New hard drive installation, but grey screen...

Hello all Mac geniuses! I have my brothers Mac Book which he has gone and purchased a 250GB hard drive for. The old hard drive had a problem and was disposed of. He has given it to me to ‘sort out’, but I hate to say it, but I am a PC noob and I know nothing about Macs.
Here’s what happens…
I’ve installed the hard drive. Then I power it up, I get the Mac sound with the grey screen, then after about 30 secs I get the folder with a question mark inside flashing at me. I have seen that you can hold down ‘C’ whilst booting up (with the Mac OSX disc in), but I just get the Apple logo with the spinning cog underneath, then it just shuts down??!!
Do I need to partition/format the hard drive first? I have no clue on what to do to sort out this MacBook!
If someone could help, I’d be eternally greatful!
Regards, Steve.

Sounds like you need to format the hard drive:

- boot from the Mac OS install DVD
- go up to the top of the screen...and you should get some drop-down menu's
- open "Disk Utility"
- format the HD with "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
- then quit Disk Utility
- proceed with OS install

HTH,

- Nick

And to boot from the OS X disc, pop it in, reboot and immediately after the chime hold down the 'C' key. You do have his install discs?

Booting from discs...

Many thanks to you all for replying!
I have put in the original OSX disc and have already held down the 'C' key whilst powering it up. Do I need to wait for the chime first?
When I hold down 'C', I get the apple image and the spinning cog, but then it just powers down, no options etc at all. On a PC, I would normally partition the hard drive first in my other PC so that the laptop recognizes it. Would I need to partition the new hard drive first? And can I do it in a PC?
Thanks again! Steve.
By the way, when I press the eject button, it won't eject the OS disk!!! I even need to know how to do a simple thing like that!

Holding the eject button or mouse button on startup should eject the cd. Their is a chance your install cd is messed up. Try another disk if you can find one.

Booting from the OS disk...

Many thanks for the info, i'll try this and see what I come up with.
Thanks again, Steve.

Might be a disc problem?!

Okay, firstly thanks for at least giving me the knowledge on how to get the Install DVD ejected! I have looked at the underside of the DVD, and yes it is rather scratched! My brother doesn't really realize the importance of these disks! I have cleaned it the best I can, but there are still scratches there. I put it back into the drive, held down 'C' whilst powering on, and after a bit of reading the disk with the Apple logo and spinning cog on the screen, it powers down, so it must then be the disk.
I am hoping to get a Snow Leopard Install DVD later to see if that will install!
I've never used a Mac before, and I'm surprised that there is no manual way to get in and format the hard drive, then install manually from the OS disk like you can do on a PC via the BIOS and the command prompt.
Thanks again to you all for advising me! I'll keep this thread updated on whether I fix it or not!

I'm not aware of any way to format a hard drive on a PC via the BIOS and/or without a boot disc that has the appropriate tools available, like fdisk, in order to use the command prompt. Not unless the mobo manufacturers have added some new fangled thing out there in the last 3 years or so that I've quit repairing Win machines.

There really is no reason for a separate boot disc to format the drive if you're going to be installing OS X as it's all available right there on the OS X disc.

whats a Mac? said:

Okay, firstly thanks for at least giving me the knowledge on how to get the Install DVD ejected! I have looked at the underside of the DVD, and yes it is rather scratched! My brother doesn't really realize the importance of these disks! I have cleaned it the best I can, but there are still scratches there. I put it back into the drive, held down 'C' whilst powering on, and after a bit of reading the disk with the Apple logo and spinning cog on the screen, it powers down, so it must then be the disk.
I am hoping to get a Snow Leopard Install DVD later to see if that will install!
I've never used a Mac before, and I'm surprised that there is no manual way to get in and format the hard drive, then install manually from the OS disk like you can do on a PC via the BIOS and the command prompt.
Thanks again to you all for advising me! I'll keep this thread updated on whether I fix it or not!

Click to expand...

If your macbook is one of the newer ones (2010 or later I think), it wont boot from a retail SL disc... If this is the case you will have to find a disc meant for your model computer. Also if their is another mac which you have access to you could try to boot from the disc on that computer to make sure that is the problem.

Booting from the OS disk...

Hi,
Update as follows...
My Bro has 2 disks and a manual with his MacBook. The OS Install DVD 10.5.5, and the applications install DVD.
I power up the machine, then insert the OS install DVD. I then power down, the power up again whilst holding down the 'C' key. I get the apple logo and underneath a spinning cog. This stays on for about 20 seconds then the MacBook just switches off.
I am at the moment copying the OS DVD onto another disc, just incase it is the original disc that it knackered. I will be trying it is about 15 mins!

Booting from the OS disk...

thurstmw:
That's interesting! I think it is fairly new. Probably from 2010.

Booting from the OS disk...

Well, i've tried everything, and it keeps on switching off before any option appear onscreen for me to format etc.
I might have to tell him to take it to the Apple shop and let them sort it.
Thanks very much chaps for all of your help!
Steve.

Maybe Hard Drive??

Just to let you guys know, there is a brand new 250GB hard drive installed which has not had anything on it yet. Literally out of the box and into the Mac. There aren't specific hard drives for Macs are there? I thought that all SATA drives could be used for anything? Could this be the reason why the Mac powers down before I see the options to format etc?

Problem found and sorted...

Hi chaps,
Well it ended up that the main board and/or processor had died. This was why it was getting so far booting pre operating system, then when it waits for a command it just powers down. This is what the Apple engineer said. To be fair, he tried everything and was baffled himself, although he did mention the possibility of a faulty CPU board at the start.
I sold the laptop for parts.
Thanks to you all for your help with the problem!