[mystery]

I have been asked by a friend to help him fix his computer and Im not sure how to proceed. The problem is this, he is running 10.2.8 on a G4 tower, 450mhz I believe, I tried to upgrade him to 10.4 but I could not get his computer to start from my install disk (it was a while ago so now I cannot remember if I tried to switch the startup disk in system prefs) he just updated his iphoto and now when he starts his computer, it freezes if he tries to do anything except restart it. If he clicks on anything but the apple he gets the spinning wheel that wont stop till he restarts manually. I gave him diskwarrior and drive genius to try, but he cannot get either of them to boot from the CD. I dont know where to go from here, I had him try to zap the pram to no avail. if we cannot get the computer to boot from a cd and we cannot access the system prefs to change the startup disk, how can I fix this issue? We cannot even reload the OS. Anyone have any solutions other than throwing it off a roof?

[chris v]

Is it a graphite G4? If so, I can't think of a good reason why that machine shouldn't boot from a CD other than some sort of hardware problem. Maybe you can get your hands on an external firewire CD/DVD drive and try it? Also, try hooking it to another machine that's been started in Firewire Target Disk mode and see if you can boot from it.

[jmiddel]

Try starting up in single user modem holding command-s as you restart and until you get a black screen with scrolling white text. when it stops, at the bottom will be a little white square and the cursor will blink. Type /sbin/fsck -yf and hit return. It will do its thing for a minute or so. If any errorrs are reported and fixed, repeat this command until no further errors are found. Then type exit or reboot and hit return. Hope this helps!

[mystery]

I will try that right now!

OK so I had him bring the computer over here so I could work on it from the comfort of my own home...
I flashed the pram - no changes
It will NOT boot in target mode to either of my macs.
the internal drive will not work
I hooked it to my external firewire drive and it will not boot Diskwarrior or Drive Genius from that, although Drive Genius did show up on his desk top (so at least I know his firewire ports work).

What happens is that the desktop comes up fine, if you leave it alone from there it looks ok, but as soon as you try to open any folder you get the spinning wheel that will not stop (he had it spinning for 36 hours before he killed the computer to bring it to me)

Any ideas of what I can try now? I find it hard to believe that this computer is dead.

Oh and btw, he told me that he had tried to update iphoto when his computer died. It was itunes that he had updated, he just bought a 60gb ipod photo and used the updater on the CD that came with it.

I appreciate any help that I can get on this.

[mystery]

Originally Posted by jmiddel

Try starting up in single user mode...Type /sbin/fsck -y and hit return.

thanks for the suggestion. I did that. It tells me that the hard drive appears to be ok and when I reboot, I have the same problem.

however

when I start up in single user mode I see this in all the code

itunesPhoneDriverNub is not compatable with its super class
Extension "com.apple.driver.itunesphonedriver" error binding OS objects
failed for kmod com.apple.driver.itunesphonedriver
ID catalogue com.apple.driver.itunesphonedriver cannot be loaded

I am sure that this is significant since he loaded/upgraded itunes before his computer **** the bed. Any ideas? Should I remove itunes or these upgrades? How can I do that from single user mode. Of course I am not sure, but it would stand to reason that it is this driver that is binding things up.

[mystery]

I went thru the procedure to start in safe mode, but am not really sure if it is in safe mode. I was hoping to remove the itunes phone driver in safe mode. All I know is that I still cannot open any folder with out the computer freezing.

can anyone tell me how to remove the driver or even the entire itunes app and drivers in the single user mode since that is the only way I can currently access the computer.

[mystery]

Well I did it, its fixed. I used the Command/Shift/Option/Delete key combo to force an alternate startup disk while loading a 10.3 install disk. The first time I tried this, it caused a kernel panic. After that it was smooth sailing. I dont know why, it really doesnt make sense but I loaded that OS in and didnt look back. I installed it using archive and install so I didnt loose any data on the computer.

Man triumphs over machine once again.

Thank you everyone for all your help and useful suggestions. I learned a lot doing this, fixing it was just the cherry on top.

thanks.

[mystery]

oops double post.