OS X won't load and I don't know what to do.

A

apple_gal

Registered
Hi All,

My G4 Powerbook died today! I'll retrace my steps and hopefully somone can help me out...

I was shuffling around a few files last night, when something funny happened and my HD icon disappeared and i had a blank desktop. Safari was still working so I kept surfing.

When it came time to shutdown, I couldn't do it from the menu. The menu wouldn't even drop down! So I turned it off with the button.

Today when I tried to restart my laptop it bit took aaaages to get through the grey screen bit, then it zipped through the "Loading OS X" bit, then it just froze at the empty blue screen after that, with the little circle/thinking thingy just spinning and spinning.

Does anyone know what I've done wrong and how I can fix it?

I miss my computer :(

Thanx
 
Put the installer discs (or the first disc of the software restore collection) in the drive as soon as you power the mac on. Then press the C key. When the installer screen comes up, go to the File Menu and select disc utility. Use it to repair the disc.
 
Your version is 10.2.3?
Careful, I am no nerd. I react because it took me several days to solve and no Apple dealer knew an answer apart from reinstalling a new system.
Similar things started to happen to me after upgrading to version 10.2.3 and that on several computers.
Repairing disk permissions, repairing the directory, nothing helped.
I then found 'Cocktail" 3.3.1 and went through all the movements: Reprebinding, repairing permissions etcetera and my computer was cured.
In that context: the blue screen story sounds familiar too. You may try to restart once more (hard restart). Here, this worked. Otherwise start from the first of the three installation disks and do not reinstall but go to utility, repair disk and repair the directory.
I had to go through all these things until I found cocktail and then the suffering ended.
Funny enough, the problems always seemed to start when being connected to internet, either safari but also eudora: the computer slows down terribly and finally stops to obey.
 
Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see apple_gal mention 10.2.3.

As good as Cocktail is, it won't help. She can't boot her machine.

Do what clayshima said. Run Disk Utility booted from the OS CD. If you post back, let us know what System you're running, what you've added to it lately, etc.

You can also run fsck

To run fsck, you first need to start up your Mac in single-user mode. Here's how:

1. Restart your Mac.

2. Immediately press and hold the Command and "S" keys.

You'll see a bunch of text begin scrolling on your screen. In a few more seconds, you'll see the Unix command line prompt (#).

You're now in single-user mode.

Now that you're at the # prompt, here's how to run fsck:

1. Type: "fsck -y" (that's fsck-space-minus-y).
(If you're running Panther, v 10.3, then type this "fsck -f"

2. Press Return.

The fsck utility will blast some text onto your screen. If there's damage to your disk, you'll see a message that says:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

If you see this message--and this is extremely important-- repeat running fsck. It is normal to have to run fsck more than once -- the first run's repairs often uncover additional problems..

When fsck finally reports that no problems were found, and the # prompt reappears:

3. Type: "reboot" to restart,

or type "exit" to start up without rebooting.

4. Press Return.

Your Mac should proceed to start up normally to the login window or the Finder.
 
bobw said:
If you see this message--and this is extremely important--repeat Steps 1 and 2 again and again until that message no longer appears.
Click to expand...

I just want to clarify for her... repeat the second set of steps 1 and 2 that bobw wrote... not the first two -- we don't want you just restarting your computer over and over again!

Good luck and let us know how it works out!
 
Thank you bobw.
You DID miss something! I ASKED if the version was 10.3.2
And I DID mention the installer disk!

Funny, yesterday night the same happened to me again (slowing down etcetera)
I did a hard restart and my computer stopped rebooting and the disk stopped spinning minutes after at the moment that the screen sayd sometning about the login window.
I couldnt reach yor message and did (sorry) a second hard restart and it worked.

Now I don't dare to restart again with the c and skey for fear that I will type a wrong command.
But why do my computers slow down in the first place? And why did all this happen to begin after installing 10.3.2
It is worse than ages ago when I had still OS 5.2. Is there an explanation?.
 
bijvoet said:
Thank you bobw.
You DID miss something! I ASKED if the version was 10.3.2
Click to expand...

It's worth noting that with OS X 10.3, fsck -y can actually mess things up!

Forgot where I read this, but it was from some authoritative geezer last week...
 
I said;
Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see apple_gal mention 10.2.3.
I didn't say bijvoet

If you're using 10.3, use fsck -f
 
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