how do I get the color wheel to stop spinning?

Brownboy06 wrote:

My MacBook Air had a colour ball and wouldn't do anything. I used the command/control/esc routine. It stopped the ball but now it won't do anything. I have a white arrow and a black screen. It's brand new!!

If you are looking for help it would be better to start your own thread rather than tacking onto this 5 year old thread. And when you start your own thread post details of your system and problem. Starting your own thread will increase your chances of getting focused assistance.

Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question

My MacBook Air had a colour ball and wouldn't do anything. I used the command/control/esc routine. It stopped the ball but now it won't do anything. I have a white arrow and a black screen. It's brand new!!

that? oh, that's called, I think, the spinning wheel of doom. It sorta means your mac is stuck on something. Try using "Activity Monitor" to see what it's stuck on. See if you can force quit that application. How much Ram do you have on board? Some things can be memory hogs and may not let go. for starters, try running disk utility and repairing permissions. That may solve your problem. Oh, b.t.w, this forum is for Mac Pro's, not Macbook Pro's, just wanted to mention it-it's a very common mistake, susan.

just remember-the Mac Pro is not usually portable, but the Macbook Pro is. failing that, try resetting the PMU/SMC. I can't remember how to do that, but you can find that info yourself elsewhere....well, good luck to you

JB

I cannot get to Force Quit or any application such as activity monitor. How do i "reset"

To invoke the Force Quit window, press Command-Option-Escape.

If no joy, try holding down the Control key while you press the Eject key. This is supposed to bring up this dialog:

If no joy there, you may have to resort to holding the Power-On key until the machine shuts off. This may leave un-repaired Directory damage, so it is a good idea to hold down the Shift key when you Restart. This invokes Safe Mode, which takes five minutes to run one pass of Disk Utility (Repair Disk), then starts with minimal extensions loaded. You will need your username and password to log in, even if you normally auto-login.

Poke around a little, if all looks OK, you can restart in normal mode.

for starters, try running disk utility and repairing permissions.

The "Heavy Lifting" in Disk Utility is done by (Repair Disk). You don't even need (Repair Permissions) unless an Application refuses to launch.

you need to consider why and underlying problems. Force quit may mean there are corrupt files or that any file being written will have its integrity and structure problems.

DU Repair Disk only deals with the index to files, the directory, not with the actual files themselves.

Clone the drive with CCC and turn on checksum to insure that each file copied is a valid file (may still have bad data content though).