Hi Pat, You don’t mention starting up in ’Safe Mode’? If you boot into Safe Mode Shift Key), the system will perform a file system consistency check using the "fsck_hfs" tool.
Hold down the Shift key from the moment you hear the startup "bong" to the moment the "spinning gear" appears. Expect this startup to take longer than usual. Don't be alarmed if the fans whirl loudly during the "spinning gear" display. Eventually you will be presented with the Safe Boot login screen. Log in as the administrator and change the System Preferences > Energy Saver settings. Cheers, Ronni 17" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt" 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) On 02/10/2011, at 12:54 PM, pat wrote: > The patient: Intel Mac Pro, three and a half years old, running OS > 10.6.8, 300 GB startup disk with 160 GB free. > > (Sigh) The patient was performing well yesterday afternoon until... > > I opened System Preferences and changed the Energy settings to 3 > hours each (they had been set for shorter intervals. Then did a > Restart. > > There was the usual startup chime, the pale grey screen with the > apple, then a blue screen. There it remained. The little windmill > cursor appeared at intervals and went away at intervals. The blue > screen flickered a bit, like it really was trying to start up. > > Remedies I tried: > Starting up holding the S key - no change. > Starting up holding the C key (the external backup disk, not Time > Machine, was attached - it is supposed to be bootable) - no change. > Starting up holding the option key (there is a Bootcamp partition). > Yes, I can boot into windows. (Arrrgghhh). > > While in windows, I opened the cd tray and put the Snow Leopard disk > in, then tried a restart holding the C key again. Used the SL disk > to repair permissions - there were only about a dozen repairs, all > having to do with System/Core Services/ Remote Management. Also > clicked Repair Disk. The message said the disk was OK. > > Tried another restart - no change. Started up on the SL disk again, > repaired permissions again - the same items were 'repaired.' > > Used an old laptop to access Apple support, worked through the > Express Lane. Resetting the SMC sounded promising, so I went through > the steps of that, but no change. That was a far as I could go with > Express Lane without paying for a phone consultation. > > Unfortunately, I don't have a current copy of Disk Warrior, or I > would have tried that. > > So I am really hoping WAMUG members can help. > > Pat -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
