Repair Gray Screen on MacBook, iMac, or Mac Pro

Written By Vishal
Approved By Rohit Arora
Updated on 31 May, 2024
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Table of Content

Summary: Grey screen of death giving nightmares? This post shares some easy ways to repair gray screens on iMac, MacBook, or Mac Pro. Download the free-to-try Mac data recovery tool to create a recovery drive and recover data.

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Table of Content

. Disconnect All External Peripheral Devices
2. Use Disk Utility to Repair the Storage Drive
3. Start Up Mac by Using Safe Boot Mode
4. Reset NVRAM and PRAM to Fix the Issue
5. Use Recovery Drive to Salvage Mac Data
6. Reinstall macOS

It can be quite frustrating when your iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, or their Pro model stalls on a plain gray screen. Sometimes, your Mac doesn’t even show an error message stating the real cause behind the gray screen. But you may find the Apple logo, a spinning globe, a folder with a question mark, or a prohibitory sign along with the gray screen. In any case, your Mac gets stuck, and you can’t skip the screen to move forward to the login screen.

So, what do you do? First off, you should try to find out all the possible causes behind a gray screen on Mac. Let’s start from there.

Reasons behind the Mac Gray Screen of Death Error

A defective or unauthorized peripheral device causes your Mac to stall at the gray screen while waiting for the device to respond to the command.
Peripheral devices that don’t have an updated firmware can lead to Mac gray screen with circle slash.
A faulty startup drive might cause the Mac gray screen with no logo. Read More: Repair your macOS startup drive
If you’ve installed any new program on your Mac and it’s not functioning correctly, it’ll cause Mac gray screen error.

If you’re facing the Mac gray screen after login or at startup, there are multiple ways to try and fix the issue. Take a look at some in the next sections.

1. Disconnect All External Peripheral Devices

A defective peripheral or cable causes the signaling pins on Mac’s ports to get stuck in a single condition (low, high, or neutral). This signaling issue freezes your Mac during the boot process. You need to remove all the peripherals one by one by using the method mentioned next.

Shut down the Mac by pressing the Power button for 3 to 5 seconds.
Remove audio cables, headphones, Ethernet cables, and other peripherals from Mac.
Press the power button to switch on the Mac.
When the Mac login screen opens, reconnect a peripheral, then restart the Mac.
Do this for all peripherals, one at a time, to find the bad peripheral.
Connect all the peripherals except the defective and restart your Mac.

2. Use Disk Utility to Repair the Storage Drive

Check whether your hard drive or SSD is causing the gray screen of death issue on your Mac. To confirm, launch Disk Utility in macOS Recovery mode. Run First Aid to verify and fix any startup drive issues. Steps are as follows:

Shut down your Mac by pressing the Power button for 3 to 5 seconds.
Start your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Command + R keys.
Release the keys when something appears. Mac boots into the macOS recovery mode.
From the “macOS Utilities” window, choose “Disk Utility,” then click Continue.
Choose Macintosh HD (the startup disk) from the left column of Disk Utility.
Click the First Aid tab, then click Run to verify and fix any storage drive issues.
Once the drive repair is successful, restart your Mac normally.
When the drive can’t be fixed, back it up, and replace it with a new one.

3. Start Up Mac By Using Safe Boot Mode

By starting your Mac using Safe Boot mode, you allow macOS to run standard diagnostics and can eliminate the gray screen of death problem. Safe Boot mode runs only the essential system applications to start up your Mac. Steps to start your Mac in Safe Boot mode are as follows:

Shut down your Mac by pressing the Power button for 3 to 5 seconds.
Start the Mac, then press-hold the Shift key. Release it when the login screen appears.
Once the desktop appears, restart your Mac from the Apple menu.

4. Reset NVRAM and PRAM to Fix the Issue

To fix gray screen problem on your Mac, try resetting your NVRAM and PRAM to their default settings. Steps are as follows:

Shut down your Mac by pressing the Power button for 3 to 5 seconds.
Start your Mac then press and hold the Option + Command + P + R keys immediately.
Release the keys when your Mac starts up for the second time.
When your Mac finishes starting up, it resets NVRAM and PRAM to their default settings.

5. Use Recovery Drive to Salvage Mac Data

Note: Create Recovery Drive feature is only available in Stellar Data Recovery Version 10 & earlier! The latest version has eliminated the need of any other Mac or external device. User can directly use Stellar Data Recovery through an activated link.

When the above fixes don’t work, try a bootable Mac data recovery software to scan and recover data from the troubled Mac storage drive. Follow the steps mentioned next.

Step 1. Download and install the *trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional on a working Mac. Launch the software and create a recovery drive.

Read More: How to Create Recovery Drive

Step 2. Connect the USB recovery drive on your non-working Mac. Start your Mac and press-hold the Option key. Now, select the recovery drive. Next, choose Stellar Data Recovery, and click Continue.

Step 3. Use the tool to select the type of data and drive location. Toggle on Deep Scan, then click Scan. Select all the required files, then click Recover. Save it to an external hard drive.

*Trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac allows free scanning and free file preview. But to perform the recovery, you will have to activate the full software. The software comes with 30 days money-back policy, just in case.

6. Reinstall macOS

Once you’ve recovered your Mac storage drive with Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac, follow the steps mentioned next to reinstall macOS and fix the gray screen problem completely.

Force shut down your Mac by pressing the Power button for 3 to 5 seconds.
Start the machine by holding the Command + R keys to boot into macOS recovery mode.
From the macOS Utilities window, click “Reinstall macOS,” then click Continue.
Perform the on-screen instructions to reinstall the default macOS to the storage drive.
Restore the recovered data to the storage drive once your Mac starts up.

Conclusion

Getting the Mac gray screen of death is troublesome, but there are methods to fix it on Mac. Try out the troubleshooting techniques presented in the post to resolve the Mac gray screen issue in no time.

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About The Author

Vishal

Vishal is a data recovery expert @Stellar. He addresses data loss scenarios on a Mac. He intends to help people solve their macOS problems. Besides, Vishal prefers to read about astronomy and autobiography, and his favorite is Steve Jobs - The man who thought different written by Karen Bluementhal.

21 comments

G Huetter says:

March 29, 2023 at 7:51 am

I have a MacBook Pro A1286 (2012) that a friend gave me because it wouldn’t boot past the login, going to a gray screen.
I have another MBP A1286 and an A1398.

I’ve been an Apple user for 20 years and have experienced a myriad of issues.
I went to work on the “gifted” MBP and went through all the various methods to restart/recover. I experienced several problems with each method which all led to a gray screen ( I even replaced the SSD with a working one from my other A1286 and no change afterward.

A Hardware test revealed no issues. I scoured the web looking for a solution and found a blog that recommended replacing the SATA cable, which apparently is a common problem with the 2012 MBP. I
Replaced the cable and BAM, success!

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  March 31, 2023 at 10:29 am
  
  Hi G, Thank you for sharing your experience with fixing the gray screen issue on your MacBook Pro. It’s great to hear that you were able to identify and solve the problem by replacing the SATA cable, which is a common issue with the 2012 MacBook Pro model.
  
  As you mentioned, the gray screen issue can be caused by a variety of factors, and it’s important to identify the root cause of the problem before attempting any fixes. In your case, it seems that replacing the SATA cable was the solution.
  
  The blog post offers several solutions that users can try to fix the gray screen issue, but it’s always helpful to hear about real-world experiences like yours. By sharing your experience, you may help other users who are facing the same issue.
  
  Overall, I’m glad to hear that you were able to successfully fix the issue and get your MacBook Pro up and running again.
  
  Reply
Geza says:

March 8, 2022 at 10:08 am

1. You will need an external monitor and a USB mouse. Plug both in.2. Shut the mac down by holding the power button. Screen will go from backlit to black.3. Start the computer and shut the lid down immediately after you hear it booting. The computer should start up with the external screen. 4. Once you get to your login page choose to put the computer to sleep.5. Unplug mouse and external screen.6 Open the lid of the macbook pro. And that should be it.

Reply
Reb says:

June 18, 2021 at 4:38 am

I have a MacBook Pro (16 inch, 2019) I have tried all the steps above except the Stellar Data Recovery as I don’t have another Mac, I only have a HP. When I power my Mac on I can tell that it is getting power as the screen appears to somewhat light up but I never see any logos, or anything. Resetting the NVRAM did bring back the chime when turning on but all the other steps I could not see anything happen on the screen, it just appeared black/gray. I am at a loss of next steps. I don’t really have the funds to take to into a support store since COVID happened so any guidance of what to do next would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  June 19, 2021 at 10:46 am
  
  Hi Deb,
  
  You can create a recovery drive using Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software however you will require another working Mac for the same. Since you have a Windows system available, you can use Stellar Toolkit For Data Recovery software. This version recovers data from APFS, HFS storage drives on a Windows PC. But, you need to extract the internal drive from the MacBook Pro and connect it to the HP system and then launch the software. In both cases, you require to have a system and technical expertise. I would advise you to connect with our technical team for better assistance. Please use the chatbot available on our website to get in touch.
  
  Reply
Bhavin Bulsara says:

November 20, 2020 at 3:24 am

Hi, Vishal I have MacBook Pro, have an issue with installing it again after the hard drive died. Replaced with new SSD. I did try internet recovery but failed, it goes it apple logo download’s and then goes gray screen of death. Then tired Installing using install disk, come with the apple logo and then does grey screen and sometimes flashing gray folder logo with?

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  November 25, 2020 at 9:51 am
  
  Hi Bhavin, You can try Stellar Data Recovery Professional and use create Recovery Drive option. You need to use the software on a working machine to create a bootable to recover the data on another(non-bootable)machine with the created bootable drive of our software.
  
  Reply
Zee says:

March 10, 2020 at 1:37 pm

Hi Vishal, thank you for a wonderful blog. It’s really helpful the way you have explained things and have given different options to fix the Graysons screen.

Can you please give a solution for flashing folder with the question mark sign on start up. I have tried Reinstalling macOS but that did not work. Also tried Disk Utility for repairing purpose but it gives an error message and does not repair it. The error message is “First Aid process has failed. If possible, back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue.”

I bought this MacBook Air 2017 off someone and it was working fine but my partner tried erasing the OS to install it again. I’m having this issue ever since.. have tried many possible solutions online but in vain 🙁

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  March 11, 2020 at 3:55 am
  
  Hello Zee,
  
  it seems that your start-up disk is failing. Do you have the Time Machine backup with you?
  Purchase an external drive and reinstall macOS on it. Erase the troubled start-up disk and restore your data from Time Machine. Remember, time machine is the key.
  
  Thanks!
  
  Reply
Terry Steptoe says:

December 30, 2019 at 12:17 pm

Hello, I was facing the issue of gray screen on my MacBook Pro. I read this blog and found the exact reason behind this. In my case I updated the firmware of peripheral devices and fix this issue. I really appreciate this blog. Thanks.

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  December 31, 2019 at 6:57 am
  
  Hello Terry,
  We glad to know you fix your problem with the help of our blog. We always try to share useful information. Keep reading for more useful information. Thanks.
  
  Reply
Eloisa says:

September 24, 2019 at 12:46 pm

I did everything, I got a gray screen instantly, in the end, it asked me to restart and when it restarts and opens, it was stuck again on the apple logo and loading sign. What should I do for that?

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  September 25, 2019 at 6:18 am
  
  Hello Eloisa,
  It may be several reasons behind this, So, as I described above in detail you can check all the points. But now, in brief, you can try some manual steps like disconnecting all external peripheral devices, can use disk utility to repair the disk, start mac using safe mode, reset PRAM.
  
  If all the manual steps do not work for you then you need to save your data first. You can use stellar data recovery professional for mac to recover your data if you find yourself in data loss situations. Thanks!
  
  Reply
Tyson Taylor says:

August 23, 2019 at 11:44 am

My computer got the grey screen and wouldn’t work, I let it rest all night and just turned it on a few minutes ago and held the alt button and the screen came up with the mac HD and recovery HD on it. I clicked the mac HD button and my computer came back to life! How to fix grey screen?

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  August 27, 2019 at 12:00 pm
  
  Hello Tyson,
  I have already described above all causes and manual solution of this problem to fix it. Please read the blog carefully if you find yourself in data loss situation so you can try Stellar Data Recovery professional for mac. Thanks.
  
  Reply
Helen T. Randolph says:

June 25, 2019 at 12:19 pm

Dear Author,
I tried to wipe my iMac. Now at startup, I get flashing file folder. I have tried command-r and other things I have read on the internet, but nothing worked. I held down alt at startup, and I can put my admin password in, but after I enter, I get a grey blank screen. So I have a flashing file or blank grey. Please help

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  June 26, 2019 at 5:32 am
  
  Hello Helen,
  Most of the cases Problems with the computer’s PRAM Boot drive’s directory has been corrupted – Repair with Disk Utility, critical system files are damaged or deleted – Reinstall OS X. So you can apply all the steps manually, which is mentioned above on this blog. Still, the situation is the same, so you should recover your data first by Stellar Data Recovery Professional for mac. This advance software detects your storage drive and helps to recover your data.
  
  Reply
Susan K. McGill says:

May 22, 2019 at 11:13 am

Hello Admin,
Above knowledge base is quite sufficient. I used step 3 to start Mac using safe boot. It worked.

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  May 22, 2019 at 11:17 am
  
  Hello Susan,
  It’s excellent to know this article helped you. Keep reading new blogs for more. Thanks
  
  Reply