Black screen with white type on boot up

C

calmclaire

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I didn't have an internet connection so I rebooted the computer -- I wish I'd just rebooted the modem now.

When it "rebooted" it didn't boot up but a black screen with a lot of white type saying the start up of various things failed -- it looked like a PC script type thing. Then that type disappeared leaving a black screen and just a white cursor that moves when I hit the space bar.

Help!

This is the computer for the place I'm working and I'm not even sure what generation Mac it is, though I'll try to find out.

I hope, hope, hope that there is some kind of simple resolution to this.
 
yeah probably not. welcome to unix underpinnings. try rebooting while holding down command option PR, or command S. see if that helps. you're probably going to have to at least reinstall the OS, but it sounds flaky either way.
 
calmclaire said:
I didn't have an internet connection so I rebooted the computer -- I wish I'd just rebooted the modem now.

When it "rebooted" it didn't boot up but a black screen with a lot of white type saying the start up of various things failed -- it looked like a PC script type thing. Then that type disappeared leaving a black screen and just a white cursor that moves when I hit the space bar.

Help!
Click to expand...

That is a Kernel Panic.:eek:

This happens when something hardware went or something root level software really went wrong.

First of all Reset Your PRAM to see if that helps. Plus did you do anything or did you have power outage or something?
 
I did the "safe" boot up, held down the S, after unplugging all the peripherals, and it worked! Then reconnected them after boot up.

That still doesn't help me know why it really happened, so I'm a little scared to shut down now.
 
Then open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and do the Repairs to your startup disk. Then download either Onyx or Yasu (both are free) and run all the cleaning routines. After the software reboots the Mac immediately reboot again to fully rebuild your startup/shutdown cache. This should speed up your general Mac experience. Running a cleaning routine program about once every three months should help keep your Mac running clean and almost like new.

Also you can boot with the latest install disk or the original install disk that is labeled (in small letters) hardware test. This way you can see if something is going in your Mac.

Lastly consider buying an external firewire disk and making a bootable backup with something like Cabon Copy Cloner. The old saying that it is not if but when a hard drive will fail.
 
Thanks for your suggestions. I will look into these. This is a computer I'm working on as part of my job and I've been here a short time, and don't really know what they do and don't do, etc.
 
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