Grey screen - won't go away

[muaythai]

My MacBook Pro (10.7.3) gets stuck in grey screen after restart. To get it to boot, at the very least, I have to run disk utitlities and repair permissions. Today I had to restore from time machine to get it past the grey screen. I'm afraid to restart the machine now and I won't unless I really have to.

Normally I'd just take my sick mac to the Apple store but the country I'm in doesn't have an Apple store. I need to make it through this month before I return to the US.

Would putting on a fresh version of Lion help things at all? What other troubleshooting steps should I consider, if any?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Have you tried any of these steps besides the ones you mentioned?

Mac doesn't boot

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck

Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on

A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac​

And what about just using the SLEEP feature, surely your Mac can live with sleeping for a month while not in use?

 

[Baytriple]

If it happens again. Make sure you remove anything connected to the comp. like USB drives. My machine does this sometimes.

 

[muaythai]

Thanks for the links- I'll check 'em out. I think it may be a dying hard drive as it's started to make those telltale grinding noises