27-iMac: Grey Screen of Death! HELP!

[kdesign7]

Alrite so let me explain to you how this screen came about.

First off, I own a 27-inch iMac.

I was online, reading some news, then after a bit of that, I went to watch a movie, like I have done countless times before with no such incident. 5-10 seconds into the video clip, the computer went dead. Not fans running, nothing. Dead. Dead. Dear.

I pressed the restart button, and it turned on like it was fine. Got the light grey screen, with the small apple logo in the center. Then a few moments later, a darker grey transition folded down from the top and i was prompted with this error message. I have no CLUE what-so-ever what it means. Ive tried a few times to restart and the same thing. Ive left it unplugged for 30 minutes to make sure there was no residual energy floating around, and same thing.

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

I called Tech Support (1800myapple) and since my 90 day phone service is up and over with, I still have 140 more days for the hardware, but the guy thinks it's a software issue.

Also, I haven't installed, downloaded, uninstalled anything worth mentioning that would of caused this error. I've very computer savvy, more so than most, but Im not a die-hard computer nut... but I do have a great understanding of whats going on... but im at a lose for words.

 

[mgridgaway]

Try booting it with your restore CD and see what happens.

 

[kdesign7]

Try booting it with your restore CD and see what happens.

I was given this suggestion from another person... which I am going to try when I get home... Im at work till 7am.

Now, I just gotta find my disk.. I have way to much sh*t laying around the place... too many disks... way too many.

"

Ill post my results here.

Thanks again!

 

[kdesign7]

Definitely didn't get any results with my issue on this forum board, but that's ok. Maybe no one has had this issue... yet. I hope they don't.

Basically.

I wasn't able to boot into the OS, and wasn't able to access any of my files.

I tried several attempts to use Disk Utility to Verify and Repair the Disk, and I had no error messages demonstrated.

I tried CRTL + OPT + P + R to reboot the system shortly after I pressed the power button. When I pressed the button, I heard the bootup chim, and then a few short seconds later, it rebooted again with the chim, but came back to the error msg.

When you press the power on botton, I held down the C button and waited for the next screen to load, which then gave me the option to "Restore" the OS. At first, I thought this would wipe the HD clean, and reinstall. After doing some research, I found out that doing this option would not CLEAN the HD at all. What it would do is... it would REINSTALL MAS OS X (10.6.3 about 5.6GB needed) to the Macintosh HD (which I selected) and OVER WRITE the existing OS Files, leaving all personal settings, files intact.

It took about 50 minutes to complete, then prompted with a restart button. Restarted and was brought to the login window, with my user ID present. I entered my passwork, and it booted into my settings. Background, Network Settings, Folder positions....everthing was where it left off before it crashed.

I then processed to do a Time Machine backup to my external 1tb drive... and voila.

Fixed.
--errr in the sense that I was able to gain all my files back. I then did a full clean install of the OS.

Just wanted to leave my results here just incase anyone... finds themself in this type of situation.