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TICKET ARCHIVE -> G5 Freezes At Starting Mac Os X Screen

moaksey - Mar 17, 2007 - 1:42 pm

I've seen this problem appear before on this site but I'm still having problems!

I hadn't installed anything new recently but the last time I used my G5 it froze up when I opened iPhoto. I couldn't force quit and had to turn the power off using the on/off switch. When I turned it back on everything was fine until start up wouldn't progress beyond the "Starting Mac OS X" screen. The blue bar filled up and the computer is still 'thinking' (the blue bar is wavy). But nothing happens beyond that.

I tried the whole "fsck- f" thing a few times. I got the "File system was modified" once or twice, but upon rebooting I still have the same problem. Now when I do the fsck -f thing I get a "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK" message very quickly. I then reboot or exit and still have the same original problem.

Does anyone have any advice for me?

Does it sound like a major problem?

Thank you!

ishan - Mar 19, 2007 - 12:10 pm

As long as you waited at least 15 minutes before turning the ocmputer off, yes, you have a major problem. If Disk Utility (which is what "fsck- f" runs) says everything is fine, but it's not, try DiskWarrior, which comes with its own bootable CD. That almost always works. Drive Genius is another utility.

This kind of situation is why I recommend you always have an up to date cloned copy of your drive on an external drive For G5 computers, the external drive has to be a Firewire drive; for Intel-based Macs, either a FW or an USB 2.0 external drive can work as a bootup device. So when this kind of problem happens, you restart your Mac with the option key held down, and choose the external drive as your boot up drive. On that external drive, keep copies of DiskWarrior, Data Rescue II, etc.

If you have access to another Mac with a FW connection, you can try to get the data off your malfunctioning drive by connecting the two computers together via Firewire with your "bad" computer in "Target mode" (turn on the computer with the "T" key held down and eventually, you'll see a FW symbol on the screen on your "bad" computer, that's all that will happen). On your host, i.e., "good" computer, you'll see the "bad" computer's drive as a Firewire external drive. You can then copy whatever you need from the "bad" drive, so at least you have not lost any irreplaceable data. You could also try running Disk Utility on it or any other repair programs like DiskWarrior, DriveGenius or Data Rescue II.

HTH and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

moaksey - Mar 22, 2007 - 8:37 am

Thanks for this. I actually ended up bringing it into work and our IT guy fixed it for me!

We transferred everything onto another Mac - in target mode - just to be safe. We re-installed software, without wiping the hard drive. All seemed to be in order but I couldn't log in this time! I typed in the username and password but it rejected it...

We went into admin and all seemed OK. My username was there on the hard drive - as were all the files... However, the username didn't show up on the system! It was very strange. It was as if I didn't exist - but all the files were there.

We managed to fix the thing and all is now OK. Such a relief. My IT guy said that there must have been a problem with the disc right were my account/user/log in details were...

Thanks for all the advice here. Was very reassuring!

Mike