I have a Mac Mini (18 months old OS 10.3.7) which when turned on produces the gray screen with spinning wheel only. Nothing else happens. It started when I woke it up from sleep and clicked on my browser which wouldn't open. I restarted only to get this gray screen. I tried the option, X, command and command/option/o/f keys. Nothing. I repaired the Permissions and disk. I didn't see a "startup drive" drive to repair. The message I got was: 1 HFS volume repaired 1 volume could not be repaired There was a comment that some minor repair was needed. Anyway, didn't work. Any ideas? *
Do you have any disk utilities like TechTool Pro or DiskWarrior? If not, then I would invest in either or. It sounds like you need the filesystem to be repaired. If that still doesn't work then back your stuff up, and do a repair installation of Mac OS X. If that still doesn't work, erase the HD and do a fresh install. If that doesn't work, replace the HD. I dont think it will go as far as replacing the HD. Its most likely the file system is screwed up. Either TechTool Pro and/or DiskWarrior can tell you that and 99% of the time, fix whatever is wrong.
I do have another Mac. This sounds promising. I just need the 6 to 6. Thanks. I'll do a erase/install after I recover my data. That should do it.
Target didn't work but I did an archival install, retrieved all my data then a clean install. Working now. Thank!
Mac Mini Gray Screen - A solution which works at last I have submitted a solution for this.... Check and revert...