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TICKET ARCHIVE -> MacBook Hanging at Grey Apple Screen

ssauce - Oct 12, 2006 - 6:22 am

I opened my MacBook this morning, waking it from sleep, and found that I was able to move the cursor, but that it was otherwise completely unresponsive. After waiting several minutes to be sure that it wasn't going to start working, I force restarted, and now to my horror, the system will not boot past the grey apple screen with the twirling status indicator.

Prior to this morning the computer seemed to be working fine. Startup took less than a minute, and was working perfectly. I recently got my MacBook back from Apple after having the heatsink replaced for random shutdowns, and the CD/DVD drive replaced for jamming on loaded media, but as I said things have been working fine since I got it back.

I would appreciate any help, and will give any other information that may be necessary to solve this problem.

Thanks!

bobw - Oct 12, 2006 - 7:07 am

Hi Spencer

Can you boot from the OS X installer disc by holding the C key down?

If you can, run the Disk Repair under the Utility menu (after you get past the Language screen.

If this doesn't fix it, or you can't boot from that disc, call Apple for service.

bobw
http://www.macosx.com

ssauce - Oct 12, 2006 - 8:57 pm

I am able to start from the installation disc after quite a long delay at the blank grey screen, however attempting to repair the disk from the installation disc results in an error:

"Invalid B-tree node size.
Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit."

So you're saying I have no alternative save taking the computer back to Apple and waiting around for them to do something? If possible, I'd like to remedy this situation myself.

Thanks again
-Spencer

bobw - Oct 13, 2006 - 5:07 am

Spencer

If it was a PowerPC rather than an Intel Mac, I would tell you to get Diskwarrior;

http://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/support.html

If the drive wasn't shot, this program would repair it, but it's not available for the Intel Macs yet.

TechTool Pro supports your machine and may be able to repair the damage;

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?op...ask=view&id=31


Your only other option is to reformat the drive and reinstall the system. If the drive isn't shot, this will correct the drives directory.

The only other option would be to call Apple for service.

bobw
http://www.macosx.com

ssauce - Oct 13, 2006 - 7:38 am

Thanks for the help. I'll see if I can get my hands on TechTool Pro.

Thanks again for your time.

-Spencer

bobw - Oct 13, 2006 - 7:40 am

Glad to help.

bobw