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MrForgetable · Jan 23, 2005, 01:17 AM

The other day, I decided to restart my computer. But when I did, it wasn't normal, it didn't go straight to the grey screen. It paused, and there was no loud humming of the hard drive. Then it will turn a blank grey screen, flash to a black, and go back to a grey screen.

This time it will have a small folder in the middle showing a picture of a globe. I let that sit for a while, and it will become a smaller folder and flash a Question Mark (?) and the Finder icon. The harddrive is barely humming, and it might even be the fan. Well, I wait a little longer, let it flash the ? and the icon, and it will boot up normally with the grey screen and the Apple logo ad the spinning thing.

My computer has only recently done this. I went to repair permissions, and there is one thing that cannot be repaired. It is in System/Library/Filesystems/. I have repaired about 3 times, and every single time this shows up. Is it supposed to?

First time I saw this I freaked out and thought I had lost all my information and the entire system had crashed and oh no, I'm going to die, but it boots fine and operates fine.

I run OS 10.3.7.

Tyler McAdams · Jan 23, 2005, 03:23 AM

Your system for whatever reason could not find your system folder. When there is no system folder set you'll get a folder in the middle of the screen at boot with the question mark on it... it will try to find a folder and start from it if I remember right... after a few min or so. If it does it again you should hit the option button and it will give you a list of system folders it finds.

I would try to reset your motherboard... there is a small button on my G4's mobo that you hold down for about 30sec to reset the default settings.... something happened to your machine that caused it to lose it's settings... you might have a hard drive that's about to go... it could really be one of many things.

I would make sure you have a system folder selected in the system preferences starup drive applet and reboot the system form there to make sure it was not something simple like that.

Angus_D · Jan 23, 2005, 06:27 AM

For some reason it's trying to NetBoot. If you have your original OS X Install CD, boot off that, then launch the Startup Disk utility (available from one of the menus) and see if you can set it back to your OS X partition.

MrForgetable · Jan 23, 2005, 12:05 PM

Hm.. I hope it isn't my harddrive going dead.

I will try the start up disk utility right now.

MrForgetable · Jan 23, 2005, 12:21 PM

hey thanks. i booted off the DVD, Installer Menu->Startup Disk Utility, and there it was, it was trying to boot off Network! Quickly changed it to Mac OS X and restarted. Works perfectly now! Thanks.

Jonesy · Jan 23, 2005, 12:35 PM

The item in FileSystems which always gives the problem with repair permissions is an error I see every time as well. From what I have read this is very common and nothing to worry about.

Detrius · Jan 26, 2005, 06:40 PM

Originally posted by Jonesy:
The item in FileSystems which always gives the problem with repair permissions is an error I see every time as well. From what I have read this is very common and nothing to worry about.

It's not actually an error--it's a notification that Apple is doing things differently. That's why it's so common.

Angus_D · Jan 27, 2005, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by Detrius:
It's not actually an error--it's a notification that Apple is doing things differently. That's why it's so common.

It looks like a message that was inserted for debugging purposes and never removed, to be honest.

Detrius · Jan 30, 2005, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
It looks like a message that was inserted for debugging purposes and never removed, to be honest.

Yes it does, but it is documented by Apple as a notification (somewhere in the materials I read through for these certifications). Also, there's a new one with the 2005-001 security update.

We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util. New permissions are 33261
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/jobs. New uid is 1
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/spool. New uid is 1

wulf · Jan 31, 2005, 04:23 AM

Originally posted by Detrius:
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util. New permissions are 33261

My G4 has been giving this error/notification since forever. Always wondered if it was just a quirk on my system.

Kind of reassuring to know that others are getting it too

the_glassman · Feb 24, 2005, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by MrForgetable:
hey thanks. i booted off the DVD, Installer Menu->Startup Disk Utility, and there it was, it was trying to boot off Network! Quickly changed it to Mac OS X and restarted. Works perfectly now! Thanks.

I had the same problem, but 10.3.8. Strange.

leperkuhn · Feb 25, 2005, 02:33 PM

Originally posted by MrForgetable:
The other day, I decided to restart my computer. But when I did, it wasn't normal, it didn't go straight to the grey screen. It paused, and there was no loud humming of the hard drive. Then it will turn a blank grey screen, flash to a black, and go back to a grey screen.

This time it will have a small folder in the middle showing a picture of a globe. I let that sit for a while, and it will become a smaller folder and flash a Question Mark (?) and the Finder icon. The harddrive is barely humming, and it might even be the fan. Well, I wait a little longer, let it flash the ? and the icon, and it will boot up normally with the grey screen and the Apple logo ad the spinning thing.

My computer has only recently done this. I went to repair permissions, and there is one thing that cannot be repaired. It is in System/Library/Filesystems/. I have repaired about 3 times, and every single time this shows up. Is it supposed to?

First time I saw this I freaked out and thought I had lost all my information and the entire system had crashed and oh no, I'm going to die, but it boots fine and operates fine.

I run OS 10.3.7.

Hmm.. I shall now post my story, which is similar. So I was using my ibook the other day, (10.3.7) and i noticed that it was getting kind of sluggish. then i got a spinning beach ball that wont' go away. so i restarted, and i got the sits at the question mark thing, but it never booted up.

very strange. so i watched a movie and went to bed.

i hooked up the ibook to an imac and started it in target disk mode. didn't show up in the finder, so i restarted the imac. nothing. very strange.

being the curious fellow that I am, i went into the open firmware. i reset-all, and restarted. doesn't help. I go back into the open firmware, and type in

dir hd

I get this:

DISK-LABEL: read of block0 failed

Pretty sweet right? also, i've noticed a faint chirping sound that happens inconsistently.

I should note that I am not at home. I am visiting my parents for a week and i only have the Jag CDs that came with their iMac. This is adding to my frustration. That and I bought the laptop a year and 2 weeks ago. Luckily I don't have much data on this computer - I only use it to do work based on documens on my main machine.

I'm just a little bummed out that i have to wait till sunday to even use my original CDs to check it. I will always bring them with me from now on.