[DanThe]

Hi, I did a search but couldn't find anything relevant, the machine wont shut down, the screen clears apart from the wallpaper and just freezes. It wont restart either, the same happens. When I start it back up after turning off by holding the power button it takes a long time to boot, approx 2 minutes. Ive used the disk utility and verified/repaired etc, ive also checked the login items and there are none selected.

Any ideas guys?

[DanThe]

I cant update software either, it downloads fine but soon as i click the restart it starts to install and then freezes

[DanThe]

Any recommendations as to what I can do to solve this problem without a software re-install?

[turtle777]

You said you did verify/repair, but WHAT ? The disk ?

You should try repairing permissions. Wrong permissions could cause the things you are encountering.

-t

[seanc]

Does the spinner stop when it gets stuck shutting down/restarting. If you've got a dark background you may not see it.

How long have you left it trying to shut down for?

Download and run SMART Utility and see what it says about your hard drive.

[DanThe]

I verified/repaired permissions and the disc

I left it for a few hours before and it was still on the same screen when I came back to it.

This is what comes up from running the smart utility

[turtle777]

Start/Stop Count failing is not a critical condition.

See here: S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, it is possible that the OS itself tries to access this count, and can't, and therefore, it gets stuck.
If that's the case here, you'd probably have to buy a new HD.

-t

[DanThe]

Thanks

[DanThe]

Ive now got a WD 160GB HDD, I only have a ATA firewire case so I copied the original disk over to a spare ATA drive in the case, then booted from the case drive with the new WD drive in the machine, copied from the case drive to the new drive with no problems using disk utility but now I cant boot from the new drive, it came with no jumper so I fitted a jumper to pins 1 and 2 which is the other factory standard settings according to the WD website. Im currently running off the ATA drive in the case but I cant select the new drive in the machine with system preferences. I still cant shut the machine down either, back to the original problem

[DanThe]

Got it to boot from the new drive now, could it have been something to do with OS9 drivers? I connected the machine via firewire to my powerbook and erased the drive then copied over again from the drive in the case, I also binned the jumper.

After all this I still have the same problem of no shutdown or restart, ive been through the verify/repair procedure and this is what smart utility is now saying



Any ideas as to what I should do next?

[DanThe]

Well it was obviously a software problem, as I downloaded the latest update this afternoon and it restarted correctly after installing, shut down is also back to normal.
Glad I didnt pay for the new HDD

[turtle777]

That's interesting.

So the SMART utility doesn't show any signs of problems any more ?

-t

[DanThe]

Smart utility is the same as above, airflow, but im sure I read something about temperature reading problems when using western digital drives. Machine seems to be fine

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by DanThe 

Smart utility is the same as above, airflow, but im sure I read something about temperature reading problems when using western digital drives. Machine seems to be fine

So, it seems the Software Update corrected some problem when reading the SMART status upon shutdown.

-t

[DanThe]

If only! I seriously doubt smart utility has anything to do with the correction, the status hasnt changed and ive done 3 or 4 updates since changing the HDD