Macbook Pro crashed on update, nothing but gray screen

[lrs52200]

My daughter's Macbook Pro crashed when it was updating. She said it began the update, then crashed and when she restarted the machine she saw the gray screen with the apple, and then the apple disappeared, then all she saw was a blank, gray screen.

Late 2011 15" Macbook Pro
OSX Mavericks

 

[iBook_Clamshell]

Try to back up anything you need off the HD by hooking it up to another computer(firewire), then format the drive and reinstall OS X.

 

[lrs52200]

That is the first thing that I thought of, but she doesn't have the disks. I've been searching for a website that has them but cannot find the disks I need.

 

[yjchua95]

My daughter's Macbook Pro crashed when it was updating. She said it began the update, then crashed and when she restarted the machine she saw the gray screen with the apple, and then the apple disappeared, then all she saw was a blank, gray screen.

Late 2011 15" Macbook Pro
OSX Mavericks

Looks like Radeongate hit the MBP at the same time as the update.

 

[lrs52200]

???

I don't know what that means. I contacted Apple and they told me to turn on the machine and immediately press "command & R" but though I tried 3 times, I continued to get the gray 'apple' screen and then it immediately went to the blue screen.
When I told this to the rep, he said I needed to take it to an Apple store all the way down in Nanuet - but that isn't the strange part. He said it could be a hardware problem.
Okay, so can anyone explain this to me? The computer was fine - never had a problem with it until my daughter began downloading an update. She said it was updating and then suddenly crashed. How do I get a hardware problem from an update?
This is a very expensive machine and I imagine that servicing this machine is going to be expensive too - but a hardware problem resulting from an update? Is that even possible? And if it is......it's going to cost me as much as buying a new machine altogether. I'm not diggin' Apple right now.

 

[simonsi]

I don't know what that means. I contacted Apple and they told me to turn on the machine and immediately press "command & R" but though I tried 3 times, I continued to get the gray 'apple' screen and then it immediately went to the blue screen.
When I told this to the rep, he said I needed to take it to an Apple store all the way down in Nanuet - but that isn't the strange part. He said it could be a hardware problem.
Okay, so can anyone explain this to me? The computer was fine - never had a problem with it until my daughter began downloading an update. She said it was updating and then suddenly crashed. How do I get a hardware problem from an update?
This is a very expensive machine and I imagine that servicing this machine is going to be expensive too - but a hardware problem resulting from an update? Is that even possible? And if it is......it's going to cost me as much as buying a new machine altogether. I'm not diggin' Apple right now.

15" machines of that year have a known issue with the graphics card failing, I'm not familiar as I didn't have one but possible that hit coincidentally during the update, hence the black screen.

Equally possible that any interruption during the update could have made the update unable to complete, hence the advice to try reinstalling the OS via another machine.

Equally there could have been a disk issue, updates write a lot to disk and it could have caused the issue, nothing to suggest you "got" the hardware failure from the update, but updates do a lot of common computing tasks such as writing to disk etc.

Basically they have asked to see the machine (I would too), and warned you that it could be hardware and not just an OS install....which is quite possible. Swapping out the HDD for a new one isn't expensive, not all MBP issues are.

 

[T5BRICK]

I don't know what that means.

It means the graphics chip in the computer may have failed. It's a known issue but Apple so far isn't doing anything about it.

Okay, so can anyone explain this to me? The computer was fine - never had a problem with it until my daughter began downloading an update. She said it was updating and then suddenly crashed. How do I get a hardware problem from an update?

The hardware issue was likely already there. It just showed up during the update. Or it was a coincidence.

This is a very expensive machine and I imagine that servicing this machine is going to be expensive too - but a hardware problem resulting from an update? Is that even possible? And if it is......it's going to cost me as much as buying a new machine altogether. I'm not diggin' Apple right now.

No the update didn't cause the hardware problem. Like I said earlier, it was probably an issue already. You won't know how much the repair will cost until you take it in.