I have 20" Intel Core 2 duo iMac with 2G RAM, 250 GB hard drive.
This 'won't pass blank grey screen' scenario has happened to me for quite a few times now.
You can skipped "First Time" and "Second Time" if you don't have time to read. Please go straight to "Third Time (most recent)" section cos' I need help there!
First Time
-----------
What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and Vista Ultimate 32 bits
What happened: won't pass blank grey screen
Tried: pressing 'c' to boot from leopard CD, resetting PRAM, holding mac mouse to eject without success.
Story:
I finally took the mac to store and left it there for a few days till they called me up. They said they tested the hardware which was fine and said software has some issues. I went there and the guy told me to hold down that magic 'c' again while booting and it BOOTED into the leopard cd in one shot. I did a clean install of Leopard and windows.
Problem solved!
Second Time
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What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and XP Pro 32 bits
What happened: won't pass BLANK grey screen.
Tried: pressing 'c' to boot from leopard CD, resetting PRAM, holding mac mouse to eject without success, etc..
Story:
This time, I didn't take it to store. After my iMac was fixed from the first time, I did install XP Pro I got from my university (you can still see I didn't give up dual booting yet) after Vista failed on me. But this stupid grey screen came up every time again. My leopard cd was in the cd-drive which ran at the startup and then nothing happened with 'c' pressed. So I was frustated and left it like that and was using my laptop. Two days ago, I restarted my mac and wala! it booted straight into Leopard. I didn't press anything. It was MAGIC. I can't believe it.
Problem solved!
Third Time (most recent, different from above two, NEED some HELP HERE!!!!)
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What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and XP Pro 32 bits
What happened***: won't pass the grey screen WITH AN APPLE logo***.
Tried:
0. I haven't put in my leopard CD yet. Because once I put it in, it WILL NOT come out!
1. Pressed 'X' - no response.
2. Pressed 'option' - nothing happened (this time, the apple logo disappears from the grey screen after boot up, but nothing after that)
3. Pressed 'ctrl+S'. Nothing happened (grey screen with apple)
4. Pressed 'cmd+S'. Then it booted in to a black screen and showed me some texts. I copied the last few lines below:
...
....
....
Mac framework successfully initialized
using 10485 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
devfs_make_node: not ready for devices!
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 vectors 64:87
ACPI: syster state [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
mbinit: done
Security auditing service present
BSM auditing present
rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: C611669E-6047-3161-A8E6-327A8F98BEAC
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 built-in now active, GUID 001cb3fffe9eda40; max speed x800.
wl0: Broadcom BCM4328 802.11 Wireless Controller
Sometimes, the last two lines: "FireWire (OHCI)....." and "wl0: Broadcom...." showed up, but not always. It stucked at "Waiting on <dict....." line usually.
PLEASE HELP ME!! I don't have a car to take it to the store. I have to bother my friend again. So I want to solve it at home.
Thanks a lot!
kk
This 'won't pass blank grey screen' scenario has happened to me for quite a few times now.
You can skipped "First Time" and "Second Time" if you don't have time to read. Please go straight to "Third Time (most recent)" section cos' I need help there!
First Time
-----------
What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and Vista Ultimate 32 bits
What happened: won't pass blank grey screen
Tried: pressing 'c' to boot from leopard CD, resetting PRAM, holding mac mouse to eject without success.
Story:
I finally took the mac to store and left it there for a few days till they called me up. They said they tested the hardware which was fine and said software has some issues. I went there and the guy told me to hold down that magic 'c' again while booting and it BOOTED into the leopard cd in one shot. I did a clean install of Leopard and windows.
Problem solved!
Second Time
------------
What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and XP Pro 32 bits
What happened: won't pass BLANK grey screen.
Tried: pressing 'c' to boot from leopard CD, resetting PRAM, holding mac mouse to eject without success, etc..
Story:
This time, I didn't take it to store. After my iMac was fixed from the first time, I did install XP Pro I got from my university (you can still see I didn't give up dual booting yet) after Vista failed on me. But this stupid grey screen came up every time again. My leopard cd was in the cd-drive which ran at the startup and then nothing happened with 'c' pressed. So I was frustated and left it like that and was using my laptop. Two days ago, I restarted my mac and wala! it booted straight into Leopard. I didn't press anything. It was MAGIC. I can't believe it.
Problem solved!
Third Time (most recent, different from above two, NEED some HELP HERE!!!!)
-----------
What I had: Bootcamp Dual boot with Leopard and XP Pro 32 bits
What happened***: won't pass the grey screen WITH AN APPLE logo***.
Tried:
0. I haven't put in my leopard CD yet. Because once I put it in, it WILL NOT come out!
1. Pressed 'X' - no response.
2. Pressed 'option' - nothing happened (this time, the apple logo disappears from the grey screen after boot up, but nothing after that)
3. Pressed 'ctrl+S'. Nothing happened (grey screen with apple)
4. Pressed 'cmd+S'. Then it booted in to a black screen and showed me some texts. I copied the last few lines below:
...
....
....
Mac framework successfully initialized
using 10485 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
devfs_make_node: not ready for devices!
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 vectors 64:87
ACPI: syster state [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
mbinit: done
Security auditing service present
BSM auditing present
rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: C611669E-6047-3161-A8E6-327A8F98BEAC
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 built-in now active, GUID 001cb3fffe9eda40; max speed x800.
wl0: Broadcom BCM4328 802.11 Wireless Controller
Sometimes, the last two lines: "FireWire (OHCI)....." and "wl0: Broadcom...." showed up, but not always. It stucked at "Waiting on <dict....." line usually.
PLEASE HELP ME!! I don't have a car to take it to the store. I have to bother my friend again. So I want to solve it at home.
Thanks a lot!
kk