Ticket Options
Question Profile
| DATE | Feb 23, 2008 |
| TICKET | #336308 |
| STATUS | Closed |
| SUBJECT | Cannot switch startup disks |
| CAT | Computers, Operating Systems, Applications or Connected Devices |
| TYPE | Operating System Features, Bugs and Problems |
| DESC | Apple |
| DESC | 10.4.X (Tiger) |
| PLATFORM | Apple Macintosh (PowerPC G3,G4,G5) |
| MODEL | B&W G3 |
| PROC | 450 |
| RAM | 1 g |
| DRIVE | 250g, 120g, 120g |
| NAME | anon |
| USERNAME | anon42 |
| TECHNICAL | Expert |
| ISSUE | Stumped |
Question Details
TICKET ARCHIVE -> Cannot switch startup disks
anon42 - Feb 23, 2008 - 7:38 pm
This never happened to me before :-(
If I use the Startup Disk preference panel and select a disk for startup, then click the Restart... button, the usual dialog comes up asking if I am "sure you want to restart the computer". If I then click its Restart button I get my alert sound and the restart is not done nor is the startup disk is changed.
Something has got corrupted on my boot system but I don't know what it could be.
The Startup Disk preference pane won't even give the alert sound even attempting to select the disk I am running from.
I keep mounted a backup to my system (10.4.11-bkup) and also the previous system (10.4.10). Those backups are on a different drive from my main 10.4.11. I was able to reboot from the 10.4.10 by disconnecting the ribbon cable to my main 10.4.11 drive (luckily). The 10.4.10 Startup Disk preference panel DID work. That's how I know something must be clobbered on the 10.4.11.
I used 10.4.10 to switch boot to the 10.4.11-bkup. It worked. But since the 10.4.11-bkup is a exact copy of my primary 10.4.11 I have now painted myself into a corner and I can't get back to the 10.4.10 to allow me to use it's Startup Disk preference to set boot back to my primary 10.4.11.
What I really need is some idea of what to look for on my 10.4.11's that's causing Startup Disk to fail. I've repaired permissions so that's not the problem. If it's just a plist or config file somewhere I am not sure which one it could be. I hope you have some ideas.
Some additional info. I am running on a B&W G3/450. So I cannot boot from external firewire's nor can I use the option key during boot to switch launch. This is why it was necessary to disconnect the drive to get to the 10.4.10 that first time. I keep my home directory separate from the boot system which is why I can move from one OSX version to another keeping my login setup the same.
If I use the Startup Disk preference panel and select a disk for startup, then click the Restart... button, the usual dialog comes up asking if I am "sure you want to restart the computer". If I then click its Restart button I get my alert sound and the restart is not done nor is the startup disk is changed.
Something has got corrupted on my boot system but I don't know what it could be.
The Startup Disk preference pane won't even give the alert sound even attempting to select the disk I am running from.
I keep mounted a backup to my system (10.4.11-bkup) and also the previous system (10.4.10). Those backups are on a different drive from my main 10.4.11. I was able to reboot from the 10.4.10 by disconnecting the ribbon cable to my main 10.4.11 drive (luckily). The 10.4.10 Startup Disk preference panel DID work. That's how I know something must be clobbered on the 10.4.11.
I used 10.4.10 to switch boot to the 10.4.11-bkup. It worked. But since the 10.4.11-bkup is a exact copy of my primary 10.4.11 I have now painted myself into a corner and I can't get back to the 10.4.10 to allow me to use it's Startup Disk preference to set boot back to my primary 10.4.11.
What I really need is some idea of what to look for on my 10.4.11's that's causing Startup Disk to fail. I've repaired permissions so that's not the problem. If it's just a plist or config file somewhere I am not sure which one it could be. I hope you have some ideas.
Some additional info. I am running on a B&W G3/450. So I cannot boot from external firewire's nor can I use the option key during boot to switch launch. This is why it was necessary to disconnect the drive to get to the 10.4.10 that first time. I keep my home directory separate from the boot system which is why I can move from one OSX version to another keeping my login setup the same.
DeltaMac - Feb 23, 2008 - 9:29 pm
Have you tried to repair the boot disk?
You can easily do that by booting to your normal boot disk, while holding Apple (command) - S, which takes you to a screen with text, and that scrolls down to a prompt.
Type fsck -fy
then press enter. Let that testing finish. If the fsck (which is File System ChecK, by the way) finishes and finds some errors that it should fix, run the same command again, until it does not find anything else to fix (no problems found, or something like that), then type mount -uw /
then press enter
If you get problems here, there's a space between the t and the -, also between the w and the /
The spaces must be there...
If you get errors that are reported, and the fsck cannot fix them, then you need better software, such as Disk Warrior - or consider replacing that hard drive, as you may have a failing hard drive, OK?
Let me know what you find out...
- Dale
You can easily do that by booting to your normal boot disk, while holding Apple (command) - S, which takes you to a screen with text, and that scrolls down to a prompt.
Type fsck -fy
then press enter. Let that testing finish. If the fsck (which is File System ChecK, by the way) finishes and finds some errors that it should fix, run the same command again, until it does not find anything else to fix (no problems found, or something like that), then type mount -uw /
then press enter
If you get problems here, there's a space between the t and the -, also between the w and the /
The spaces must be there...
If you get errors that are reported, and the fsck cannot fix them, then you need better software, such as Disk Warrior - or consider replacing that hard drive, as you may have a failing hard drive, OK?
Let me know what you find out...
- Dale
anon42 - Feb 23, 2008 - 10:02 pm
All my disks were basically fsck'ed (Disk Utility's Verify Disk) just the night before because I did a full backup of all my disks. That's how my 10.4.11-bkup became identical to my primary 10.4.11 :-( Next time I'll do some more verification on the primary before backing it up to the secondary which is designed to be used as my fall back disk just in case some update clobbers the primary.
After submitting my report to you I remembered I forgot to supply some additional info. Specifically, when I attempt to use the StartUP Disk preference there are the following messages display on the console (log):
Can't load ///usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi
Error while getting file ID of /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi. Ignoring...
Could not get path in device plane for service
Can't get Open Firmware information
Can't set Open Firmware
Error running bless. Returned error 3
I then thought of trying to bypass Startup Disk by using some alternate application with the same function. I found a tool called "Change Startup Disk v1.6.1" on MacUpdate. But using it caused it to report the similar set of errors.
On a hunch I did a google search of the error line,
"Could not get path in device plane for service"
And I got some hits. The most interesting was this,
http://forum.pgp.com/pgp/board/messa...message.id=490
That page says /System/Library/Extensions/PGPwde.kext was the cause of his problem. I had that kext too since I had previously installed PGP 9.7. I didn't that PGP and uninstalled most of that PGP but NOT it's kext's. So this time I fully removed all the PGP 9 stuff (obviously including PGPwde.kext). Now Startup Disk works again :-)
Problem solved!
After submitting my report to you I remembered I forgot to supply some additional info. Specifically, when I attempt to use the StartUP Disk preference there are the following messages display on the console (log):
Can't load ///usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi
Error while getting file ID of /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi. Ignoring...
Could not get path in device plane for service
Can't get Open Firmware information
Can't set Open Firmware
Error running bless. Returned error 3
I then thought of trying to bypass Startup Disk by using some alternate application with the same function. I found a tool called "Change Startup Disk v1.6.1" on MacUpdate. But using it caused it to report the similar set of errors.
On a hunch I did a google search of the error line,
"Could not get path in device plane for service"
And I got some hits. The most interesting was this,
http://forum.pgp.com/pgp/board/messa...message.id=490
That page says /System/Library/Extensions/PGPwde.kext was the cause of his problem. I had that kext too since I had previously installed PGP 9.7. I didn't that PGP and uninstalled most of that PGP but NOT it's kext's. So this time I fully removed all the PGP 9 stuff (obviously including PGPwde.kext). Now Startup Disk works again :-)
Problem solved!
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