Freezes after restart

I have this issue too, as described in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5467585?answerId=23488518022#23488518022 (but without a solution yet)

I was able to recover from the same error with no loss of data. Take a deep breath and don't do anything that you can't undo like repartition and re-install.

Do the following: Boot in recovery mode (Command + R).

Run the diskutil. Find your mac partition and do verify and repair.

If you get an error like this: invalid-bs_jmpboot-in-boot-block-000000

Then its the same problem.. The Boot Record is corrupted and not marked as HFS so it won't boot. However the data was fine for me and I was able to repair this..

These two pages provide two different methods of correcting this.

http://steelpangolin.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/invalid-bs_jmpboot-in-boot-block-0 00000/

http://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/invalid-bs-jmpboot-in-boot-block-000000-t2895 .html

I did the Python script method.. I booted off an external disc and then proceeded to repair the disk as described (read the whole page carefully and even the comments as I had an error that was corrected by sudo).

Once I did that the drive was mounted right away and I rebooted and came up as Mavericks with no further problems.

From memory I did get an error like that, but I was able to correct it using disk repair. I basically reran repair until there were no more errors. I did this from the USB recovery drive because it didn't work when I booted from the recovery drive. So in other words, if I already fixed it using repair would using your methods work?

Also...these methods are very complicated for me. I am a bit annoyed that I have to go back to these 'windows style' fixes on a mac. Maybe I'll just wait for Apple to fix it. Or just wipe my hard drive like the guy in the other thread. A bit sad, but I need my laptop.

I'm also very gutted because I lost my engagement videos (just recorded on Saturday) when I restored from backup because my most recent backup was in September. Lesson learned - ALWAYS make a backup before doing any upgrade. Even an apple one 😟

Well, I went through remvoval and moving in single user mode of everything I could think of that may cause the issue, then gave up.

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The only solution I found that works perfectly requires another Mac and an extra empty drive.

You will have all your data, and a new clean Maverick install.

Plan on it taking about 10 hours.

1. Boot the problem mac in target mode (press t).
2. Connect the problem mac to a good 'booted' mac (firewire if possible).
3. Connect the extra drive to the good mac.
4. Download carbon copy clolner, and backup the problem mac to the extra drive.
5. Once done, try to boot the good Mac to the external drive (restart hold option), just to make sure its good... or actually, bad and sticks at the same place.
6. Disconnect the bad mac and restart, holding option.
7. Select the recovery drive.
8. Open disk utility.
9. Select the drive and erase.
10. Quit disk utility.
11. Run Reinstall Maverick selection (you have to be connected to the internet). You'll have to login with your apple id.
12. Install Maverick.It may do a start and stop as it realizes it needs to be a clean install.
13. When it installx, and you get to the language screen, click through.
14. When it asks about transferring, then plug in the external dirve (the clone).
15. Select Transfer from another Mac.
16. Select the external drive, migrate all check boxes and wait.
17. Once completed with the migration, you'll have a Maverick OS on your old Mac.

What a pain. I can only assume that someone at Apple clocked their nap time as recursive testing hours. I guess Apple needs to install security cameras in its testing labs :-)

For anyone reading this who is having this same problem after installing Mavericks..

I was just having this problem!! Got scared... REALLY SCARED, However what worked in the end for me was connecting my two hard drives to my IMac and restarting! At first i thought it would be best to try and restart with nothing connected to the iMac at all but that didn't work. Again what worked for me was turning the iMac off using the power button at the back,

then connecting my two external usb hard drives,

and then powering the iMac back up again.

Once they powered up it seemed to kick start the iMac into booting up properly, try it.. might work for you too, good luck 🙂

iMac Early 2013 osx Mavericks 10.9

So I finally 'fixed' this problem. What I did was:

- backup everything

- install Mavericks onto a USB drive

- restart computer and boot into USB drive

- wipe hard drive completely

- install Mavericks onto clean hard drive

- use Migration Assistant to transfer all my backed up files over (this worked really well)

Not rocket science, but I probably should have done this at the beginning considering how good Migration Assistant is.

The other bonus is my MBP is now much faster because of the formatted hard drive.

Same problem here with an iMac and the gray screen of death. Repair disk showed no problems. I am bailing and restoring 10.8.

I was able to defeat the gray screen of death via the following

1. Boot into recovery with Command-R
2. Use disk utility to erase and format the drive
3. Install clean version of Maverick
4. Reboot into Maverick (it worked with no gray screen of death!)
5. Migrate information from time machine backup using migration assistant
6. WooHoo! A working version of Maverick. 🙂 21 hours later. 😟

I'm stunned right now because this problem has happened to me again! The MBP with mavericks was working fine but after a recent reboot I get stuck at the grey screen again. Even worse recovery mode is not recognising my time machine back up! Argh!!! I'm terrified I'm going to lose all my files.

Redrock - I presume your fix can't be done from recovery mode?

When I get the spinning wheel for more than five mins, I power off 23-inch iMac then restart. Then it boots up OK. A little slower than with OSX 8, but it works.

I've tried Command R and disk util. No problems found.

When I have 10 hours, I'll back up my HD, erase it, then reinstall Maverick.

This is not how it should be, Apple must think of this problems before releasing updates. It must just work as they say. This happened to me too. I gave up and going 10.8.5 and will never update again. I can't trust apple any more.

I did the same: Downgraded to Mountain Lion via CCC-backup (TimeMachine-backup was broken) and I will not spend further hours in this crap.

Every time, the installation said "Installation successful", but hang with gray-screen and spinner on the next start.

I tried everything without success:

1. "Normal" update (Maverics-installer from Mac Appstore ran under Mountain Lion) -> FAILURE
2. Installation via Maverics rescure system with restoring data from other Mac (CCC-backup HDD) -> FAILURE
3. Installation via Maverics rescure system with restoring data from Time Machine backup -> FAILURE
4. Fresh Maverics-installation on reset/ereased SSD -> FAILURE
5. Fresh Maverics-installation on formated original Apple-HDD that was shipped with the MBP -> FAILURE
6. CCC-restore of Mountain Lion -> SUCCESS

This is NOT how an Apple-update is supposed to work and I will not spend any time or money on this.

At least the 5th try with an original stock MacBook Pro without any replaced HDD/SSD SHOULD have worked, but it did NOT.

Why do all big companies release buggy products these days? Apple, Microsoft, Sony, EA, ...

Just for your information guys - the same problem (grey screen with spinning beachball of death after reboot) also happends on Mountain Lion 10.8.5 machines - not only Mavericks - it's simply a very bad bug Apple has not attended to. Iv'e seen it on dozens of machines from customers ranging from schools to business to privat, from old iMac's and MBP'S to brand new MBP Retina's and Mac mini Servers... usually it's sufficient to reboot (hard) with powerkey or if you can restart it with ARD or ssh. boot into restore partition or safe mode and fix the permissions. Some machines howder. O SX 10.8.5 server's we had to shut off the login screen and go to autologin to make them come up with the finder window again...

hey Apple are you listening to your customers ? What about assigning some of these engineers back to the Mac OS X team now that you've got iOS 7 out the door ???

Yeah there is no real fix for mavericks yet. I tried calling and getting support, and I also took it to the Apple store. I even told the customer help through the phone, "all you are telling to do I have already tried", he then told me to just wait it out till mavericks comes out with a couple of more updates. The Apple Store wanted me to buy some kind of logic board for 200 bucks and something else for 800 bucks because they think it might be the graphics card or the whole mac might be messed up. I was like no way. So the only way to use my computer was to go into safe mode, but that got old fast because it also had some kind of thick squiggly white lines going through the whole mac screen. Safe mode dont allow time up machine to back anything. So what I did was save what I wanted manually. Then at start up, when restarting the mac, I held down the option key to go into startup manager. I went into disk utility and erased my whole mac hard drive. Then I went back to the main start up manager screen and installed the good old stressing Mavericks. It finally worked, mavericks installed perfectly. I guess mavericks, for some macs, installs correctly when it is a brand new empty hard drive. Then it took a while to install and add all my old stuff, but now i can go back and use my lovely mac, I love me mac it makes my life easier. This worked for me hopefully it works for some others out there. This was a painful and time consuming week, and all thanks to mavericks. I had my iMac for just about 4 years and no problems, until good old Mavrericks. 👿