Grey Screen even with Install Disk

Hello All,

No idea if I'm posting this in the right place, hopefully I am.

Earlier today I was working on something in Parallels on my iMac, OS X 10.6.8. It froze and so did the rest of the computer. Nothing I did got a response so I did a manual shut down. When I rebooted all I got was a grey screen. I haven't had this happen before but I know it's a common issue.

I tried a couple different things. I can safeboot the computer. I ran disk utility and got a message that the disk needed to be repaired. I put in the Snow Leopard disk, held down C, but time after time all I get is a grey screen.

I've booted from the install disk before, so I don't think I'm just timing things wrong. I get the feeling the computer is reading the install disk, it just isn't displaying anything.

I ran disk utility again after this to see what the error was and it then said everything was fine. I verified the permissions, no problems there either. However, the grey screen persists if I just try to boot up like normal.

Are there other options here? I have nothing else connected except a mouse and keyboard

Did your machine come preinstalled with Snow Leopard? If it did, make sure you're using the correct disk to boot the machine. Also, try holding down the OPTION key when booting to see if that works.

I suspect the problem is your hard drive acting up. Are you still able to boot to safe mode? If you can get back into safe mode, it might be a good idea to back up what data you can.

This machine is kind of old, I think it came with 10.4? I'm borrowing it, so I'm not sure. However a new hard drive was installed in April. When I've had issues in the past, I've used the.snow leopard disk.

From safemode I backed everything up and eventually got to the install disk. I ran disk utility from there. It detected no errors. I did a system restore to a time machine back up from a few hours before the problem started. The new issue is now it won't boot.

The restore process said it was completed successfully and to restart. I did and the computer just sat at the Apple screen for 20 minutes...