Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

toconnor · May 21, 2005, 05:46 PM

I finally got around to upgrading my Powerbook 17"/1Ghz this morning. The upgrade (Archive & Install) went OK. Even my Mail was still there which I was worried about seeing some other threads on Mail problems.

I then installed the 10.4.1 update, the iTunes update, and the DVD update (all at once). My Powerbook boots but when I click my username to login I'm not prompted for my password as before. The Mac spins for a bit then it drops me into the terminal to login via the command line.

I searched thru this forum and reset the PRAM - no luck. I also found a reference to verbose boot mode so I logged into the CLI and ran "sudo /usr/sbin/nvram boot-args=""". Still no luck.

I did spend a few hours making backups before the upgrade. I initially was thinking of erasing the drive and starting fresh but chose not to. Maybe I should have.

Any ideas how I can get this machine to boot normally? I will say of all of the Macs I've owned this Powerbook has been the most trouble.

Thanks in advance.

Todd

NeilCharter · May 21, 2005, 07:35 PM

The first thing I would do - if you have another mac with enough disk space - is to try and recover your personal information and data, by connecting the PB in target drive mode to the other mac.

Hopefully then you will be able to copy over your user folder.

Then maybe try to reinstall 10.4.0 using archive and install. If that doesn't work then you may need to wipe the drive and start from scratch.

If you don't or can't do that option then maybe try fsck or boot the drive using the original install drive and try the disk aid repair options.

If your PB is giving you issues maybe a clean install is the way to go - sometimes files have been corrupted that carryover to the new OS and continue to cause problems.

Good luck, Neil

toconnor · May 21, 2005, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

The first thing I would do - if you have another mac with enough disk space - is to try and recover your personal information and data, by connecting the PB in target drive mode to the other mac.

Thanks for the tip. Even though I have backups I've connected the Powerbook to my other Mac and am copying my user folder now. Even though it's going to take more time I'm going to wipe the drive and start fresh. May even get some performance out of it depending on how fragmented my drive is.

Thanks for the tip on target disk mode. So far it's working great.

Todd

NeilCharter · May 22, 2005, 10:38 AM

Backing up is always a good idea. I recently had a bad experience when I bought a new drive for my G4 Sawtooth. After I had added the new drive in, my old drive had trouble booting again. I hadn't backed up at all! Luckily I managed to get it working for long enough to get most of the data, although I did lose some stuff. Seems like the drive was teetering on the edge of failing and by some lucky chance I had decided to get another drive.

Good luck with the reinstall. I did that for my PB and it think I does help.

Cadaver · May 22, 2005, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by toconnor

I finally got around to upgrading my Powerbook 17"/1Ghz this morning. The upgrade (Archive & Install) went OK. Even my Mail was still there which I was worried about seeing some other threads on Mail problems.

I then installed the 10.4.1 update, the iTunes update, and the DVD update (all at once). My Powerbook boots but when I click my username to login I'm not prompted for my password as before. The Mac spins for a bit then it drops me into the terminal to login via the command line.

I searched thru this forum and reset the PRAM - no luck. I also found a reference to verbose boot mode so I logged into the CLI and ran "sudo /usr/sbin/nvram boot-args=""". Still no luck.

I did spend a few hours making backups before the upgrade. I initially was thinking of erasing the drive and starting fresh but chose not to. Maybe I should have.

Any ideas how I can get this machine to boot normally? I will say of all of the Macs I've owned this Powerbook has been the most trouble.

Thanks in advance.

Todd

Sounds suspiciously like what can happen when you run out of hard drive space to support all the temp and swap files opened at bootup. Are you by chance running low on HD space?