What do you do when your Mac appears in a gray screen of five languages?

After cleaning the file with CleanMyMac2, the Mac crashes, forcing the shutdown to enter the gray screen after the restart, and five languages appear. After restarting your Mac and holding down the option key, enter the WiFi password, select the backup drive on the right, and the following screen appears. (or direct shift-command-v at startup)

Someone with disk repair can start successfully, I by choosing the second "Reinstall Mac OS" repair system, to ensure the network unobstructed, Mac will automatically download the relevant files, you do need to do is to wait, download after the completion of automatic restart, personal files, software will not be lost, and the same as before the crash.

It is best to back up the system with time machine. It is recommended to use less CleanMyMac2.

Unlike Windows,unix, UNIX systems do not need to tidy up junk files every day, nor do they require disk grooming.

Attach the official solution:

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

When you start to see the Finder or Login window, your computer may stop responding and the monitor may display only a gray screen with no changes (you may also see an Apple logo, a rotating gear, a rotating sphere, or a folder with a flashing question mark). Note : The following steps may not apply to a blue screen during startup.

Note : Some of the following steps may reset your preferences or registration settings.

disconnecting, testing peripherals, and network cables

Note:"peripherals" refers to external devices that are not included with your Mac, such as hard drives, printers, or hubs that are connected via USB or FireWire cables.

1. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
2. Disconnect all peripheral devices, such as external hard drives or printers (only the monitor, keyboard, and mouse connections are retained).
3. Disconnect all Ethernet cables.
4. Start your Mac.

• If you can start this way, the cause of the gray screen problem may be one or more peripherals (or software installed for the device). Connect a device, and then restart your MAC to test whether the problem is still the same. Repeat the process until you find the device that is causing the problem. If the device requires power to function properly, make sure it is powered properly. Contact the device manufacturer for support, or request a software driver or firmware update that is available on the device. If possible, try a different cable to connect the device (such as another USB or FireWire cable).
  
  Note : If you have more than one peripheral device and only have problems connecting to the device at all, and each device has a separate continuous cropping peripheral, see the "Additional Information" section below.
  
• If your MAC desktop is equipped with a third-party keyboard and/or mouse device, if the problem persists, swap with your Apple keyboard and mouse to try booting again. Try to start without connecting to any keyboard and mouse, and then connect after you start. Additionally, try the other USB ports on your MAC.

If disconnecting all devices still does not resolve the gray screen issue, go to the next section (keep the peripherals disconnected).

Perform a secure boot

You can resolve this issue by simply performing a secure boot.

1. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
2. Start your Mac, and then press and hold the Shift key immediately. This performs a secure boot. Advanced Tip : If you want to see the status of a safe boot run, you can press and hold shift-command-v at startup instead of just holding down shift.
   
   Note : Secure boot takes longer than normal startup because of a disk check and other operations.
   
3. If your Mac starts properly, try restarting now.

If the secure boot is unsuccessful, or if the restart is unsuccessful after a successful secure boot, go to the next section.

Reset Nvram/pram

1. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
2. Resets the Nvram/pram.

If the gray screen problem persists, proceed to the next section.

Booting from the MAC OS X installation disc; using Disk Utility

1. Insert your Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 CD-ROM (if you have two versions of the disc, use the disc closest to the version of Mac OS X installed on your Mac; do not use the boot CD that came with your Mac or the boot CD with an earlier version of Mac OS X).
2. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
3. Start your Mac while holding down the C key for booting from the disc.
4. After booting from the CD, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
   
   Note : If the gray screen problem persists and cannot be started from the CD, go to the "Disconnect peripheral Devices" section.
5. In Disk utility, perform a disk repair on your Mac OS X volume, and if you do not see any issues, perform a permission fix. If you find a problem during disk repair, try repairing it again.
6. After you complete the disk utility operation, restart without pressing any key.

If the gray screen problem persists, proceed to the next section.

Check cables and Power supplies

Make sure the power cord is securely connected (especially when using a MAC desktop). If possible, try changing a cable or a different outlet. If a surge protector is used, try connecting the socket directly.

If you have a power-related problem (for example, if your MAC desktop shuts down or restarts when you turn on an appliance, or if the room lights are dimmed), consider looking for a qualified electrician to check the sockets and electrical wiring.

If the gray screen problem persists, proceed to the next section.

Remove third-party RAM and internal hardware

Remove any non-Apple RAM or other third-party hardware upgrade devices (such as expansion cards or third-party optical drives or hard drives, if any) to help identify the problem. You must be as close as possible to your MAC's factory hardware configuration.

If you are unsure whether the RAM module or other hardware is provided by Apple or a third party, or if you are not sure how to perform the above steps, or if you are using MAC Mini, consider contacting an Apple authorized service provider for assistance. If this is not the case, please perform the above steps before entering the next section.

1. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
2. Open your Mac to find the memory slots. Refer to the manual that came with your Mac or search the Apple support manual to find a PDF copy of your Mac's manual.
3. Remove any third-party RAM that you have installed.
4. If possible, reinstall the Apple RAM that came with your computer. Note that MAC OS X 10.5 requires at least a minimum of Ram;mac OS x 10.4 MB of RAM.
5. If your Mac starts properly when you install only Apple RAM, contact the vendor of the third-party RAM.

If you have installed a third-party drive, make sure that it is running the latest version of the firmware. Otherwise, reinstall the Apple drive that came with your computer (if applicable).

If the gray screen problem persists, proceed to the next section.

Perform an "archive and install" approach to MAC OS X installation

If the above steps do not resolve the issue, you can start successfully from the MAC OS X installation CD as described above:

1. Insert your Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 CD-ROM (if you have two versions of the disc, use the disc closest to the version of Mac OS X installed on your Mac; do not use the boot CD that came with your Mac or the boot CD with an earlier version of Mac OS X).
2. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
3. Start your Mac while holding down the C key for booting from the disc.
4. Perform an "Archive and install" Installation (retention of user and network settings).

After installation, if the gray screen problem persists, proceed to the next section.

Last resort: Perform a "Erase and install" mode of MAC OS X installation

Important : You should only perform this step after you have tried all of the above steps. This process erases all files on the Mac OS X volume. If possible, back up your important files, or use time machine. You may be able to use the FireWire cable and FireWire destination disk mode to connect your Mac to another Mac to try to manually back up files. Or, you might want to book a MAC Genius genius at an Apple store or contact an Apple authorized service provider for help.

Erase your Mac OS X volume and reinstall Mac OS X:

1. Insert the Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 installation disc.
2. Turn off your Mac. If necessary, press and hold the MAC's power button for a few seconds to force it to close.
3. Start your Mac while holding down the C key for booting from the disc.
4. Perform a "Erase and install" mode of MAC OS X installation.
5. After installation, start from the Mac OS X volume to verify that the issue is resolved, and you should use Software update to update to the latest version of Mac OS X.

If the problem persists after you follow these steps, you may want to book a MAC Genius genius at an Apple store, call AppleCare or contact an Apple authorized service provider for help.

If the problem only occurs when you are connecting more than one peripheral device

If the gray screen issue only occurs when you start up with multiple peripherals connected (that is, USB and/or FireWire devices), and you want to be able to connect multiple devices at the same time, the problem may be caused by multiple peripherals connected simultaneously.

For illustrative purposes, suppose you have three USB devices, which we call "A", "B", and "C". The problem may be that there is some kind of conflict between peripherals A and C, and that there is a gray screen problem when you connect both, and A and C are connected separately. In the " Disconnect, test peripherals, and network cables " section above, you may infer that there is only a problem with device C because it is connected after a. To avoid incorrect analysis results, connect device C separately to your computer. If your Mac has a startup problem after connecting to device C only, you know that C is the source of the problem. However, if your Mac starts normally, you'll need to resolve the device's conflicting issues. To do this, add the other devices individually until a startup problem occurs (restart after adding a device), with device C connected. Repeat this process until you finally find the minimal combination of devices that caused the startup problem.

What can you do?

• Depending on the actual situation, you should ensure that each device has the latest firmware installed, please contact the manufacturer for more information. You should also check the latest version of the driver and, if necessary, install it each time you start in safe mode.
• If any device requires a separate power supply, make sure that the power supply is connected to the device (for example, the device is connected via USB and the power cord is not connected, even if the device shows power, connect its power cord).
• If applicable, try using a different USB or FireWire cable for each device.
• If you have other devices that are similar to conflicting devices, try replacing the device.
• Contact each device manufacturer or refer to the information that came with your device for more support information or service options, if necessary.

Important Information: information about products not produced by Apple is for informational purposes only and does not represent Apple's recommendation or endorsement. For more information, please contact the supplier.

Last modified: 2013-8-21

What do you do when your Mac appears in a gray screen of five languages?