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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Freezes On Startup
alleycatstudio - Jul 4, 2005 - 1:10 am
This just happened tonight. I have a G5 with the latest updated version of Panther, and recently added a DSL connection. My Safari browser froze when I was watching movie clips and I couldn't use the Force Quit feature (or do anything else for that matter), so I tried to restart with the manual button. The progress bar got hung up right near completion, where it says "Login window starting". I tried restarting and the same thing happened. Tried rebooting from the original CD and performing a reinstall and got a window saying there was an error reinstalling. Tried using the Apple Care Tech Tool CD and didn't get past the grey screen with the rotating wheel, and all it accomplished was to kick the fan into high gear. ...So in other words, I can't start the computer at all.
I'm on a 3 year Apple Care Plan and I got the G5 in January, so I believe it's still under warranty, but I was wondering if there was anything I could do before calling Apple. I was having problems before where I'd have to shut down/restart using the button but I assumed it was extension conflicts with my old dialup connection, (as the problems usually happened when I was trying to connect using their browser.) After I got rid of dialup all seemed fine until now.
I'm on a 3 year Apple Care Plan and I got the G5 in January, so I believe it's still under warranty, but I was wondering if there was anything I could do before calling Apple. I was having problems before where I'd have to shut down/restart using the button but I assumed it was extension conflicts with my old dialup connection, (as the problems usually happened when I was trying to connect using their browser.) After I got rid of dialup all seemed fine until now.
Drumhum - Jul 4, 2005 - 6:32 am
Alleycat,
I'm Tom and I will be assisting you.
I guess it all comes down to how much work you wish to put in to getting your mac back to normal. With your applecare service plan Apple should be able to get you sorted but if you have to send your computer "away" then you may well loose any data currently on the drive as well as live without your computer for a while. If you have things backed-up then this will not be a problem but it also means it may well be easier to fix!
When you performed an OS reinstall how did you do it? The safest, most reliable way is to erase the disk completely before the install, bringing the computer back to its "as new" state. This means, of course, you will have to re-install all your software and saved documents.
Just on a point of note, don't be too eager to re-install the OS. The process is often used on Miscrosoft Windows systems to cure many ills but the MacOS is very different. It is very unusual to have a software issue that demands a re-install of the OS. Indeed a re-install can cause more problems than it fixes unless you are happy to completely erase the disk before hand.
It certainly sounds like you had some "issues" before the latest problem. Not shutting down the computer in the usual manner is not good for the Mac and will certainly lead to problems if done frequently. It would have been wise to fix your shut-down issue me thinks!
Its hard to say just what was up with your mac prior to this recent development. It is possible there is a problem with your disk drive and all the issues were connected, resulting in the situation you have now. The important thing though is what to do now...
If there is nothing "valuable" on your computer and you are happy to wipe the disk clean and start again I would insert the original OS install CD/DVD, start the computer up from the CD by pressing the "c" key as your switch on your computer. If you need to open the CD tray you can do this by holding down the mouse button on start-up. Once you have started up from the CD go to the utility menu and select Disk Utility. You could at this point just try to repair the disk (select the disk and click "repair disk"). If lucky, you may find this does the trick and you computer is fixed! If this doesn't work then I suggest you erase and reformat the disk. Click on the erase tab in Disk Utility. Although it takes a little longer its worth clicking on the "security" button and selecting "zero data" as this will result in a complete blank hard disk and you can be sure of a blank canvas, so to speak. Once this is done you can go ahead and install the OS as per usual: quite Disk Utility and launch the install from the CD.
If you experience problems during any of this it could well be down to a hardware fault on your drive and a replacement drive maybe needed. As you are under warranty and covered by applecare Apple should sort that out.
If you do have valuable data you don't wish to loose then one way to recover the data is to use a second Mac if possible. You need to connect the two Macs up with a firewire cable with your G5 switched off. Switch on your G5 while holding down the "T" key. This will make your G5 start up in "firewire target mode" and will essentially turn your G5 into a standard firewire drive. You should see a hard disk mount on your second Mac's desktop. All being well you should be able to open the disk and copy over to the second mac all your valuable stuff.
Other courses of action you may wish to take before erasing the disk or sending the G5 back to apple (apart from starting up from the OS CD and repairing the drive with DiskUtility as outlined earlier) is to use third party disk repair software such as techtool pro or, my preference, Diskwarrior. Diskwarrior has saved my day many times!
It may well be worth Zapping the PRAM too. This erases/resets some system settings that can get corrupted and cause strange behaviour. Do this by starting up your mac while holding the Apple, alt, "p" and "r" keys until you have heard 3 to 4 start-up chimes.
After doing some zapping (!) and disk repairs you may find the system is still in need of a re-install as the re-install process you have already undertaken could have caused problems.
Have a think and a fiddle. If you need a more detailed description of any procedure or have further questions feel free to get back to me.
regards
Tom
--------
You will be asked for feedback once this query is closed. All us techs love to get feedback:-) Thanks for using macosx.com
I'm Tom and I will be assisting you.
I guess it all comes down to how much work you wish to put in to getting your mac back to normal. With your applecare service plan Apple should be able to get you sorted but if you have to send your computer "away" then you may well loose any data currently on the drive as well as live without your computer for a while. If you have things backed-up then this will not be a problem but it also means it may well be easier to fix!
When you performed an OS reinstall how did you do it? The safest, most reliable way is to erase the disk completely before the install, bringing the computer back to its "as new" state. This means, of course, you will have to re-install all your software and saved documents.
Just on a point of note, don't be too eager to re-install the OS. The process is often used on Miscrosoft Windows systems to cure many ills but the MacOS is very different. It is very unusual to have a software issue that demands a re-install of the OS. Indeed a re-install can cause more problems than it fixes unless you are happy to completely erase the disk before hand.
It certainly sounds like you had some "issues" before the latest problem. Not shutting down the computer in the usual manner is not good for the Mac and will certainly lead to problems if done frequently. It would have been wise to fix your shut-down issue me thinks!
Its hard to say just what was up with your mac prior to this recent development. It is possible there is a problem with your disk drive and all the issues were connected, resulting in the situation you have now. The important thing though is what to do now...
If there is nothing "valuable" on your computer and you are happy to wipe the disk clean and start again I would insert the original OS install CD/DVD, start the computer up from the CD by pressing the "c" key as your switch on your computer. If you need to open the CD tray you can do this by holding down the mouse button on start-up. Once you have started up from the CD go to the utility menu and select Disk Utility. You could at this point just try to repair the disk (select the disk and click "repair disk"). If lucky, you may find this does the trick and you computer is fixed! If this doesn't work then I suggest you erase and reformat the disk. Click on the erase tab in Disk Utility. Although it takes a little longer its worth clicking on the "security" button and selecting "zero data" as this will result in a complete blank hard disk and you can be sure of a blank canvas, so to speak. Once this is done you can go ahead and install the OS as per usual: quite Disk Utility and launch the install from the CD.
If you experience problems during any of this it could well be down to a hardware fault on your drive and a replacement drive maybe needed. As you are under warranty and covered by applecare Apple should sort that out.
If you do have valuable data you don't wish to loose then one way to recover the data is to use a second Mac if possible. You need to connect the two Macs up with a firewire cable with your G5 switched off. Switch on your G5 while holding down the "T" key. This will make your G5 start up in "firewire target mode" and will essentially turn your G5 into a standard firewire drive. You should see a hard disk mount on your second Mac's desktop. All being well you should be able to open the disk and copy over to the second mac all your valuable stuff.
Other courses of action you may wish to take before erasing the disk or sending the G5 back to apple (apart from starting up from the OS CD and repairing the drive with DiskUtility as outlined earlier) is to use third party disk repair software such as techtool pro or, my preference, Diskwarrior. Diskwarrior has saved my day many times!
It may well be worth Zapping the PRAM too. This erases/resets some system settings that can get corrupted and cause strange behaviour. Do this by starting up your mac while holding the Apple, alt, "p" and "r" keys until you have heard 3 to 4 start-up chimes.
After doing some zapping (!) and disk repairs you may find the system is still in need of a re-install as the re-install process you have already undertaken could have caused problems.
Have a think and a fiddle. If you need a more detailed description of any procedure or have further questions feel free to get back to me.
regards
Tom
--------
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