Powerbook with gray screen & apple logo - spinning wheel

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Level 1

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Powerbook with gray screen & apple logo - spinning wheel

Tonight I had numerous applications open on my Powerbook G4 and it froze up. I had to restart it and when I did, it got stuck on the gray screen with the apple logo and spinning wheel. It stays on this screen for awhile and then restarts itself and goes back to the gray screen.

I tried to start it in safe mode, but after I press the "shift" key, it goes to the gray screen with apple logo again (no spinning wheel this time though) and it stays there.

HELP!?!?!?!?!

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 20, 2008 8:27 PM

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Answer 1

arnie

Level 5

4,065 points

Jul 21, 2008 10:56 AM in response to hahn0089

could be failing hard drive or corrupted files.

if possible, connect to another Mac in target mode and back up any important files.

see if you can start from the OS CD/DVD, run the drive check.

if the files are corrupted, Disk Warrior is the best utility to use.

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Answer 2

drwf

Level 1

0 points

Oct 18, 2008 12:43 AM in response to hahn0089

hahn0089 what happened in the end as I am having the same issue currently

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Answer 3

Nov 5, 2008 11:42 AM in response to hahn0089

I had the exact same issue last Saturday. Were you successful solving it? I tried resetting the PRAM and also booting into safe mode and I got no where. It's funny, the exact same situation occurred. Lots of apps open, it froze and I had to do a hard reset and now it won't boot past the gray screen.

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Answer 4

Nov 6, 2008 2:28 AM in response to Kevin Hinkson

Run the disc utility from your OS restore disc. Insert the disc, quit the installer, file menu>disc utility>repair disc. That should get it going again. If not, run the hardware test to look for more serious problems.

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Answer 5

Nov 6, 2008 8:02 AM in response to Silly rabbit

I'll try and let you know. I'm not sure it will even boot. It won't go into single user mode even.

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