I'm having trouble with my iMac at startup. Once the desktop appears, including icons, I am unable to do anything for at least 30 seconds. When I used my preferred extensions, none of the pull down menus show up at first and the menu bar is blank. Under OS 8.6 extensions only, the menus show up, but are not accessible. After waiting the annoying 30 or so seconds, everything seems to work fine. I've tried every Mac trick I know. Here are the details.
It all started right after I helped a friend switch out a hard drive in his mac. We networked my iMac DVSE/400 with his PPC 6500/275 using a crossover ethernet connection so he could store his files on my mac until the new HD was installed. Everything went fine and he's back up running with no problems. His files are now deleted from my hard drive.
I think the critical point where the problem started is related to filesharing somehow. During the initial transfer from his mac to mine, his 6500 served as the server. I connected to his computer and selected the partitions and started copying them. I think it is related to what I did to get connected. I am almost positive that I checked "ON" the check box to reconnect at startup and I shouldn't have. My computer remained on during the HD swap. Once we had transferred all the files back I restarted my computer and it then went out looking to reconnect to his HD and gave me the login window. Since his new partitions were not shared and one was even renamed, it couldn't find anything to connect to. We had successfully transferred this files to my computer before when he reduced his partitions from 4 to 2 and reformated his drive to with MacOS Extended Format. I distinctly recall that I was careful not to check the check box to reconnect at startup in the Chooser.
That's my theory anyway, which seems similar to an experience I had a work once. The only resolution I found then was to do a clean install. I'd like to avoid doing that if possible.
Anyway, here is what I've tried so far on my mac. I'm currently running OS 8.6 and I have not installed any new software recently and this problem did not exist before the surgery on my friend's mac . I've scanned with Norton Utilities and Antivirus and found no problems or viruses. I've tried booting with AppleTalk "inactive" -- it still is inactive. I've switched extensions in the EM to Mac OS 8.6 only. I've disconnected all USB devices except the original Apple keyboard and original Apple mouse while using any set of extensions. I've rebuild the desktop and zapped the pRAM. I've trashed the finder prefs. I've even pulled the Finder off of the OS install CD, after comparing file size with the Finder on my Mac -- they were the same size to the byte -- it boot's just fine, but still hangs. The problem does not exist when I boot from CD or with extensions off.
I've also searched for hidden files that were modified after 2/7/01, which is the day before we did the transfer. There is a file called "AppleShare PDS" that shows up in the search for files that were "modified" after 2/7 that doesn't show up in the search for files that were "created" after 2/7. Could this file be causing the problem, even if AT is turned off? What is this file? It's a 1.8 MB file. Can it be deleted?
Any help would be appreciated to avoid doing a clean install.
Thanks,
krb
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