[Bijan Mobasseri]

After upgrading to 10.2.3 using the combo package, I got at stuck on the startup gray screen, not with the Apple logo but a circle resembling those European traffic signs. What does it mean and how do I get passed it? Does Apple have anyTIL on it?

[piracy]

That means that no valid OS installation has been found on any volume identified by the system as bootable. Boot from your Mac OS X 10.2.x CD and run Disk Utility (or run another compatible disk repair utility, such as DiskWarrior) on your drive; hopefully whatever the trouble is can be repaired. For what it's worth, these types of problems usually occur when an update has been installed on an already-corrupt filesystem.

[shrink]

Hey, folks, need your help, badly. This damn circle just came up on my machine. I'm running OS X 10.2.4 on a Lombard w/ 256MB RAM. My system just froze last night and I did a ctrl-command-power reboot and now the circle appears at startup.

I have tried resetting the PRAM and starting up from various CD's to run a disk utility but without success. Here's what I've tried:

1) Booting from Norton Utilities 5.0 - boots into OS 8.6, but stalls when the time and battery indicator appear. Cursor still moves, but no icons appear and I can't do a thing.

2) Booting from AppleCare CD - starts in OS 9.1, but same error as above.

3) Booting from OS 9.1 system CD - same thing happens as above, but when I force quit the finder, icons appear and I can open some files and run some programs. However, when I launch Disk First Aid, it freezes and I have to force quit. N.B. - force quitting from the previous two CD's renders the system unusable.

4) Booting from OS X 10.2 CD - Apple logo appears, dotted circle lights up in sequence; however, the lights continue to circle and I've let the computer run like this for up to 15 minutes with no change.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I am at a complete loss.

[Millennium]

Something is wrong with either the system installation or the disk.

I would suggest running DiskWarrior. Since both of you have had trouble following a crash, this is probably the issue. It's also much easier than clean-installing the system again, which is the other option.

Oh, and Shrink, DO NOT RUN NORTON 5.0 ON YOUR DISK. There are bugs in 5.0 which screw up OSX hard disks. DiskWarrior can fix this in case you've already run that program, but if you use Norton on an OSX disk, only run the latest version. I don't know why your machine was having trouble booting from that CD, but that fact that it's having trouble may have saved you a lot of trouble.

[orry_main]

'those european traffic signs' would be Do Not Enter signs without the words 'Do Not Enter'...I never did understand why the US doesn't trust its populace to be able to understand a simple symbol...oh, wait...never mind.

[shrink]

Thanks for the tip, Millenium. I've tried a few other things and I am currently both relieved, but even more confused at the same time.

I put my hard drive into a portable bay and connected it to a Pismo via a PC card interface. The drive actually showed up just fine and all my files were intact. However, its directory was a mess and disk first aid made some repairs (I went out to the local CompUSA which unfortunately wasn't carrying DiskWarrior).

After changing around some RAM chips, I was then able to start up my lombard (wihout a hard drive) from any CD. However, once I popped the hard drive in the computer, it would neither recognize the drive nor start up correctly from a CD. I would get the same errors I described in my previous post. Now, it seems like my lombard just doesn't like having a hard drive in it!

So, I'm relieved that my files are intact, but don't really know what to make of my lombard. I'm guessing it could be bad RAM, bad processor, or a bad hard drive cable, or something worse.

Anyone have any ideas? Should I post this problem over in the Powerbook forum?

[goMac]

The "do not enter" circle, btw, means that the operating system cannot start, not that a valid system folder cannot be found. Sounds like either the updater download was corrupt, or that there is a permissions problem. You may have to re-install the OS.

It sounds like there may be more than that going on, but I'm just noting what the icon means.

[Angus_D]

Probably displayed when BootX can't start the kernel, right?

[Nai no Kami]

If you can salvage your files, do it without hestitation. Then I would suggest wiping the drive (zero it all, no quick format), put it back and see wuat happens. If you are able to boot from the installler CD, you may try to perform the installation. If you still cannot boot, the problem is not related to the contents of the drive.