Macbook pro - startup grey screen then black freeze

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mowog44 Author

Level 1

4 points

Macbook pro - startup grey screen then black freeze

Hi folks.

I have trawled through lots of other advice and have tried loads of it but nothing seems to work.

I have a MacBook pro 17 running 10.5.8

After a shut down it now will not start back up.

I get the mac "bong" and a grey screen with the apple logo and the spinning gear.

That stays for about 4 mins then the screen goes black and does nothing else.

I can hear the HD doing something for a further 1 min or so then nothing.

Only way to turn off is press and hold power button.

I have reset smc and pram no joy.

Any further suggestions much appreciated.

Any questions that might help diagnose please ask.

Cheers

macbook pro 17, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 6, 2012 8:40 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Andrew Wolczyk

Level 5

5,249 points

Jan 6, 2012 8:47 AM in response to mowog44

Boot while holding Command + S keys. Hold them until you get a black screen with white text. Allow that screen to load, then type fsck -yf and hit return. Allow that to run until you get the message "The System has been modified" or "The disk appears to be okay" then type reboot and hit return.

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Answer 2

mowog44 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 6, 2012 9:43 AM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Hi.

After following your instructions I ended with the message "the system has been modified". Rebooted.

I have done all that but I'm still left with a black screen :-(

Any further ideas ????

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Answer 3

Jan 6, 2012 9:55 AM in response to mowog44

Insert your system install disk and boot while holding the C key. If it boots normally its a software issue. If not its likely a hardware problem.

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Answer 4

mowog44 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 6, 2012 10:52 AM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Unfortunately my SuperDrive has been acting up for a couple of years (just one of those things I've learned to live without) and as such will only play CDs but not DVDs.

If I link the laptop to a mac mini and switch the laptop to target disc mode could I diagnose the problem but running disk ulitity on the mini but getting it to look the laptop hd ????

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Answer 5

Jan 6, 2012 12:54 PM in response to mowog44

Start the mac mini in target disk mode (Hold T key at boot until you see the firewire symbol). Connect the mini to the MBP with a firewire cable. Then boot the MBP while holding the Option key. You should get a grey screen with a list of available startup disks. Choose the Mini's HD and see if it boots.

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Answer 6

Jan 6, 2012 12:56 PM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Also, you could start the laptop in Target Disk Mode and try to run disk utility on it from the Mini.

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Answer 7

mowog44 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 6, 2012 3:43 PM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Finally managed a stable restart - yay.

This is how I did it in case it helps anyone else.

I put the mbp into target drive mode and then restarted the mini with OSS disks as startup.

Then I got the mini (and disks) to archive and re-install the os onto the mbp.

First restart the Mbp froze on grey screen with a frozen spinning gear.

Pressed and held power button until the mbp went off.

Restarted and stayed on and appears to be stable.

I guess the last question is whether I should keep the archived copy of the os ???

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Answer 8

Jan 13, 2013 6:32 PM in response to mowog44

I have the same problem. Can you tell me how you did the archive? did you use a utility or just copy everything over???

I put me MBP into target mode and ran a disk utility on it. verify indicated that repair had to run. ran the repair and it was successful. I had hoped that this would fix my mbp issue but it has not.

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