Was getting white screen or Gray Apple with spinner -- finally got it to attempt reboot in Safe Mode -- but it is still spinning after an hour? How long should it take to boot in safe mode?
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)
Not that long. Your system is damaged and needs to be reinstalled provided your hard drive is still functioning.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
Not that long. Your system is damaged and needs to be reinstalled provided your hard drive is still functioning.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
It worked - no disk errors and downloading Mavericks to reinstall.... this hard drive has some age on it so I may go ahead and look into replacing it anyway but at least this got me back in and I can back up everything.
Thanks.
I have run disk utility and it says that my Macintosh HD appears to be OK. I ran fsck and it said that the Volume is ok. I try to boot in safe mode but the loading bar crashes after about 25%. I have reinstalled my OS X successfully but on the restart it gets stuck on the loading screen again.
I had the same problem. I went to repair disk, which told me my hard drive was ruined. Welp, I rebooted after that and it was back to normal. Weird!
Macbook Pro stuck on safe boot screen
