[ohheyitzjon]

hello! please help me, i've searched the forums and also google, it seems like i've tried everything yet to no avail.

my situation: I turn on the macbook, then upon start up a grey box showed up telling me to restart the computer. when i attempted to restart the computer, it boots up to the white/gray apply screen with the wheel/progress bar spinning. after about 2mins of the progress bar spinning the computer shuts off.

I've tried to reset the pram, tried starting up in safe mode.. nothing works. :/ am i screwed?

[ohheyitzjon]

please help guys! i'm desperate... i need these files on my drive..

[fisherKing]

try an archive and install, where you replace the operating system but KEEP all your files, apps, etc. (you can google 'archive and install'...
if that doesn't do it...it could be hardware. if your drive is damaged, you can look into data recovery.

once again, we should ALL be backing up our stuff...

good luck!

[redhot_nyc]

try what fisherKing said.

Then......

got AppleCare?

Take out the hard drive and hook it up to another computer and back up all the files, if you haven't already. If a new hard drive shows the same symptoms (after booting from DVD and re-installing) then you have some problems, for sure. But get your data safe first.

You could also hook it up to another Mac, boot in Target Disk Mode and backup the files that way. If you can even get that far. Good luck!