Hi guys and girls,
Recently I tried to update my 13 Inch Macbook which I purchased in the early to mid 2010 period. I have been operating Snow Leopard OS X 10.6. It was just a standard update from the apple updater which promised the newest version of flash. Anyway this update toook AGES. Hours. Then when it restarted i got the dreaded white/gray screen with a flashing prohibitory sign. I tried rebooting a few times and this screen always came up. So I went here:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Where I tried the steps suggested:
Firstly - Disconnect, test peripheral devices and network cables
I had nothing to disconnect.
Secondly - Perform a Safe Boot
The Mac didn't start up as expected so...
Thirdly - Reset the NVRAM / PRAM
I did this and the gray screen issue persisted so....
Fouthly - Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility
I did this and I managed to go to disk utility where I repaired the disk and the permissions. The permissions required repairs while the disk appeared to be ok. So then I restarted and it worked (granted it was extremely slow and boot up took like 10 + minutes) I managed to back up most of my files before continuing to use the computer for about two days. It often froze and needed rebooting. This was getting slower and slower till yesterday it needed rebooting and went back to the gray screen issue AGAIN. So i repeated step four by using the disk utility and repairing the disk. Again permissions had problems that it said it repaired. But after restarting from disk utility it went to a gray screen AGAIN on start up. Then i rebooted and it tried to boot up and it didn't go to a gray screen as such but it took so long to boot and it froze just as the desktop background loaded. So anyway I then rebooted and since then its been gray screens. So I decided to go to....
Fifthly - Remove third-party RAM and internal hardware
I had nothing to remove so I went onto...
Sixthly - Perform an Archive and Install installation of Mac OS X
Apparently Snow Leopard does this automatically so I didn't need to click any boxes or preferences when getting to the OS X installer that loads up when you boot from the disk. Unfortunately the first install was interupted because I thought I had made a mistake so I rebooted. Subsequently as I have tried to install/reinstall it always gets to about 30% of the installation (around 35 minutes remaining) before the progress bar of the installer goes BACK to approximately the 7% mark.... where it says it has like 42-44 minutes remaining..... It does this everytime. At which point the cd drive goes quiet and it sounds like its just not working. It seems to do this for hours with no change. It just stays on this mark.... Now i am using the Mac OS X install DVD i got with the Macbook so I should have no problems here right? I am not sure what to do? Can anyone help me reinstall this Macbook with the Snow Leopard operating system... and do I need to consider the dreaded Seventh Step???
Seventhly - Perform an Erase and Install installation of Mac OS X as a last resort
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Recently I tried to update my 13 Inch Macbook which I purchased in the early to mid 2010 period. I have been operating Snow Leopard OS X 10.6. It was just a standard update from the apple updater which promised the newest version of flash. Anyway this update toook AGES. Hours. Then when it restarted i got the dreaded white/gray screen with a flashing prohibitory sign. I tried rebooting a few times and this screen always came up. So I went here:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Where I tried the steps suggested:
Firstly - Disconnect, test peripheral devices and network cables
I had nothing to disconnect.
Secondly - Perform a Safe Boot
The Mac didn't start up as expected so...
Thirdly - Reset the NVRAM / PRAM
I did this and the gray screen issue persisted so....
Fouthly - Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility
I did this and I managed to go to disk utility where I repaired the disk and the permissions. The permissions required repairs while the disk appeared to be ok. So then I restarted and it worked (granted it was extremely slow and boot up took like 10 + minutes) I managed to back up most of my files before continuing to use the computer for about two days. It often froze and needed rebooting. This was getting slower and slower till yesterday it needed rebooting and went back to the gray screen issue AGAIN. So i repeated step four by using the disk utility and repairing the disk. Again permissions had problems that it said it repaired. But after restarting from disk utility it went to a gray screen AGAIN on start up. Then i rebooted and it tried to boot up and it didn't go to a gray screen as such but it took so long to boot and it froze just as the desktop background loaded. So anyway I then rebooted and since then its been gray screens. So I decided to go to....
Fifthly - Remove third-party RAM and internal hardware
I had nothing to remove so I went onto...
Sixthly - Perform an Archive and Install installation of Mac OS X
Apparently Snow Leopard does this automatically so I didn't need to click any boxes or preferences when getting to the OS X installer that loads up when you boot from the disk. Unfortunately the first install was interupted because I thought I had made a mistake so I rebooted. Subsequently as I have tried to install/reinstall it always gets to about 30% of the installation (around 35 minutes remaining) before the progress bar of the installer goes BACK to approximately the 7% mark.... where it says it has like 42-44 minutes remaining..... It does this everytime. At which point the cd drive goes quiet and it sounds like its just not working. It seems to do this for hours with no change. It just stays on this mark.... Now i am using the Mac OS X install DVD i got with the Macbook so I should have no problems here right? I am not sure what to do? Can anyone help me reinstall this Macbook with the Snow Leopard operating system... and do I need to consider the dreaded Seventh Step???
Seventhly - Perform an Erase and Install installation of Mac OS X as a last resort
Any help would be greatly appreciated.