White Screen hang on Mac OSX Startup Disk

[bound4h]

Running a MBP (mid 2009) 2.26GHz on OSX Leopard 10.5.8. I am trying to boot from the Startup disk (OSX Leopard 10.5.2) and when I stick it in a restart, I hold C and it hangs on the screen before where the Apple logo would appear normally, as if it's trying to load from the startup disk. The disk spins up and I hear it, but it just hangs there. Only thing I can do is a hard restart with the power button.

I have started from the disk before, so I know it worked in the past. Also, OSX recognizes the disk when I'm logged in and I can even run the Installer (ask you to restart though).

I recently turned on FileVault (have restarted multiple times since then) but not sure if this has anything to do with it. I am trying to set a password for the Firmware so someone can't reformat without a pw.

Can anyone help? Anyone know why it doesn't want to boot from the startup disk?

Thanks!

 

[Richdave]

My older iMac has similar issues.... I think the HDD is the root cause as it wont boot the start up disk and when I boot the install disk and try any disk util on that disk I get the grey overlay box with power OFF in 74 different languages.

To get the system to boot the OSX DVD I had to do an SMC reset first.

refer HERE

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
4. Release the power button.
5. Attach the computers power cable.
6. Press the power button to turn on the computer.

HIH