OS X stuck on grey screen and circle

[darkbasic]

When I try to load back into OS X from windows the computer chimes, the grey screen appears, then the apple logo, then the rotating circle underneath the aplpe logo. It sits at the rotating circle stage for a few minutes then restarts again. If I leave it it will just keep sitting at the circle and rebooting.

The steps I have taken to try and fix this are:
1. Clear PRAM by holding CMD+OPT+P+R
2. Resetting the SMC by removing all peripherals, battery and AC adapter then holding the power button for five seconds.
3. Booting into safe mode to delete bootcache.kext - I can't boot into safe mode, when I hold shift after I hear the chime nothing happens differently, it just takes longer for the rotating circle to appear.

I recently installed MacDrive in Windows and deleted files in my OS X partition, these files were not system files, just a game I had downloaded.

Also, I can't boot from the OS X CD because I'm at school and like a dummy I forgot to bring it.

Any ideas?

 

[J the Ninja]

Did you try starting in verbose mode, and see if anything funny comes up on the console? Btw, here's what shows up on mine during a normal boot (this was from this morning when I restarted after installing Safari 4)

Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: hi mem tramps at 0xffe00000
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kextd[10]: 422 cached, 0 uncached personalities to catalog
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: PAE enabled
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: 64 bit mode enabled
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.0: Mon Nov 24 17:37:00 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.9.59~1/RELEASE_I386
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: vm_page_bootstrap: 445503 free pages and 13249 wired pages
Feb 24 07:23:15 localhost kernel[0]: mig_table_max_displ = 79
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: 111 prelinked modules
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: AppleACPICPU: ProcessorApicId=0 LocalApicId=0 Enabled
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: AppleACPICPU: ProcessorApicId=1 LocalApicId=1 Enabled
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Loading security extension com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: calling mpo_policy_init for TMSafetyNet
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Security policy loaded: Safety net for Time Machine (TMSafetyNet)
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Loading security extension com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Loading security extension com.apple.security.seatbelt
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: calling mpo_policy_init for mb
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Seatbelt MACF policy initialized
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Security policy loaded: Seatbelt Policy (mb)
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: MAC Framework successfully initialized
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: using 9175 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: IOAPIC: Version 0x11 Vectors 64:87
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: ACPI: System State [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: mbinit: done
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Security auditing service present
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: BSM auditing present
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: 2580F439-1728-35CF-8447-85A2C489DD62
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: BTCoexistence feature not supported!
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: wl0: Broadcom BCM432b 802.11 Wireless Controller
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: 5.10.38.24
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 built-in now active, GUID 002332fffeb939fc; max speed s800.
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Got boot device = IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@B/AppleMCP79AHCI/PRT0@0/IOAHCIDevice@0/AppleAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCIBlockStorageDevice/IOBlockStorageDriver/Hitachi HTS543225L9SA02 Media/IOGUIDPartitionScheme/Customer@2
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: BSD root: disk0s2, major 14, minor 2
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: [HCIController][configurePM] power parent ready after 1 tries
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Jettisoning kernel linker.
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement: initialization complete
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Resetting IOCatalogue.
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: GFX0: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: IGPU: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Matching service count = 2
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Matching service count = 4
Feb 24 07:23:16: --- last message repeated 4 times ---
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: NVDANV50HAL loaded and registered.
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: IGPU: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 5
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: GFX0: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: AGC: 2.8.1, HW version=1.7.3, flags:0, features:1
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: GFX0: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: IGPU: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 == mMikeyPeripheralInterruptSource" failed in "/SourceCache/AppleHDA/AppleHDA-162.1.37/AppleMikeyDriver/AppleMikeyACPI.cpp" at line 289 goto Exit
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: GFX0: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: IGPU: family specific matching fails
Feb 24 07:23:16 localhost kernel[0]: Matching service count = 0
Feb 24 07:23:17 localhost kernel[0]: NVEthernet: Ethernet address 00:23:32:b9:39:fc
Feb 24 07:23:17 localhost kernel[0]: AirPort_Brcm43xx: Ethernet address 00:23:12:57:0a:82
Feb 24 07:23:17 localhost mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-176.3 (Sep 30 2008 16:59:38)[17]: starting
Feb 24 07:23:19 localhost kernel[0]: NVEthernet::mediaChanged - Link Down
Feb 24 07:23:19 localhost configd[15]: AppleTalk startup
Feb 24 07:23:19 Jasons-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Down on en1
Feb 24 07:23:19 Jasons-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "Jasons-MacBook-Pro.local"
Feb 24 07:23:20 Jasons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.launchd[1] (com.openssh.sshd): Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight
Feb 24 07:23:22 Jasons-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Auth result for: 00:04:5a:f6:1f:be MAC AUTH succeeded
Feb 24 07:23:22 Jasons-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Up on en1
Feb 24 07:23:24 Jasons-MacBook-Pro bootlog[49]: BOOT_TIME: 1235488989 0

 

[darkbasic]

Did you try starting in verbose mode, and see if anything funny comes up on the console?

I started in verbose mode and for the first five lines everything seemed normal, then I got this message about 7 times in a row:

0 [Level 3] [ReadUID0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [Err Type FS] [MountPt/]
HFS: Runtime corruption detected on CRUNKBOX HD, fsck will be forced on next mount
hfs_swap_BTNode:invalid forward link (0X00000cbe==0X00000cbe)
node=3262 file ID=4 volume=CRUNKBOX HD device=/dev/disck0s2


Note: CRUNKBOX is the name of my hard drive (hopefully obvious but just clarifying)

What should I do to fix this? I don't understand what this error message means.

 

[darkbasic]

Also, now when I try to access my mac hard drive through MacDrive it says the file structure is corrupted and unreadable.

 

[J the Ninja]

Sounds like you have a dead hard drive. You can try reinstalling OS X, but that may or may not work. You'll probably need to just get a replacement.

 

[darkbasic]

I don't think it's dead because I'm using the windows partition of that same hard drive right now. Any other ideas? I really don't want to reinstall OSX and erase everything.

 

[Richdmoore]

I had an issue like this on my Mac, I started the boot process, then decided I needed sleep more than to play with the computer, and turned it off while it was booting up. The next time I tried it, it did the same loop. Tried everything you mentioned without success. I had to put my Leopard cd and restore from time machine, then everything was fine.

 

[darkbasic]

I had an issue like this on my Mac, I started the boot process, then decided I needed sleep more than to play with the computer, and turned it off while it was booting up. The next time I tried it, it did the same loop. Tried everything you mentioned without success. I had to put my Leopard cd and restore from time machine, then everything was fine.

Dang, does OS X automatically back things up? I don't think I've ever opened time machine. Hope my entire drive won't be wiped. Any thoughts?