[Lightstar]

Hi.

We are having problems with 10.2 on our iMac DV, so I thought I would post and see if you guys have an ideas on what's going on and how to fix it (thank goodness for my iBook)

It was working fine yesterday, but then in the afternoon, I tried to launch my FTP program, and it wouldn't start. Then I tried to launch System Preferences, and it wouldn't start. So I restarted the iMac.

But after the restart, it would go as if it was starting up. The Starting Mac OS X thing would come up and the blue bar would go through. But after that we only get the blue screen and the mouse cursor on there.

We have restarted it, but it keeps coming up.

Any ideas on what is wrong and how we can fix it?

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks.

[fulmer]

Boot the iMac from the CD-ROM (10.2 disc). Run Disk Utility to fix disk errors. Run it again and again until it says the disk is okay. Give "permissions" a repair while you're at it.

[Lightstar]

When I try to repair the hard disk, it says:

"Invalid catalog record type" in red - then says the repair is completed.

The blue bar doesn't get very far on the bottom.

[chris v]

Sounds like a job for DiskWarrior. It should be able to clear that up. There are some types of directory corruption that Disk First aid can't handle, but DiskWarrior can.

I suggest you visit your local Mac software retailer and pick it up-- ($90.00 +/- American) you can boot and run diagnostics from the DW CD.

CV