Mac won't boot: stuck on apple logo and spinning wheel

Try this:

Booting From An OS X Installer Disc

1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.

2. Restart the computer.

3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.

4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.

5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

If you have a problem with the above, then try:

1. Restart the computer.

2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.

3. Wait for the boot manager screen to appear, then insert the installer disc into the optical drive.

4. Wait until the disc is recognized and appears in the boot manager screen.

5. After the disc appears select it then click on the downward pointing arrow button.

5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

If you are running Snow Leopard, then reinstall it. Your HDD will not be erased, and all your data will be preserved.

If you are running Leopard then do this:

How to Perform an Archive and Install

An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.

1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.

Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions

Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.

3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.

4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.

5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.

6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

That information only told me that the drive is most likely still working. But you said that in your original post. However, from what you originally posted your OS X installation is corrupted. Reinstalling OS X should fix that.

So, in Disk Utility what do you observe in the Partition section? For example, this is a portion of my display:

Assuming the bottom partition on your drive is the Windows partition, what do you see above it? Is there a partition shown as in the above image or do you see just a gray space?

You have a Boot Camp partition and a Macintosh HD partition, the upper partition. Open Disk Utility and observe in the sidebar a display sort of like this:

Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select the Macintosh HD entry, click on the First Aid tab in the DU main window, click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/orTech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Now try reinstalling OS X using either the Snow Leopard or Archive and Install methods outlined previously.

Well, it must be mounted or I wouldn't see what is displayed in your images. Try selecting the grayed out Macintosh HD entry then clicking on the Mount icon in the DU toolbar.

All else fails then you will need to erase the Macintosh HD volume and reinstall from scratch.

Kappy,

I very much enjoyed your detailed explanations regarding tman101's issues and I have a very similar problem.

Please let me know if you are up for the challenge and I will post more details about what I have done so far!

Looking forward to it

Post away, however, it would be best to post your own separate topic. Nevertheless, if that's inconvenient then continue here.

Here is teh link to the new topic https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3561377