Gray screen, clicking noise from top left corner.

What this sounds like to me is a dead hard drive. Try to put the MBP in target mode and see if the drive is available.

Wow, I'm having the exact same problem with mine and it just starting doing this today. Every time I boot I get the gray screen and the weird clicking sound in the upper left corner.

Anybody else have this problem?

You might try running the Apple Hardware Test and see if it shows anything. It's on Install Disc #1 of the grey discs that originally came with your computer. You hold down "D" to boot--instructions are on the disc.

Good luck!

Hard drive is history... great!

Thinking on this a bit, there is a KB article which covers the gray screen and fan noise and drive noise:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300537.

Probably the thing to do is to work your way through the troubleshooting steps in this article and post back. This article looks a little dated but I don't see anything more recent. It's entirely possible you have nothing worse than corrupted software, which can be fixed. It's possible your hard drive is OK.

Please post back with how it goes.

Good luck!

Here's another trick to try:

http://www.silvermac.com/2006/dvd-stuck-in-macbook-pro/

Good luck!

Try the steps in the article I cited. Sorry for being such an idiot that I didn't think of it first, since you have the classic symptoms of fan noise, gray screen, and hard drive noise. There will be instructions for resetting the PRAM and it says PMU but for a MBP it will be the SMC. The links in the article should get you everything, but post back if you have any problems. Hopefully the resets will cure your problem.

Good luck!

I held down the option key for a few seconds, proceeded to disk utility... noticed hard disk wasn't listed under disk utility. Drove to BestBuy. Bought the new Hitachi 200GB 7200 RPM drive w/16 MB. Took MBP apart and realized I needed a T6 Torx Screwdriver. Hopped back into my truck and drove to Sears to grab one. Installed the new hard disk... and I'm currently installing Leopard now.

🙂

Are you following the instructions for built in displays? Did you reset the PRAM and SMC before trying to boot off of the disc? You may need to do the resets more than once.

This article appears to be a little dated like I said. For the MBP, you hold down "D" to boot off of the disc, just as it says on the disc itself. ("C" is for earlier systems.)

When booting off the disc, hold down "D" until you see the progress gear.

Are you saying you don't ever get to the progress gear?