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hatim · 05:45 AM

2nd time since I bought my mac Ive had this problem. mac os sh!t won't boot at all while windows works fine. I feel like a stupid arse to have bought a macbook. First time I was charged $35 for an "OS reinsall" becuase I lost my original backup disk. If this peice of stupid sh!t needs a reinstall every 2 months, Im afraid mac os x is way behing windows.

I guess, Im stuck trying to use windows without a proper right key.

edit: My hard disk is dead and they will replace it for me.

zwiebel_ · Dec 18, 2006, 09:29 AM

^^
User error. Can't be anything else.

seanc · Dec 18, 2006, 09:40 AM

[RANT]No. Mac OS X is perfectly stable.

Either your MacBook is faulty (I've been through countless problems with your MacBook in the hardware forums) or you're doing something to break OS X. Losing the disks is not Apples fault, it's yours.

Tiger has been running fine on my PowerMac G3 since I installed it in July and Windows has been running fine since I re-installed it in August. Both operating systems are stable if you treat them right although Windows needs a lot of 'babying' to keep it running.

I suspect you still have hardware issues and would urge you to give your Apple dealer (who I think I remember being an ass) a piece of your mind.[/RANT]

hatim · Dec 18, 2006, 10:00 AM

It was running perfectly fine until one day it decide to show the beach ball every 2 mins for 2 mins, until it got to the point I had to force shut it down. Next time it booted to the login screen, now it does not even do that.

Last time they repaired my macbook they said it was solely a software fault. Either way there is no point in whining. I would like to get rid of this peice of trash as soon as I can.

First time I thought it might be user error, but if it keeps on happening again and again, there is no excuse. If it runs fine for 30 days without a glitch and suddenly stops booting, what hardware fault can there be? EVERYTHING is running perfectly fine on windows as of now.

Oh well, tough luck

! I'm not going to pay another $35 just to run OSX. Only if apple really cared and email address on their main site to contact them I would request them to send me some extra disks.

Atleast now I know not to buy apple products in the future. Support is pretty crap!

edit: I had installed this iweb update which OSX had been constantly bugging me for a day before I started having problems like these.

seanc · Dec 18, 2006, 10:05 AM

I'd sell it on eBay or on these forums and then pick up a C2D MacBook. Perhaps the HDD on your MacBook is faulty? I don't know what it is but it's abnormal. If this was the norm. everybody would be screaming about it.

Goldfinger · Dec 18, 2006, 10:05 AM

That's either a hardware error or a serious software error. In al of the years of using macs I have never ever seen behaviour like that. Nor do any of my Mac using friends have any problems.

Did you run the hardware test CD ? Maybe your RAM is faulty... Or a bad hard drive. I don't know. Maybe your Apple dealer is just plain incompetent.

kmkkid · Dec 18, 2006, 10:13 AM

Bad RAM can cause 100% of the symptoms you describe.

romeosc · Dec 18, 2006, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by zwiebel_

^^
User error. Can't be anything else.

Shutting down during writes to OS can cause you to hose operating system.

Try booting with Shift key down!

hatim · Dec 18, 2006, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by kmkkid

Bad RAM can cause 100% of the symptoms you describe.

I changed the RAM and the problem persists.

hatim · Dec 18, 2006, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by romeosc

Shutting down during writes to OS can cause you to hose operating system.

Try booting with Shift key down!

I will try that. Thankyou.

TheTraveller · Dec 18, 2006, 10:37 AM

Poor guy. These things happen. It's probably a combination of hardware, software, and user error. Sounds like he's happier using Windows, and the support he's received has been sub-par. Can't win 'em all.

hatim · Dec 18, 2006, 11:00 AM

I've got to admit that people here are very helfpful

Anyways the most ridiculous thing just happened. Windows booted with artifacts and crashed. I rebooted and its working for now. Mac Os x on safe mode does not work. So now what options do I have? The apple store will try its best to deny me a proper repair and will try to squeze as much money out of me as they can. I beleive after so many problems, Im in the right to claim a new notebook. Im sure they will "void my warranty" even if I make such a claim. I will try my best to rob them of their "dealer" status and I will even take them to court if things get bad enough.

Other options include selling the ram and hard disk and throwing the rest in the trash (The extent of my frustration)

P.S - Its not the RAM. The last time I was using RAM from my Dad's Vaio and this time some ADATA ram.

Where can I get backup disks mailed to me?

kmkkid · Dec 18, 2006, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by hatim

I changed the RAM and the problem persists.

Perhaps you received another faulty stick, it's happened to me.

In any case it's not normal for OS X to be doing these things, it's a very stable platform, as is Windows. If Windows is performing normally then it must be an issue with the OS X install, something is buggered up.

hatim · Dec 18, 2006, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by kmkkid

Perhaps you received another faulty stick, it's happened to me.

In any case it's not normal for OS X to be doing these things, it's a very stable platform, as is Windows. If Windows is performing normally then it must be an issue with the OS X install, something is buggered up.

3 times faulty? Highly unlikely. Now I can not decide whether its a software or hardware problem. In 7 reboots, windows has crashed once. The other 6 times has worked flawlessly.

Maybe romeasc is right. I fubared becuase of the stupid restart.

seanc · 11:17 AM

I'd get in contact with Customer Relations at Apple and you could try emailing [email protected] describing your problem, of course being as nice as possible.

Hi I'm Ben · 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by seanc

I'd get in contact with Customer Relations at Apple and you could try emailing [email protected] decribing your problem, of course being as nice as possible.

I second that idea. If you don't have a proper place to bring your computer, you may find that email address very helpful. Like sean said though, be polite, be friendly, just state your problem. I've had to use that email twice and both times resulted in a good outcome, but my emails were not mindless rants of world hatred.

My suggestion to you would be to email that address and ask for their recommended course of action.

goMac · Dec 18, 2006, 03:53 PM

How much RAM do you have in your computer? You're going to want to have about a gig.

CharlesS · Dec 18, 2006, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by hatim

Anyways the most ridiculous thing just happened. Windows booted with artifacts and crashed. I rebooted and its working for now. Mac Os x on safe mode does not work.

If OS X and Windows are both screwing up when booting, I think that rules out any problems with the OS X installation. Either the hard drive's messed up, or you've got some kind of hardware problem. At any rate, if you've had as many problems with the machine as you say you have, you should be able to get the Apple store to replace it for you. Just go there, tell them you've got a lemon, and don't take any crap from them. You should be able to get a replacement MacBook, which will work much better than your current one (but don't lose the install discs this time!).

Trust me, I've used Macs for almost 20 years, and OS X since it came out. What you're experiencing is not normal.

hatim · Dec 19, 2006, 10:44 AM

Okay I took it to the apple store once again after an email I sent them yesterday. To my surprise, they greeted me with aknowledging the email I had sent S. Jobs.

Anyways, they said they will inform me after thorough checking of the problem. They also said its highly unlikely that the macbook will be replaced. However they said it was likely that this was a hardware problem and the faulty part would be replaced.

If it is a software problem, I will try and get replacement install disks from ebay and then reinstall myself. If this problem ever happens again and its software related, Im going sell my macbook.

kick52 · Dec 19, 2006, 10:51 AM

i think YOU are an idiot for saying that Mac OS X is unstable, even though you know that YOUR MAC is screwed up.

i have been running Mac OS X for a year without having to restart because of a Mac OS X software fault.

CharlesS · Dec 19, 2006, 02:16 PM

Aaaaaaand here we go with the flamefest.

Although I'll admit that the OP asked for it a bit by calling us idiots in the topic title, flaming back doesn't really do anyone any good. Let's just try to help the guy with his problem, okay?

kmkkid · Dec 19, 2006, 02:21 PM

If it's not faulty RAM it could be a faulty RAM slot or even a faulty Hard drive. Take it into an Apple store and get it fixed. Much like we can't diagnose medical problems, we also can't diagnose hardware problems on a bulletin board.

kmkkid · Dec 19, 2006, 02:22 PM

Nm.

krove · Dec 19, 2006, 02:27 PM

I had a similar problem with a MacBook. We sent it to Apple THREE times for repairs for the same thing: beachballs forever, then on restarting it would just sit there at the spinning wheel and never show the login screen. Apple swapped out the RAM more than twice. Same thing. Apple swapped out the hard drive. This went on and off for almost two months. Finally, Apple agreed to swap out the motherboard, but by this point we were absolutely fed up because this started no more than 2.5 weeks after buying the damn machine. (Two weeks is the cut-off for an out-right replacement.)

What did we do? We wrote a letter to Steve Jobs, explaining the case rationally, giving all case numbers, etc. The letter went to the executive Apple support team. Within a day, we had a call from Steve's personal assistant saying the Apple store in Reno had a brand new black MacBook waiting for us.

At some point, Apple has to declare a machine dead or not working properly and just give the customer a new one. We reached that point.

krove · Dec 19, 2006, 02:32 PM

While it is easy to blame Apple for this, there is always some number of machines that make it through Quality Assurance that just aren't quite right. This is true for any computer company. Maybe some more than others, but any hard numbers would be impossible to come by, so we are left with anecdotes.

That said, your mileage with trying to escalate a support issue may vary. As always: be courteous, give the benefit of the doubt, try all possible avenues before resorting to his Steveness.

Big Mac · Dec 19, 2006, 02:34 PM

Look ma, it's a troll!

lookmark · Dec 19, 2006, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by krove

I had a similar problem with a MacBook. We sent it to Apple THREE times for repairs for the same thing: beachballs forever, then on restarting it would just sit there at the spinning wheel and never show the login screen. Apple swapped out the RAM more than twice. Same thing. Apple swapped out the hard drive. This went on and off for almost two months. Finally, Apple agreed to swap out the motherboard, but by this point we were absolutely fed up because this started no more than 2.5 weeks after buying the damn machine. (Two weeks is the cut-off for an out-right replacement.)

What did we do? We wrote a letter to Steve Jobs, explaining the case rationally, giving all case numbers, etc. The letter went to the executive Apple support team. Within a day, we had a call from Steve's personal assistant saying the Apple store in Reno had a brand new black MacBook waiting for us.

At some point, Apple has to declare a machine dead or not working properly and just give the customer a new one. We reached that point.

++. Great post. This is the way to handle a faulty machine.

Stay calm, be polite but persistent, and if the problem continues after several internal replacements, it's well within your right to request to start from scratch with a new machine.

Aside from some very basic tests, above all narrowing down if possible whether it's a SW or HW problem, it's not your job to troubleshoot it. Leave it to Apple's support/repair dept.

Warhaven · Dec 19, 2006, 03:13 PM

I feel your pain, though the problem with my PowerBook G4 (1.5 GHz model) has been all hardware. First, the display had white spots all over it. Fortunately, it was covered by my warranty and I got that replaced. Then, like two weeks after my warranty ended, BOTH my HDD and combo drive died at nearly the same time. Replacing those wasn't all that bad, since I was about to upgrade the HDD anyway from the 5400 to 7200 rpm version, but it would have been nice to keep the older 80 GB drive and throw it into an external enclosure for backups. I ended up upgrading the combo drive to a super drive, so I could burn DVDs anyway.

Unfortunately, the lower ram slot has also recently died -- halving my RAM from 2 GB to 1 GB. I heard through the grapevine that Apple has an extended replacement program going on for just that issue. As my luck would have it with this particular laptop, the serial number is too old to be covered under Apple's extended repair program for PowerBook G4s.

On the flip side, my brother has the slightly newer 1.67 GHz PowerBook, which has yet to have a single problem software, hardware, or otherwise.

chris v · Dec 20, 2006, 03:21 PM

It's not Apple's fault that you lost your install disk. There's more on that disk than the OS -- it also contained your HW diagnostic, which could have helped you diagnose the problem early-on.

If you want to rule out RAM for sure, the best tool for that is Memtest.

kmkkid · Dec 20, 2006, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by chris v

It's not Apple's fault that you lost your install disk. There's more on that disk than the OS -- it also contained your HW diagnostic, which could have helped you diagnose the problem early-on.

If you want to rule out RAM for sure, the best tool for that is Memtest.

Memtest is probably the best option, but it failed to detect bad RAM that I had in my system.

OreoCookie · Dec 20, 2006, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by kmkkid

Memtest is probably the best option, but it failed to detect bad RAM that I had in my system.

If you really want to test the memory, you have to run it for a few hours straight, perhaps even a day.

hatim · Dec 21, 2006, 07:49 AM

Okay Apple store says its a hard disk problem. They will try reformatting the drive to see if its a bad logical sector of if the drive is half dead.

I also got a reply from Apple after sending them my story. The asked for my postal address and my local Apple store's contact. I hope thats a good sign :d

P.S What in the world is a job/booking number? They have asked for one in the email.

Thanks again.

zwiebel_ · Dec 21, 2006, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

If you really want to test the memory, you have to run it for a few hours straight, perhaps even a day.

Originally Posted by kmkkid

Memtest is probably the best option, but it failed to detect bad RAM that I had in my system.

Actually, memtest has to be run from the command line, before OS X even boots up. Read the docs, it is very well explained.

OreoCookie · Dec 21, 2006, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by zwiebel_

Actually, memtest has to be run from the command line, before OS X even boots up. Read the docs, it is very well explained.

How can you run a program before the machine has booted? Under FreeBSD, Linux and OS X, that's exactly what I have done and it worked fine. I remember a few years ago when my university got a new (small) cluster made up of cheap PCs, and the first thing they did was run memtest on it for 48 hours. Promptly, one node proved to be defective.

kick52 · Dec 21, 2006, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

How can you run a program before the machine has booted? Under FreeBSD, Linux and OS X, that's exactly what I have done and it worked fine. I remember a few years ago when my university got a new (small) cluster made up of cheap PCs, and the first thing they did was run memtest on it for 48 hours. Promptly, one node proved to be defective.

he means under single user mode, so more RAM is free to memtest.

kmkkid · Dec 21, 2006, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

If you really want to test the memory, you have to run it for a few hours straight, perhaps even a day.

I ran it for over 24 hrs.

kmkkid · Dec 21, 2006, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by zwiebel_

Actually, memtest has to be run from the command line, before OS X even boots up. Read the docs, it is very well explained.

Duh? Where did I say I didn't run it during single user mode?

It still failed to detect my bad RAM. I know it was bad because I bought a new stick and no crashes or panics since.

OreoCookie · Dec 21, 2006, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by kmkkid

I ran it for over 24 hrs.

You haven't mentioned that in your initial post. I mistakenly assumed you ran the test once and that was that.

There are also commercial RAM testers (as in hardware), but that's nothing you'd have lying around.

zwiebel_ · Dec 21, 2006, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by kmkkid

Duh? Where did I say I didn't run it during single user mode?

It still failed to detect my bad RAM. I know it was bad because I bought a new stick and no crashes or panics since.

Where did you? I must of not seen it

macgeek2005 · Dec 21, 2006, 10:09 PM

Hatim. You are either an idiot or you have a faulty MacBook. Wait a minute! You LOST your restore disks? It's gotta be the first one then...

besson3c · Dec 22, 2006, 12:06 AM

Artifacts on the screen often means a bad logic board, at least in the days of the iBooks...

hatim · Dec 22, 2006, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by macgeek2005

Hatim. You are either an idiot or you have a faulty MacBook. Wait a minute! You LOST your restore disks? It's gotta be the first one then...

Actually, since I bought the macbook from the UK to Pakistan, they got misplaced in transit apparently. Either that or my mom threw them away.

kick52 · Dec 22, 2006, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by hatim

Actually, since I bought the macbook from the UK to Pakistan, they got misplaced in transit apparently. Either that or my mom threw them away.

well, if you mum did do it, tell her to f*** off your stuff.

Tack · Dec 22, 2006, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by kick52

well, if you mum did do it, tell her to f*** off your stuff.

Useless comment.

OreoCookie · Dec 22, 2006, 10:56 AM

Stop the personal attacks, people!

zaffel · Dec 23, 2006, 01:13 AM

Calling people who have no problems with macs idiots, when you dont know what your doing or talking about, in my opinion, Is idiocy!
Can you say.... FLAMEBATE?

mpancha · Dec 23, 2006, 03:33 AM

What's with everyone disagreeing with the OP?

I bought my first iBook in 2001, when the redesign to the white iBook happened. It was a piece of crap. I had to format it every month, most of the time things didn't work. At that time the excuse was 10.0 was beta. Several 10.x iterations later, I was still formatting every month. It took up until 2003 for APple to finally agree it was the Logic Board... their own fault, not user error, and fix it.

Now 5 going 6 years from my first iBook.... I still have to format every 2 months. It could possibly be user error, but going with the fact that I spend every weekday fixing Apple's for prepress departments of printing houses.... Im going to go with maybe I'm not the user causing errors... and maybe an Apple is just as bad as any PC. The difference, smaller market share, means a smaller population gripes about errors. Switch market shares, and the masses will be chanting about Apple being a failure.

Going with all that, my current laptop is an Apple, and my next one will be an intel MBP.... but it doesn't change the fact, that I"m going to be realistic, and assume I"ll have to format my Apple every 2-3 months.... uinlike my PC which I only format every year, simply b/c its an easier way to clean up all the extra crap that's built up in my documents folder.

TETENAL · Dec 23, 2006, 04:16 AM

Originally Posted by mpancha

What's with everyone disagreeing with the OP?

The OP obviously has defective hardware. So everyone is disagreeing with him because it's not that OS X is unstable, it is his computer that is broken.

I still have to format every 2 months. It could possibly be user error, but going with the fact that I spend every weekday fixing Apple's for prepress departments of printing houses.... Im going to go with maybe I'm not the user causing errors... and maybe an Apple is just as bad as any PC.

Maybe Macs are just as bad as any PC, but it's still user error. Neither OS X nor Windows require a reformat every two months.

gradient · Dec 23, 2006, 04:22 AM

Originally Posted by mpancha

But it doesn't change the fact, that I"m going to be realistic, and assume I"ll have to format my Apple every 2-3 months.... uinlike my PC which I only format every year, simply b/c its an easier way to clean up all the extra crap that's built up in my documents folder.

I've never had to reformat any of my computers over the years (apple or pc) due to anything other then boredom (yes I get THAT bored). I'm shocked if you really have to reformat anywhere near that often.

hatim · Dec 23, 2006, 06:38 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

The OP obviously has defective hardware. So everyone is disagreeing with him because it's not that OS X is unstable, it is his computer that is broken.
Maybe Macs are just as bad as any PC, but it's still user error. Neither OS X nor Windows require a reformat every two months.

Infact, I have been building PC destops for over 5 years now and never have I had a problems like this with windows where I can not even save my data. If someone did have important or sentimental data on it, he would probably be more angry than I am now.

Whether it is a hardware or software problem, its clearly Apple's fault. Im not a newbie and I will never break an OS installation twice!

And if you say my machine is broken, Apple themselves said its a software problem the last time the formatted. This time however, they "are not sure yet" ...So if according to Apple my OS died without me being able to save my data once, and then again apparently because of a software problem, there is still no doubt in my mind that OS X needs a hell lot of more improvement.

Ofcourse the Apple store could have been wrong.