Won't Boot past Grey screen - PLEASE help!!

So today I encountered my first major problem with my Macbook Pro.

Since the day I bought the Macbook Pro I noticed that the right side of the laptop was about 1/8th-1/4th inch higher than the left side as if the laptop might be slightly bent.

Also on startup the computer would make a sound near the Superdrive - Hard drive area.

Well today I picked the MBP up while it was running and burning a DVD from the right side then put my left hand under it in the center.

As I was walking it said "Internal Disc Error", or something of the sort. So I set it down, tried to eject the DVD by dragging it to the trash, twice, and it wouldn't eject. Then I right clicked and tried to eject, and it wouldn't. So I then tried shutting it down using Apple - Shutdown, twice, and that didn't work either. So I did a hard shutdown. Since then, the computer has done nothing but bring up a grey screen when turned on. I called Apple Support and they couldn't troubleshoot it over the phone, so I have an appointment Wednesday for them to look at it.

Does anyone know what could be wrong? If so, what do you think will happen?

PLEASE, any advice would be much appreciated. This computer is my life. I use it for work, school, and personal.

Start up up holding the option button and see if a picture of a hard drive appears, if not Im just going out on a limb here but it could be a failed hard drive, don't quote me I could be wrong.

Already tried the option button route.

After much research, I believe you are right. I'm 99% sure its the hard drive. I have an appointment with Apple Wednesday at 11:40am. Wish me luck.

I am kind of disappointed with Apple on this one. I wouldn't have thought it'd happen to me, but it did. Hopefully this will be the first and last hard drive replacement.

I found, especially with my old G4, that resetting the PRAM solved quite a few startup issues. Check out the article here.

I had this problem this morning. I was using my MBP before going to bed and just left it running and open when I tucked in for the night. In the morning I came back to it and saw it was sleeping (as expected) but I could not wake it no matter what I did. I powered it down with the button, let it rest for a second and tried to power it up only to get stopped at the grey screen no matter what I tried. Two days before I had upgraded the hard drive and RAM so I thought for sure it was a hard drive problem since I had never experienced such a violent death with RAM before. Before I tore it all the way down to put the old drive back in it I swapped the factory RAM back in it and it worked fine. So, if you have any other RAM laying around you may try it.

Fortunate I had purchased the new RAM just two days earlier I exchanged the bad sticks for a new pair and all is fine again. Good luck.

vansmith said:

I found, especially with my old G4, that resetting the PRAM solved quite a few startup issues. Check out the article here.

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Thanks for the info. Yeah I tried this yesterday with the Apple Support people over the phone and that didn't work either.

1993gt40 said:

I had this problem this morning. I was using my MBP before going to bed and just left it running and open when I tucked in for the night. In the morning I came back to it and saw it was sleeping (as expected) but I could not wake it no matter what I did. I powered it down with the button, let it rest for a second and tried to power it up only to get stopped at the grey screen no matter what I tried. Two days before I had upgraded the hard drive and RAM so I thought for sure it was a hard drive problem since I had never experienced such a violent death with RAM before. Before I tore it all the way down to put the old drive back in it I swapped the factory RAM back in it and it worked fine. So, if you have any other RAM laying around you may try it.

Fortunate I had purchased the new RAM just two days earlier I exchanged the bad sticks for a new pair and all is fine again. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Tried this too. I had put 4GB RAM in last week, worked just fine. So when it stopped working Monday, yesterday I put the 2GB back in and that didn't work.

I've still got a feeling its the hard drive. So today at lunch I'll be hopefully trying to do a firewire transfer to save some of my data.

UPDATE:

This has been the weirdest day ever.

So I borrowed a buddy of mine's Firewire cable, went to lunch and plugged the firewire into the MBP and into my G4.

Turned both computers on. Looked on the G4 and noticed nothing was showing up, so I figured my hard drive on the MBP was gone for good. Well, I don't know where this idea came from, but thank God for giving it to me. I restarted the G4, and as soon as it booted up, the MBP popped out the DVD then booted right up. Voila!!!! So, I quickly backed up all my software and things I needed from the MBP, and now I'm set. I am typing on the MBP right now.

Restarted it and ran a hardware test and it said everything was good.

Now I'm wondering if I should put the 4GB RAM back in or not? Our IT guy at work seems to think if it got to the grey screen when it wasn't booting, that it couldn't be the RAM. Any suggestions?