that I slid in the recover disk and used the disk utility to restore the HDD as in the recover manual. It then spent 30 mins recovering,. However, on re-start it is still stuck in the white screen of death.
What do i do now?

Hi anerjee;
With a brand new Mac, personally I would not mess with it. I would take it back to Apple and ask them to fix it.
Allan

White screen of death - iMac OSX Lion

I upgraded my 2007 iMac to Lion and after a few days of perfect running the think locked up. When I forced the power off and back on it seemed to be booting fine (chimes, apple logo, disk spinning up and I could hear the drive head seeking) but then it froze up in the "White Screen of death" (WSOD). It was complete lockd up again, and nothing would bring it back. I had to reboot again. And again. Everytime it seems to be ok, but then locks up after it the screen goes white. . I did command option , p r keys with three chimes. I have unplugged it and let it sit. I disconnected all periferals. I reset the SMC. I booted into Single User mode and used unix commands to check the HD. No errors found. I disconnected my wireless Time Capsule.
Note that it appears to be booting fine at first with the useaul Apple Logo. And when I boot into the Single User mode all the text indicates no faults. The display and HD appear fine.
I inserted my original OSX Leopard disk and and tried to boot from it, using the "C" boot process and the Option boot method to manuualy select the DVD. No good. It just went into the WSOD again.
I have no idea what to try next!

RATS!
After ersing (and zeroing) out the HD nothing changed. I still could not completely boot up the install disk. I tried the original Leopard disk, and the Apple Lion USB thumbdrive. Both started the boot process, and gave me the grey Apple logo. But then after a minute or two jumped into the White Screen of Death.
I then replace both RAM chips. No change.
Now I have a brick. A very large and heavy brick.
But the computer will woerk as Target Disk Mode, and it actually goes through a normal boot cycle. That is, I can go into the Single Ud=ser mode and all UNIX command work fine.
Does anyone have any additional ideas of what can cause this?
Peter

I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro (2009) & the "White Screen of Death" is present. Need help?

I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro (2009). Recently I bought an extended hard drive because I had used up the memory on my iDisk. As I was running the Time Machine back up on my new extended drive, the battery on my Pro ran out causing it to shut down. Once I hooked up my Pro to the power cord & logged in, the "White Screen of Death" appeared on the home display. Obviously the battery still works, my phone is able to charge along with the extended drive, I am able to adjust the lighting on my keyboard along with adjusting the brightness on my screen, but the "White Screen" remains. I need help in determining the cause of this issue & the steps I'll need to take in order to resolve this. I love my Pro, all my documents, photos & music are on it & the last thing I want to do is kill my wallet by buying a new Pro. So could someone on here please help me? It would be greatly appreciated & I thank you in advance!

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
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 3
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, 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 damaged 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 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
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 6
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 7
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 8
This step applies only to a Mac Pro tower, not to any other model. A dead logic-board battery can cause a gray screen at boot. Typically the boot failure will be preceded by loss of the startup disk and system clock settings. See the user manual for replacement instructions.
Step 9
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.

White screen of Death. Reinstalled OSX Maverick but data is missing. HELP!

Help! i had a white screen of death on my iMac. Did a check via disk utility and the hard drive seems to be fine. I have partioned the hard drive into two volumes previously.
However, when I tried to reinstall OSX Maverick on the first partition, where it was originally installed, it was pointed out as being full and I was forced to reinstall it on the second partition. No problem with that.
However, when I start up the iMac, there are no files to be found. And this is really very upsetting to me as they contain memories of my family which I really treasure.
Am I doing anything wrong? When I go in to the set up utility and try to select partition 1, it will still give me the white screen of death and that the disk is full
Kindly advise if there is anyway for me to "force" install it on partiton 1 and regain access to my files.

If you reinstalled onto the second partition and used the same username/password combo for your admin user account, then you can boot into the voluime, open up the original volume, and drag your data from it to the same places on the second volume. To reinstall, you need to remove stuff from the full volume.
The following articles have some good tips:
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk and
Freeing Up Hard Disk Space

White screen of death and reboot loop help!!!

I have a problem with my curve, I have a white screen of death. This happens whenever I turn on my blackberry. Also my phone is stuck in a continuous loop of it rebooting, loading up showing the home screen and then rebooting again. What do I do? i have tried battrey pulls and pressing on the corners of the screen

Deal with the rebooting first. If you have a media card installed, remove it and test. If it isn't the media card that is the problem, see if you can reboot in safe mode, then do a a full backup. While in safe mode, after the backup, you can try removing any apps or themes you added and then test. Ultimately you will probably end up reinstalling the OS.
Once you have the device booting up and staying on, hopefully, see what you see. If the screen is all white with no text or icon, you have a hardware problem with a connection to the display.
Caveat: If have gotten the device wet or dropped it, all bets are off.
- Ira

White screen of death with clicking sound?

i got a White screen of death with clicking sound after crashing in boot camp with winXP, i try to put in the macbook installed disc, but nothing happened & i cannot reject the CD, is it the hard drive problem & how can i fix it? do i have to replace the hard drive....

It appears that Apple knows about the problem now: http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/04/apple-admits-to-macbook-air-screen-problems-in ternally-software-fix-coming/
The only problem is that I ended up buying a new Macbook Air and Apple is taking back my other one. The wanted me to send it in and have them replace it, but it's my only computer and I can't be without it for a week. It would suck if they come up with a software fix and replacing it was not necessary.
Support was very helpful and worked with me for a few days trying to isolate the issue. I don't get the horizontal lines (I get a solid grey, white, black or blue screen), so I am not sure if my issue is the same as the one that Apple is recognizing.

White screen of death + labtop screen not working (HELP PLEASE)

Hello guys and thank you for reading this.
As you can probably guess, I am no computer pro. I own a HP labtop (A8 quad-core vision AMD). Recently I wanted to log back on it and found out that my screen had broken while I was moving out. I then proceeded to plug my acer screen to it with the blue
plug (you know the one with the 2 little screws :P) and when I finally logged on I saw that i had what they call the "white screen of death".
I found out many videos and articles explaining how to get rid of this white screen. Unfortunately, when I start up my PC and press F8, I dont see this on my acer screen, for some reason it goes up only when I can log in to my computer so I can't see the
Safe mode and everything.
It would be my greatest pleasure if someone could help me to get back into my labtop.
Thank you for your consideration (sorry for the typos english is my 2nd language)<
Gabriel.

As per my understanding, boot up screen will come up on primary display. Since, primary is broken so you wont get it in external display.
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White screen of death but can see screen when hold down power button?

I've had my iPod Touch 4g for a few months (in December it will be a year) and for the past two months, I haven't been able to use it because of the white screen of death. I tried reseting it, restoring it (which didn't work because of error 1394 or something like that) and NOTHING seemed to work. Today, I decided to try restoring it again, and it worked!...for all of two hours.
Now I have the white screen of death but it shows the screen if I lightly hold down the power button (not enough that it clicks).
I've tried restoring it again, but it stays the same- white screen of death that shows the screen when I lightly hold down the power button.
Can anyone help me :\

Contact Apple and get it replaced/serviced.
Basic troubleshooting steps
17" 2.2GHz i7 Quad-Core MacBook Pro  8G RAM  750G HD + OCZ Vertex 3 SSD Boot HD 
Got problems with your Apple iDevice-like iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Try Troubleshooting 101

White Screen of Death on 5800 xm

Clue anybody to probable cuase of white screen of death on a 5800 xm . Where phone just sticks on the white screen or sometimes the actual boot screen . Its not a reboot that happens phone just freezes battery out solves the problem . Have an idea that it could be tied to the Auto Keyguard switch but that may be a red herring .
jje

this happend with my old N97 and it took a hard reset to solve it, the guy in the vodafone shop said its caused by an unresolved system argument (error) which could be caused by a dodgy download,
not sure about the 5800 but its s60 v5 as well

IMac 27" white screen of death

Hello.
I've recently changed HDD in my iMac to OCZ Vertex 2 SSD in a local Apple service. Everything was OK until today. I woke up my iMac from Sleep, it showed the beachball and became frozen and unresponsive. I pressed Power button to switch it off. After that I've pressed Power button again to switch it back on. But... all I could see was a White Screen.
iMac doesn't react on pressing "C", "Shift", "D", "ALT" and other combinations that could help me. I even can't boot using Install Disk. All I can see is a White Screen of Death.
What are the suggestions to my issue?
I'd like to hear any help.

Well, I'm sure that the Apple service who performed the work would have a warranty? I would be contacting them immediately and tell them to fix the problem without cost to you.

N97 White screen of death (WSOD) with FW V11.0.21

I have my nokia N97 almost a week now. This morning opera mini froze and I couldn't turn it off so I removed the battery. After reinserting the battery and turned the phone on I got the White screen of death (WSOD), just a white screen with the word nokia on it. I tried to boot it without the simcard and also waiting 30+ minutes before reinserting the battery. But I still have de WSOD...
Do I have to keep it on to drain the battery or are there other methods to fix this problem. I don't feel like sending it to Nokia because I have to wait more than 2 weeks before it's fixed...
The past 2 weeks I have used it intensively, installed a lot of apps. Put 300+ songs on it and and some movies. I had the email widget on the home screen, I heard that's one of the problem on other forums...
Any ideas how I can boot up normally....
Solved!
Go to Solution.

WSOD
Hard Reset
The combination is:
Shift + Space bar + Backspace + Power your phone
Instructions to bypass WSOD:
All you need is: Methodology 1 as posted by some other user
N97
Charger
Follow these steps:
Turn off your phone.
Insert charger.
Remove charger right after screen lights up.
Wait a couple of seconds till screen turns off and just after that press power button.
After standart vibration notification just put your charger in.
VOILA! You can insert your PIN again!
I am using this method for almost a month and it seems that this is only one way to boot up my N97.
It would be nice to hear if this method works for you
Anyway, I have found a solution, that works for me everytime the WSOD comes up. It goes like this when WSOD keeps coming up:
Instructions to bypass WSOD:
All you need is: Methodology 1 as posted by some other user
1. Pull battery and re-insert it.
2. Power up the phone by holding the "Power button + RED key + GREEN key + Camera key" and wait 30 seconds or so.
3. After the wait the phone should come up normally asking for the SIM passcode and everything is fine.
"Power button + RED key + GREEN key + Camera key" is a sort of "soft reset", it keeps all the installations and everything as opposed to the "hard reset".
Hope this helps, and let's all hope that Nokia QA start testing their smartphone software with a little more care. I cannot imagine that normal people would live with such blatant bugs.
My solution to yesterday experience
What I have done:
1. Switch Off Nokia N97 by pulling out the battery
2. Pull out the SIM CARD and Memory Card
3. Switch on The Nokia N97 without SIM AND MEMORY CARD
4. Then do the Factory Settings by going to phone menu options because by this time WSOD will be over.
5. Then Insert the SIM and restart it.
6. Again Switch Off the same and insert Memory Card.
7. Switch on again and restore settings as backedup whether in your PC or memory card to get last settings.

White Screen of Death-no boot

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