On startup, "You need to restart your computer", then freezes

Last night, my Macbook Pro froze on me while I was running Windows XP on VMWare Fusion, so I forced shutdown by holding the power button for five seconds.

Ever since, I have not been able to boot the OS at startup. The Apple logo shows up, then the status dial thingy below, and then a grey "curtain" comes down with a "You need to restart your computer" message in multiple languages.

The problem is, it freezes at that point, and it won't let me restart. So I have to force shutdown again by holding down the power button, and the problem repeats.

Sometimes when I try to reboot, it freezes as the grey "curtain" is coming down and before the "You need to restart your computer" message even shows up, so I don't know what is going on.

Please help.

 

Memory problem, I'd say. Take out one of your memory sticks and restart your computer. If it still does the grey screen, then try the other one.

If you have the old macbook pro: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1270

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US

after completing this, hold the apple key on boot and boot into mac osx.

 

Thanks for the input, guys.

I tried resetting the PRAM and NVRAM, but that didn't change anything.

I will try removing the memory sticks when I get home and see if that works.

If it means anything, I ran the Apple Hardware Test by holding 'D' and powering on, and got the following message.

"Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error.

4SNS/ 1 /40000000: TG0D- 93.000"

Also, I am able to boot up properly in safe mode.

 

I removed one of the memory sticks and the OS booted up fine, thanks. Of course, everything became considerably slower. Does this mean the stick that I removed is now useless? Will I have to purchase a new one to replace the one that's no good?

 

yep. a new one should be pretty cheap though. are you still under applecare? what version of the macbook pro do you have? if you can answer the latter, i can point you to some ram to buy.

 

Yes I am still under the AppleCare plan. Shouldn't Apple replace the memory stick at no cost?

I'm using a 15.4" MB Pro, 2.2ghz intel core 2 duo, 2gb ram (now 1gb since I removed one of the 1gb sticks).

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

 

if you have an apple store nearby, just set up an appt. with the genius bar and they should replace it right away. alternatively, you can upgrade to 4gb for just a few bucks:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148201

 

You might want to put that one back in, removing the other one and see. It could also mean that your mbp can only works with one stick of this memory brand and not both.

cheers ...