Man you wrote a book! Try putting in your install cd and open disk utilities. Reset the preferences on your boot drive.
That�s worked for me in the past. Good luck. Geno on 04/06/2005 11:22 AM, Thomas Baker at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I've been running X (10.3.8 now) trouble-free for months, but today I > decided to change the cables on my video converter box (which I use to feed > analog video into Final Cut), and I thought it would be safer to shut down > the computer before switching FireWire or video cables on the box (I > especially worry about switching FW cables hot). So I chose Shut Down and > waited for the Mac to shut down. The monitor screen turned blank-blue as it > usually does during shutdown, but then it just hung there, frozen. No > shut-down. > > After waiting awhile, I decided to go ahead and shut the Mac down the rest > of the way by just hitting the Off button on my APS power backup, which > cuts off the power to the Mac. Dumb! Doing that apparently broke OS-X! > (Unless it was already broken when the shutdown screen froze). > > Now when I try to start up the Mac, instead of going to the OS-X desktop, > it goes to a login box with my name on it, but only for a couple of > seconds. Then that box vanishes and I get a blue screen with a terminal > command line in the upper left corner: a login prompt asking for name and > password. So I give it those, and I get "Welcome to Darwin!" Who's Darwin? > Charles Darwin the naturalist? Anyway there sits the prompter or whatever > it is waiting for commands, and I don't know any commands to give. The only > command I know is "exit," which starts the whole broken startup thing over > again: the glimpse of a login box followed by the terminal command lines > asking for name and password again. > > I looked into Pogue's OS-X book for help, and he says to boot into single > user mode in such a situation and type in fsck -y to get a repair routine > running. So I did that, and I get > > "Checking HFS Plus Volume > Invalid number of allocation blocks (-1,0) > **volume check failed" > > Hitting exit from there takes me right back to "Welcome to Darwin" again. A > vicious circle! No way out! > > Pogue suggests that when everything else fails like this, reinstall OS-X. > So I put my OS-X CD in the superdrive (Pioneer 107) and restart while > holding down the C key, but it hangs at the gray screen with the apple on > it. I have to force a restart. > > Fortunately this is a dual-boot G4 (733 DA), so I can drop back into OS > 9.2.2 by re-starting and holding down the D key. That gives me the OS-9 > desktop (and I am sending this cry for help to the G-list from it) and I > can see all my drive icons, and open them up to see that everything on them > is present and accounted for (three internal and IDE three external > FireWire drives), and the OS-X System folder is sitting there on one of the > drives as normal. > > While on the OS-9 desktop, if I choose the OS-X Install disk as the startup > disk, and restart, all it does is hang again at the gray screenfd, and I > have to force a restart. > > So, I'm stuck! I can't get my OS-X desktop back, and I can't reinstall OS-X > either! What do I do now? > > Tom > > Art website at http://www.ThomasBakerPaintings.com > Archaeology website at http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/AANewsletter/ > > -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
