IMac stuck on grey Apple screen HELP!

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Hi, I am a new forum member, I have looked at some of the advice and tried the 'cmd, alt, p r' option and still no progress. I also get a slot type diagram at the bottom of the screen, mine is a 2007 iMac, upgraded memory and now on Lion. It had been working well, nobody has done anything, it has been running normally. Any ideas on how to get in to my computer? I have a Snow Leopard CD but I don't think. Have any other discs, it is a long time ago! I am not very technical so simple advice please. Also I am in Dubai so we have no official Apple support.:(
 

chscag

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Try this first: Hold down the option key as soon as you hear the "chime". If the iMac boots to the selection screen, choose the recovery partition. If it then goes to the recovery partition, select Disk Utility and run a verify and repair.

If it refuses to boot past the gray screen, try booting the machine with your Snow Leopard DVD. Insert the SL disk and hold down the C key as soon as you hear the "chime". If it boots to the SL disk, accept English as the language, then go to the top menu and select "Utilities", "Disk Utility". Highlight the drive on the left side and then select the "First Aid" tab on the right side. Now run a verify and repair.

Let us know what happens.
 
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The 1st option worked in that it let me access the Snow Leopard CD, it says it cannot repair the disc but can erase and restore so I am trying that as I have system back up on my Tme Machine disc drive. Am currently in the erase stage, will let you know how it goes. Issue seems to be space as there is not much left on my hard drive. Thanks SO much for your help!!!
 
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When this happens to my iMac I pull the power cord from the rear of the screen and wait 60 seconds re-install the plug and then power it up.

This has happened many many times and this always works for me. I don't recall where I learned this but my iMac has gotten stuck on the gray boot screen more time than I can count.

Hope this helps.

Tom
 
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Thanks now fixed :)

The solution of pressing the key with the Snow Leopard disc in worked, I then erased the hard drive and restored from the Time Machine and have now erased a lot of unwanted items and moved all my pictures to a second back up drive as the hard disc was showing very full.

What a waste of a good weekend day! However, am VERY grateful to this forum for saving my Mac as was on the verge of giving up on it after a lot of issues this year.

Tom, I had tried the on off thing and that had worked but the hard disc was gone this time.

Thanks again

Mary
 
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Mary make sure the hard drive keeps at least 15% free space to work anywhere near efficiently. Otherwise a drive can become confused booting into the OS causing what you described.
 

chscag

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When this happens to my iMac I pull the power cord from the rear of the screen and wait 60 seconds re-install the plug and then power it up.

This has happened many many times and this always works for me. I don't recall where I learned this but my iMac has gotten stuck on the gray boot screen more time than I can count.

Hope this helps.

Tom

All you're doing there is resetting the System Management Controller. Your machine shouldn't be getting hung up at the gray screen to the point where you have to reset the SMC that many times. Might be a good idea to have Apple check out the machine if it's still covered under warranty or extended Apple care.
 
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Thx, that is really useful advice, it is certainly working much better now I have cleared out a lot of stuff onto to another drive.
 

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