[Ji Eun]

Startup hangs at the Apple logo and spinning progress indicator.
I'm on an iBook: G4800 / 640mb RAM, 10.3.7 with no APE haxies installed; the only system mod I'm running is TransparentDock and my startup items are: Synergy, MS mouse helper, and the iCal alarm thing.

Things started getting unstable less than a month after a clean install! First Mail.app started hanging and I had to force quit it all the time, then the machine began hanging at a blue screen at shut down and finally the bugger just won't start anymore >_<;

Here's what I've done so far:

First I verified and repaired permissions via Disk Utility on the installation disk, then I verified the installation volume, which was found to have plenty of errors, but Disk Utility could not repair those errors.

Next I hit Apple's support pages and read some.

I wanted to get to single user mode (or verbose mode) in order to run fsck and repair, but when I start up holding command+S or command+V I never reach the unix prompt, or whatever it's called. Instead I hang at an I/O error, so I can't type anything. It appears to be trying to read something from OS9, which I chose not to install in my last clean install. Anyway, I have to force shutdown. Next I tried resetting PRAM and NVRAM by command+option+P+R four or five times... to no effect. Finally I reset PMU (shift+ctrl+option+power button) and still no effect.

The original problem remains: startup hangs at the apple logo and spinning progress indicator.

I'm going to call Apple support but I wanted to ask you folks if you can see any way to retrieve my data before wiping the HD. I'm pretty pissed off... I thought I left this kind of crap behind with my old Windows machine... what a freakin' drag.

nb: command+T at startup is useless because I'm the only one for miles with a Mac. no one to transfer files to.

edit: forgot to mention can not perform safe startup (holding shift key), machine hangs _without_ spinning progress wheel.

[alphasubzero949]

I suspect your directory structure is damaged. Run DiskWarrior to see if that solves the problem.


If that fails then your recourse is to wipe the drive and re-install X. Be sure that you zero all data when you do. Hope you backed up.

[Ji Eun]

i can't run anything except the disks that came with the machine. i don't have disk warrior or any other third-party utilities on hard media. like i said, i've got the only mac around here, so i can't decompress mac files to burn them to disk.

if i have to do a clean install it's only a month's worth of data loss, but still >_<;;

[alphasubzero949]

This is why you should always invest in a utility program like DiskWarrior (which would be run by booting off from the CD). It has saved a lot of necks around here.

[Ji Eun]

i'll get it later. but for now.....
ah... got some good avice from apple phone support:

install panther to my external hd... boot from there, copy files over, clean install the ibook. wish i'd thought of that. i'll try this when i get home from work.

either way this thing is going to the service center on thursday. damn keyboard letters disappearing again /me goes to revive old keyboard thread.

[Ji Eun]

drive was inaccessible without 3rd-party apps.
couldn't install os x to my external, god only knows why.
wiped the sucker and started from scratch.
sometimes i get the feeling this thing is a real p.o.s.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Ji Eun:
drive was inaccessible without 3rd-party apps.
couldn't install os x to my external, god only knows why.
wiped the sucker and started from scratch.
sometimes i get the feeling this thing is a real p.o.s.

Ummm... if you had DiskWarrior, you may not have had to do that.

Also, bad RAM will cause all kinds of weird crashes and data corruption--making people think that they have an all-around lemon. Run the Apple Hardware Test on the thing... and then run it again. Then run it again. If your machine starts crashing again, pull a stick of RAM out (I'd start with the non-Apple RAM, as it's VERY rare for the Apple RAM to be bad).

[Ji Eun]

i just got diskwarrior and i'm ready for the next time.
hardware tests: i did that over and over, forgot to mention it in my first post

things are running pretty smoothly now, though every now and then i'm seeing the Darwin Login when i shut down or log off, which is rather disturbing.

[Brass]

Originally posted by alphasubzero949:
I suspect your directory structure is damaged. Run DiskWarrior to see if that solves the problem.


If that fails then your recourse is to wipe the drive and re-install X. Be sure that you zero all data when you do. Hope you backed up.

Why would you want to zero all data? Unless there's some security concern about people being able to recover deleted files? Otherwise, a plain erase (reformat) and re-install does all you need.

[olePigeon]

If you need to back up your stuff, find a PC that can read Mac OS partition and target boot your iBook to it via FireWire. That way you won't lose your stuff.

If your iBook is getting progressively worse after a clean install, it could be your RAM. I had your exact scenario happen on a B&W G3 that had a bad memory stick. While the RAM still "checked out" in all the usual programs, whenever it was inserted into a different Mac, that one would have problems to the point of not booting.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally posted by Brass:
Why would you want to zero all data? Unless there's some security concern about people being able to recover deleted files? Otherwise, a plain erase (reformat) and re-install does all you need.

What if your hard drive has bad blocks? Zeroing all data remaps the hard drive so that nothing is put into those blocks.

[AntShaw]

Originally posted by Ji Eun:
i just got diskwarrior and i'm ready for the next time.
hardware tests: i did that over and over, forgot to mention it in my first post

things are running pretty smoothly now, though every now and then i'm seeing the Darwin Login when i shut down or log off, which is rather disturbing.

If this is happening time and time again it could only be 1 of 3 possible things:

1.Bad RAM.
2.Failing Hard Drive
3 Installing Bad Software

Granted you could of gotten unlucky with a bad install, but if this is a problem that shows up time and time again...

[Ji Eun]

that's interesting about firewire target to PC, but i was under the impression PCs can *not* read apple-formatted hard disks.

also, onboard RAM is 128mb for my model iBook; i'm sure not keen on using OS X with such little RAM for any length of time (like, a week?) to check if apple gave me a bum 512mb add-on. is there any other way to determine if this is bad RAM? i'm still under warranty (and will soon purchase applecare) and not shy at all about hassling the service center.

[Big Mac]

Originally posted by Ji Eun:
i just got diskwarrior and i'm ready for the next time.
hardware tests: i did that over and over, forgot to mention it in my first post

things are running pretty smoothly now, though every now and then i'm seeing the Darwin Login when i shut down or log off, which is rather disturbing.

You see a darwin login prompt after a log off or shutdown, or you see what looks like single user mode and a message that says Continuing...? If you're seeing the latter, you're probably seeing it because the last time you booted you booted into single user mode. If you're seeing the former, then that is a problem.

[nforcer]

This happened to me a few months ago. I did not have DiskWarrior or anything. A complete reformat and install of things fixed things. Good thing I made a backup a few days before, and did not do anything significant in the meantime.

[Ji Eun]

now i get the darwin login prompt whenever i log off it seems. not knowing jack about darwin i then need to perform a hard restart to get back to my desktop. this has been going on for like 5 days, since an archive and reinstall of os x. is it possible all those "previous system" files are mucking up the works? what should i do with those files anyway (around 2gb)? are they safe to delete now?
most irritating though, are the systemwide instability issues i'm having while within os x, for example the keychain is screwed half the time and i get an error message when i empty trash half the time, too... (error -1) and then the only way i can empty trash is after a reboot.
at this point what i'll probably do is back up again *without* keeping any preferences such as mail, adium, etc and do a clean install and start 100% fresh with 10.3.2, update immediately to 10.3.7 and see how that runs as is, with no system mods whatsoever except synergy (if you can even call that a 'mod') and no legacy pref files.
but seriously, this is frustrating as hell and if i didn't have the free time to spend on this kind of thing i'd be sorely pissed off.

[osxrules]

I would try a new set of system disks. If it's a new machine, it's unlikely to be hardware; though not impossible especially if you have a clumsy delivery guy. An archive install wouldn't cure the problem if it doesn't replace any files that might be faulty.

I know that I installed an early version of OS X from a backup disc and it went wrong and the system behaved oddly. Clean reinstall worked fine. I haven't had a system problem for years now. What I usually do though is install the generic OS X. The discs that come with the machine install only on one type of machine so maybe there is something wrong there.

For example the system discs I got with my ibook only boots on an ibook but the system discs I install with, boot on any machine. Tiger should be out soon so it's maybe best not to get settled into Panther just yet.

Don't know if this is similar behaviour to yours, might help:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archiv...p/t-18537.html