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jonathanstick · Aug 17, 2003, 11:19 PM

Here's my set up:

iMac 17" 800MHz
768 MB Ram
OS X 10.2.6 (Everything up to date)

Here's my problem:

I'm getting the Apple logo at startup. I'm getting the gears at startup. Then.. nothing. Just blue screen. I can see my cursor! I can move my cursor! But that's it. I've waited, and waited.. maybe it's going to pop up the boot screen.. NOPE! Nothing!

So, I've booted into FireWire target mode and mounted the volume without any problems at all. I can move and copy files around, everything. So I repaired the machine with the newest Norton AND the newest Disk Warrior. It found some problems, and "repaired them successfully."

Still.. nothing! BLUE SCREEN!

So, I reset the NVRAM. I reset the PRAM. I've moved the OS 9 fonts out of the System Folder. I've moved all of the OS X StartupItems out of my Library folder...

I'v read every tech note on Apple's site.. now readers.. real dudes.. I turn to you!

What do I do!?

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

stevesnj · Aug 18, 2003, 12:26 AM

If you have an external monitor hook it up and maybe something with the mirroring is messed up. If you get a pic on the external mess with the display settings.

MrNo · Aug 18, 2003, 08:48 AM

This happened to me before my HD died. It would startup, pass the gray screen and as soon as the blue screen poped up, it would just hang there. You could move the mouse, but the boot process wouldn't go any further. It turned out that my IBM DeskStar was at its death bed ...

sniffer · Aug 18, 2003, 09:15 AM

Originally posted by MrNo:
This happened to me before my HD died. It would startup, pass the gray screen and as soon as the blue screen poped up, it would just hang there. You could move the mouse, but the boot process wouldn't go any further. It turned out that my IBM DeskStar was at its death bed ...

Just out of curiosity, did you try a fresh reinstall before it died? And did the disk checkers report many errors on the disk? (I would image it might report many errors if the disk was about to die.) Thanks.

MrNo · Aug 18, 2003, 11:41 AM

I could not install anything because at the end it would not see the drive at all. The machine was down for 2 days, I turned it on, it booted fine no problems, then I had to restart it and then it would just hang at the blue screen, I reset it again the drive made some grinding noise, then I tried to reinstall and it wouldn't even see it. This was one of the infamous IBM DeskStar drives.

Alpha-sphere · Aug 18, 2003, 03:48 PM

OMG!!! The winsucks screen of death has contaminated a MAC!

sniffer · Aug 18, 2003, 06:03 PM

I see MrNo. The reason for asking is to to find a pattern and I would therefor recommend jonathanstick to try a reinstall just to make sure there isn't any software related problems involved. Oh, and if you succeed re installing with a fresh install I'll recommend you to not install any third party disk checkers. I can't verify it my self, but according to others Norten is a no-no if you want to maintain a healthy system. (Plz correct me if I am incorrect about Norten)
If the problem still remain it's very possible that you have a hardware problem as MrNo suggested. If you are under warranty, and don't feel like hassle with this stuff, I recommend contacting Apple immediately. Just my 0.02.

jonathanstick · Aug 20, 2003, 04:57 AM

Okay... I just completed a "clean install" of 10.2.3 and no luck. I was so excited.. I lost my install disc and just found it tonight. I was sure that this would fix everything. C'mon! Clean install! It'll totally work. NOPE! Still getting blue screen right after Apple-gears-boot.

I mean.. Do I have to back up all of this data and erase the hard drive? This seems so ridiculous! Isn't this OS X? The most stable OS, ever? I haven't had ANY problems up until now.. and it comes at the worst and most busy time! I'm so glad I have this PowerBook.

Any other ideas?

Disk Utility says that this is an "AAPL" drive, not an IBM DeskStar.

hmmmmm..

HELP!

sniffer · Aug 20, 2003, 05:47 AM

Originally posted by jonathanstick:

Any other ideas?

Yep, I start to think the disk is about to die just as MrNo suggested.

MrNo · Aug 20, 2003, 08:50 AM

Well since you were able to install OS on it I wouldn't bet it's the hard drive. Take out any extra RAM you've added and then try to boot the system

oldmaccy2 · Aug 20, 2003, 11:53 AM

Can you do a 'safe boot' OK?
Do you have any Norton stuff installed?
I had a similar problem after installing the latest security update, removing all traces of norton stuff during a safe boot fixed it.
Might be something totally different, but I thought I'd mention it.

ckohler · Aug 20, 2003, 01:40 PM

Try unplugging any external USB or Firewire devices before booting.

jonathanstick · Aug 20, 2003, 02:05 PM

No, I can't do a "safe boot."

There isn't a single Norton file on the disk.

I've had the same RAM that has been in it for almost a year. It couldn't be that.

The only devices connected are the keyboard and a Microsoft mouse. I just unplugged them both.. still nothing.

I'm thinking that it's not a hard drive thing, either. I have it in target disk mode and mounted on my desktop right now. I can move and copy files around without a hitch. Wouldn't that stuff stop working if the drive was dying?

Thank you for your help! Keep it comin'!

SMacTech · 03:08 PM

Originally posted by jonathanstick:
No, I can't do a "safe boot."

There isn't a single Norton file on the disk.

I've had the same RAM that has been in it for almost a year. It couldn't be that.

Why couldn't it be the RAM? Trust me, RAM does indeed go bad, not often, but it can happen. I have replaced several DIMMs in the 100+ computers I admin.
Have you tried a verbose boot and see where it stalls out at?

jonathanstick · Aug 20, 2003, 04:08 PM

I'll try taking out the RAM. I didn't even think about it "going bad," I was just thinking it was either good to go or bad, from the start! Thanks for that info.

Verbose?

No, I don't know about this! Tell me more! How do I do it?

Thanks so much!

ckohler · Aug 20, 2003, 04:25 PM

Hold down command-v as OSX boots. Instead of seeing the graphical loading screen you'll see the UNIX boot sequence. The last message displayed might lead you to the problem.

King Bob On The Cob · Aug 20, 2003, 05:10 PM

Unhook your internet hookup. See if it starts. OS X has a problem where if it detects a net connection but the it can't get the time from the apple servers, it will twiddle it's thumbs for an eternity. Also Boot with Shift held down, which will prevent all 3rd party extensions, kexts, and frameworks from loading.

frawgz · Aug 31, 2003, 06:44 PM

I'm having the exact same problem as jonathanstick.

Cube 450, with 448 MB of RAM. My hard drive is the original 20 GB Maxtor.

My computer was working fine yesterday, until I tried shutting it down and I got a hanging blue screen. Now the farthest I can get after booting up is a blue screen with a cursor.

I only have my keyboard, mouse, speakers, and an Ethernet cable plugged in.

I tried repairing the disk and reinstalling with a new system (no wipe yet, because I don't want to lose my data). This is frustrating