Stuck on Grey Screen.. Won't Boot

My other post had good answer. If you have a bootable external, boot form it. Download the 10.4.11 update from here....
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
Install it onto your internal drive and restart.
After I did this and shut it down I held the option key to choose my internal drive. (For some reason I though that my computer would boot from my external)
Don't do that. I only got the grey screen, not even the apple logo showed up. I panicked.
I turned on my computer, no buttons pushed at all. The logo and wheel showed up. It stayed for a while and I thought that the problem wasn't fixed. I left it alone for a while anyway. It finally loaded and now fully works, all my data and apps are here.
I am happy over my investment in my external drive and SuperDuper program.
~Valentine

Dear Mr or Mrs MacBraveheart,
thank you - thank you - thank you - thank you

I'd kept trying everything on this discussion, but nothing worked until I followed your instructions.

I followed step 1, 2 and 3.

Step 3 actually took 10minutes. I had nothing better to do and when you said 4, I thought I'd give it 8 but it actually 10.

After the DVD disk popped out, the machine just started up straight away, i didn't need reload anything, it just restarted immediatly and all my data and software was there.

Thanks again for taking the time to put your findings and clear instructions on here.

I'm so relieved.

YESH! So pleased for you! I hated the way I felt night before last so am pleased it worked out in the end.

I sadly had to reinstall my entire system but I don't mind as I have had 1 hard drive failure and two externals fail on me in the past two years and so am quite hardened to the possibility that my precious film footage, music and photos go byebyes again.

So you HAD tried the touchpad button technique before but it hadn't appeared to work? I am beginning to wonder if it was the resetting of the PRAM or the discovery that this process is slow as treacle which makes the difference. Only I am NOT going to test it! LOL! I am sticking with 10.4.6 just now as I am expecting my brand new MB Pro today or tomorrow and will be reformatting this one for my daughter anyway!

Ms McB (thanks for noting that I might be female- most don't bother and assume I am male with THAT "handle")

Ms McB,
it could of been the PRAM, but i tend to think it was the patience with the touchpad button. before when i'd tried it i'd only done it for a minute max, so when u said 4 i knew the length of time was a factor.

thanks again, good luck with the new machine.

Fair dos- I think I concur. I got the new MacBook Pro and it is SWEET. 2.4GHz with the biggest hard drive capacity available. Sigh- only the confounded updates to INCLUDE the 4.11 took hours. Literally. It must have shipped with a seriously outdated 4.10!

😀

All happy now in 4.11Land!

I had the same problem and I followed all these steps but I was unable to reinstall Mac OSX since there's not enough free space on my disk. Can anyone help me please?

Is there anyway of fixing this with out doing a re-instal from the DVD I dont want to have to do a re-instal as it will hog some of precious hard drive space?

Hi,

Thanks a lot for this step-by-step tutorial to fix m Mac.
This worked perfect and save me ages!

You are great!

Thanks
Konrad

i tried installing with archive, but after it restarts after the first Cd, it says i can't install b/c of no space and keeps restarting and saying the same thing
and help?

THANK YOU THANK YOU!
worked like a charm. 😀

ok so this guide is helpful and all, but it tends to neglect the fundamentals of the problem here.


i have the same issue. my macbookpro which is 8 days old, had a kernel panic and requested to be turned off. in doing so, i powered it back on.

it is now stuck in what looks like bootup. the mac chimes, and then makes a clicking sound from the speakers 3 times.

i have tried:
running in safe mode by pressing shift
inserting both the applecare bootable cd and leopard bootable install cd, holding down C and trying to boot off cd: cd whirs up but does not boot.
running in single user mode: stuck on grey screen
running in verbose mode: stuck on grey screen
resetting nvram: doesnt respond to this command, and i have done this before on my old g5 imac.
resetting battery thing (cmd + option + o + f): did nothing
booting to osx (pressing/holding x): nothing

its almost like it is not responding to keyboard commands

i am not technically inept either, i actually am a system administrator for around 20 windows servers and multiple pieces of cisco equipment.. i use a mac at home so my home computer life is stress free..

would it be safe to say this is a repair center job? (already?)

Note: this problem does not seem to be limited to MacBook Pro. I have the same issue on an iMac where the OSx 10.4.11 install failed due to an unknown error. Attempting to log-out failed, leading to a forced shut-down. All subsequent reboots have failed to move beyond the spinning gear on the gray background.

Note also, that the computer did boot from the OS X 10.5 installation disk. Disk utility run and any errors repaired. Leopard was then successfully installed, but, all subsequent reboots (from the hard drive) failed to move beyond the spinning gear on the gray background.

This problem was incorrectly indicated as being solved.

Last night I updated my MBP to Leopard with clean install, everything worked fine. This morning decided to make bootcamp partition so i could install Windows XP, it appeared to work, the partition showed up and Bootcamp Assistant ask for the XP installer disc it restarted and did the format and install then restarted and all i get is a grey screen (just grey no logo no mouse, no beachball, nothing). I tried restarting same thing happened so i removed the XP disc and put the Leopard install back in restarted again, I tried restarting holding the C key (for about 15 minutes), then i tried hold ing the D key, then I tried holding down the Option key the only difference it made was it restarted and the mouse was visible but that was it moved for a couple of seconds then froze. I've tried taking out the battery and holding down the power button and all of the above key combination.

I also tried all the above with the disc that came with my Macbook Pro.

Any Help would be appreciated. Thanks

I'm having the same problem and the computer won't recognize my install disk even when I hold down the C key while hitting the power button. Any suggestions?

I'm having the same problem and the computer won't recognize my install disk even when I hold down the C key while hitting the power button. Any suggestions?