HELP! Stuck on grey screen with apple logo and progress indicator

Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I have a macbook running leopard and its stuck on the grey start-up screen with the apple logo and the progress indicator. I had Firefox, ichat, itunes running, and I did a restart and then it just got stuck on the grey screen, no matter what I do.

I was able to run disk utility from the installation cd, and after repairing the disk, it said the volume was working properly.

I've also tried running single-user mode and running fsck, which also said the volume was working properly.

I tried booting in safe mode, but it didn't work, it stayed on the grey screen also (unless there is something I did wrong there).

I'm not sure what else to try... any help please??
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2008
Messages
1,760
Reaction score
23
Points
38
Location
Leicester, England
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook, iPod Classic, 8GB 3G iPhone, Time Capsule
Archive and install? Can't think of anything else you haven't already done.
 
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 200GB
Strange that the same thing happened to me today! Actually, I had my MBP up for about two days and left it on today after a morning of coding. When I came back 3 hours later, I tried to open up the terminal and got an error sayig that I didn't have rights to open this application. My friend is a unix guru, so he came over to take a look. When we opened system preferences and selected accounts, the window was blank. I don't mean threre were no users; I mean it was totally grey with no buttons or fields. I freaked out, and emailed myself the code I was working on this morning. We then restarted, and we were presented with that great first welcome video you see when you first boot up leopard. It asked us to create a new account, and we did without really knowing what to expect. We restarted again after creating a new acoount, and never saw my desktop again. It would stick at the gray screen with the progress meter and would eventually just restart and repeat the same pattern. Scary stuff. We did everthing, including repairing permissions, repairing the drive, and he did a bunch of fscks and who knows what else. The only intresting part of the process was when I booted into the install dvd and selected the startup disk option, my hard disk was not available as one of the options. So now I am running a time machine restore (only 4 hours left). Let's hope for the best I guess...
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
The same thing happened to me. I recently did an OS upgrade. I swear one time I did an OS upgrade that I just realized today while poking around messed up my power control unit.

I tried all of the fixes above and nothing worked. I went to reinstall my OS and it told me that I have 1.7 gb free on my HD which is too little to reinstall OSX even without options.

How do I go in manually and delete some files to create space? I'm not real mac-savvy - it doesn't give me enough problems to require me to learn all of this.

Thanks.
 
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 200GB
Hey! You should be able to log in as single user and access the command line. When your Mac is booting up, hold down command+s, which boots into single user mode. From here, you can ls to list the files, cd to change directories, and rm to remove files. It may work, may not, depending on some type of permissions issues... I wish you the best of luck, though :)
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Thanks Andre - are those the actual commands?
"ls" "cd" etc? I would just like a list of files that I can review to remove a few media files.
 
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 200GB
Hey! Yes, those are the actual commands: ls will list the files and folders, cd is short for change directory (to go back, use cd ..), and rm is short for remove. Be careful with rm though: don't delete something u aren't sure of! good luck!
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I'm too weak to know how to do this - can anyone give me the command sequence to open my machine, go into the program files and remove a program?

Thanks!
 
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 200GB
When you start your computer, hold down command+s to boot into single user mode. This will bring you to a prompt, which should be in your root folder. If you type ls (that is LS, but in lowercase) this will list the files in the current folder. I am pretty sure it boots in the root folder, but I'm not 100% sure... I'll assume it does for the time being.

To find your applications type:
cd Applications
ls

This will change the directory to your Applications folder, then it will print out all of the files in this folder. To delete an application, type

rm <applicationName>

It should prompt you to confirm you want to delete this application, then it's gone!
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
can anyone think why this isn't working for me? Do I type the application name as vlc.app?

I think this is what I tried and it didn't recognize the command.
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
does anyone else have any advice? this is really frustrating. When i type in the command, like rm <vlc.app> it seems like nothing happens. This is really starting to make me crazy.
 
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 200GB
Hey! This is a super old thread man :) You should have given up a long time ago, but anyway...

To follow the instructions I had originally, you have to boot into "single-user mode", NOT "safe-mode". To boot into single user mode (which gives you a command prompt where you can type in the stuff I was describing above), simply hold down command+s while your computer is booting.

The application name is vlc.app, so to delete the vlc program, go to the Applications folder with:

cd Applications

then delete vlc with

rm vlc.app

It should prompt you to make sure you want to delete it.
Hope that helps!
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
and now my install disk is stuck in the drive and I can't get it out and can't run fdisk there has to be someone out there who knows more than I do LOL


When I run that command above it says vlc.app is a directory?


BTW I won't give up I have nothing to lose bc if I can't get this to work I'm trashing the thing anyway.
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Sorry I meant to say I was in single user mode.

When I try to boot in single user mode from the single user screen i ge a bounjour workaround mode error then it seems to cycle through a lengthy repetitive error message.

Any ideas?
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top