Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Grey Screen OF DOOM!

  • 20-11-2013 5:40pm
    #1
    pandaboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 618 ✭✭✭


    Right, I'm suffering from the grey screen of doom. I tried to play a video on YouTube the other day, Chet Baker (hopefully he didn't break it) and my mac froze. Did a manual shut down by holding the power button for 10 seconds. Went to restart the machine and it's been stuck on the grey loading screen.

    What I've done so far:
    1.Reset PRAM & VRAM
    2.A Safe Boot (Now I got as far as logging in, and then restarting the machine. It worked as normal but took a little longer to load up. The minute I clicked on finder it froze and I'm back to where I begin.
    I've done numerous Safe Boots since and it now gets stuck when the Prompt/Black Screen White text appears.

    What I haven't done so far:
    1. Opened Utilities folder from the boot disk. My optical drive is bust, so it won't read disks and I don't have an ISO image or another mac to boot to a flash drive.
    2. Put the mac into Target mode while connected to another mac and repairing the system's Disk volumes
    3.Thrown the mac out the window.

    It's a first gen 20" aluminium imac, running 10.5. The optical drive is knackered, so I can only boot from a flash drive. I now longer have the 10.5Upgrade disk. I currently have a Snow Leopard disk, which I was going to run the utility folder from but I don't know if this can be done as this version of OSX is not installed on my mac.

    I'm stuck for answers here, and I've tried everything, pretty much. I'd love someone's help or advice on this. I'm based in Cork as well if there's a good soul willing to spare some time and their mac to try to do a reinstall.


Comments

  • #2
    ZENER
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,163 ✭✭✭ZENER


    The Snow Leopard disk should work fine. I'm assuming your iMac is the Aluminium model which should make it an Intel CPU - required by 10.6.

    Disk Utility should be the first port of call with a repair permissions sweep to see if it could be as simple as that.

    Ken


  • #3
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,693 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    Hard drive is probably failing. You'll need to boot off an install disk somehow to confirm.


  • #4
    nialler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭nialler


    Panda sounds like the HD is failing or failed, I had the exact thing this year with my 20" iMac model which is the same as yours and the same symptoms.

    I have the 10.8 and 10.7 installer on my HD at home you just clone it to a 8gb or 16gb stick and you can install that way without the need for an optical drive.

    Replacing the HD is fairly simple, you will need a paint scraper (really thin) to price off the front glass panel (it's held on by magnets) and then torx drivers to remove the screen, replace with a 1tb sata 3.5" drive and you're done, just install the system.

    Or go buy a cheap samsung external DVD writer and that'll allow you to install from Disc.


  • #5
    Ciaran_B
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭Ciaran_B


    Don't forget you can reinstall the OS over the internet. I had to do that recently when I had the same issue. Total life-saver, couldn't find my Snow Leopard disc.


  • #6
    nialler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭nialler


    Don't think you can do that on 10.6 Ciaran, was introduced with the hidden recovery partition in 10.7.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    Ciaran_B
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭Ciaran_B


    That's a pity. Very helpful feature.


  • #8
    pandaboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 618 ✭✭✭pandaboy


    Cheers for the replies. I found my snow leopard disc, and got a loan of an external optical drive. I booted in disk recovery to perform a repair - the HD is knackered, hardware fault. It's highlighted in red, but I also did a verify and repair on the HD volume which looks to be intact, so every cloud has its silver lining.

    Next port of call is pick up a USB key, create an ISO with disk recovery and boot from that. Back Up the HD to a fresh HD. Is there a way of cloning the archive? I've got software installed on the machine but haven't got the original files, so replacing the HD would result in a loss.

    Anyway, going to install a new 1TB drive and replace the optical drive with a SSD for software and OS. Ironically, this machine is going to become an archival machine. I've too much media - video and photography mainly so I'm investing in an external optical drive and archiving all my work to Dual Layer DVD.

    I'll keep ye posted, but if everything goes to plan it looks fairly straight forward. Thanks again for the replies, I would've replied sooner but I had email notifications off :/ buggah


Advertisement