Mac won't boot past grey screen

[wickedking94]

So I did the dumbest thing i've ever done in my life.
I slammed my hand into my MacBook Pro, and now it wont boot past the Grey Screen. It still has the OK chime on startup though.

Yes. Im a moron.

I knew right away that its a hard drive problem, so I booted using my Lion DVD and ran disk utility and checked my hard drive. Disk utility reports the disk as being okay, but it still wont go past the grey screen.

Next i tried re-installing Mac OS Lion, and the installer reported success, but now when i boot my macbook it makes the OK chime but all i get is a plain white screen with no apple logo or that spinning wheel thing.

Im going to try erasing and re-installing from scratch next ( I have a time machine backup), but i would like anyone with more experiences opinion.


I have a 3 year warranty with future shop, but I would rather not bring it in since they have to send it to apple and I wont have my computer for 3 weeks.

 

[maflynn]

Sounds like you damaged your Mac, at the very least the hard drive, or possible some other component.

Given that you can boot up on the DVD, its probably related to the drive. Reformat and reinstall is probably your best and only bet.

Good luck (and learn to relax and not get so angry)

 

[tug]

yep. definitely a new hdd. you shouldn't hit your mac, the poor thing can't defend itself.
shame on you!

 

[wickedking94]

@tug
A new HDD?
If my HDD was actually damaged it wouldn't tell me the disk appears to be okay in disk utility would it?

And yeah, i feel like a complete A**hole for hitting it. Its my buddy

I really don't want to have to take it to future shop and have them send it away for 3 weeks. I need it for school!

Maybe i could convince them to replace the HDD in store? (if I do need one)

 

[tug]

@tug
A new HDD?
If my HDD was actually damaged it wouldn't tell me the disk appears to be okay in disk utility would it?

And yeah, i feel like a complete A**hole for hitting it. Its my buddy

I really don't want to have to take it to future shop and have them send it away for 3 weeks. I need it for school!

Maybe i could convince them to replace the HDD in store? (if I do need one)

yeah, if its still in warranty and you just say that something is wrong and nothing else. let them test it and they will say that yeah the hd is bad and replace it for you.
cos I'm betting that it is bad.
if its out of warranty then hdd's are really not that expensive.

put your os disk in and go to utility from there, it will give you a better picture of the state of the drive.
good luck with it anyways.

 

[mysterfish]

You could try to reseat the small plug on the logic board that comes from the HD. It sounds like the impact could have possibly unplugged it. I just ran through the same kind of issue. I knew my HD was good, and when holding the control button down while booing it would pull up an external USB drive. I had to order a new plug that goes from the logic board to the HD on ebay for $20.00 and it came back to life.

 

[thekev]

It does sound like a hard drive issue of some kind, but it's hard to say for sure. I agree with mysterfish. Check the physical connections on the hard drive. The only useful thing you'd get from reformatting is that it would check for bad sectors.