OS X locks up during boot, please help

nyder · 03-21-2007, 03:23 PM

Hello everyone.

My friend needs me to fix your Powerbook G4.

Aparently she had closed it down the night before, but when she touched it the next day it was hot, like it had been running, and on the screen was the grey screen with the darker grey apple and the circle thing doing it's circle thing.

That all the happens when you turn it on now.

I'm work & build x86 machines mostly, except for all the older computers I'm into, so I don't have that much experience with OS X, other then I like it. =)

But, she needs to finish some work she's doing, and it's up to me to help her. Normally it's not a problem, but I'm having a heck of a time finding out how to get around locked up boots. Maybe i'm not putting the correct phrases into google, or apples website, but i'm not coming up with anything that helps.

I know Option - apple key - F - O will boot you into something else.
I know the Option key will give you a choice of items to boot from, which it only shows the harddrive.

I do not know what version of the OS it is, either 10.2, or 10.4 I think.

Is there a "safe mode" that I can boot in to find the cause of the problem? Some way to have it not load up drivers or whatnot?

I don't have her OS X disk here, though. I think I have a CD version of 10.4 around though.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.

thanks

nyder · 03-21-2007, 04:15 PM

Okay, some more info. I found out how to boot from cd, which didn't work (I'm going to get her dvd in a bit), but I also found out how to boot into commandline and stuff.

I pretty much got the same thing wether I used Apple-V or Apple-S, and this is it:

Code:

standar timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
vm_page_bootstrap: 125715 free pages
mig_table_max_displ=68
IOKit Componet Version 7.9:
Wed Mar 30 20:07:52 PST 2005; root(rcbuilder):RELEASE_PPC/iokit/RELEASE
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

using 1310 buffer headers and 1310 cluster IO buffer headers
Local FireWire GUID = 0x1124ff:0xfe7801d0
CSRIDTransitionDriver::Probe
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start before command
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start kIOUSBPipeStalled = e000404f
ADB present:84
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
CSRIDTransitionDriver::start after command - e00002ed
Security auditing service present
BSM auditing present
From path: "/pci@f4000000/ata-6@d/disk@0:3,\mach_kernel", Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOPathMatch</key><string ID="1">IODeviceTree:/pci@f4000000/ata-6@d/@0:3</string></dict>
Got boot device = IOService:/MacRISC2PE/pci@f4000000/AppleMacRiscPCI/ata-6@D/AppleKauaiATA/ATADeviceNub@0/IOATABlockStorageDriver/IOATABlockStorageDevice/IOBlockStorageDriver/Hitachi HTS541060G9AT00 Media/IOApplePartitionScheme/Untitled@3
BSD root: disk0x3, major 14, minor 2

The only difference was when I did the Apple-S, I got it like above, but when I did it with V, those 6 repeating lines were at the bottem.

I will know what version of OS X it is when I get her disk from her.

sinclair_tm · 03-21-2007, 11:07 PM

have you unplugged everything from the mac, but the power cord? it almost looks like its hanging on getting the usb to work. the os does have a safe mode. as soon as you start the mac, hold down the shift key, and keep it held down until you get a screen saying its starting in safe mode, if it gets that far. if it does boot into safe mode, the the os install is bad, and if the install cd/dvd doesn't let you get a repair, then you will have to do an archive and install of the os. on the other hand, if it doesn't boot into safe mode, then you have a hardware problem. if that is the case, i'd start with the ram. if its got 2 sticks of ram in it, pull them out one at a time, and try booting. even switch the slots the the ram is in. i have had bad ram stall a boot like this before. if there is only one stick of ram, see if you can get your hands on another to swap it with. if changing the ram around doesn't work, then it means it needs to goto an apple repair center, as most likely the mobo is bad, and they will have to swap it out.

nyder · 03-22-2007, 02:34 PM

It appears the harddrive died. It's a powerbook, so the only thing plugged into it was the power cord. When I got her disk, I booted it, and ran the disk util, and it just tried to find a harddrive.

So now I need to find a very tiny philips and take the harddrive out and try to save what I can off of it.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

03-21-2007, 03:23 PM	#1 (permalink)
nyder Registered User Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 3 OS: xp	OS X locks up during boot, please help Hello everyone. My friend needs me to fix your Powerbook G4. Aparently she had closed it down the night before, but when she touched it the next day it was hot, like it had been running, and on the screen was the grey screen with the darker grey apple and the circle thing doing it's circle thing. That all the happens when you turn it on now. I'm work & build x86 machines mostly, except for all the older computers I'm into, so I don't have that much experience with OS X, other then I like it. =) But, she needs to finish some work she's doing, and it's up to me to help her. Normally it's not a problem, but I'm having a heck of a time finding out how to get around locked up boots. Maybe i'm not putting the correct phrases into google, or apples website, but i'm not coming up with anything that helps. I know Option - apple key - F - O will boot you into something else. I know the Option key will give you a choice of items to boot from, which it only shows the harddrive. I do not know what version of the OS it is, either 10.2, or 10.4 I think. Is there a "safe mode" that I can boot in to find the cause of the problem? Some way to have it not load up drivers or whatnot? I don't have her OS X disk here, though. I think I have a CD version of 10.4 around though. Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated. thanks

03-22-2007, 02:34 PM	#4 (permalink)
nyder Registered User Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 3 OS: xp	Re: OS X locks up during boot, please help It appears the harddrive died. It's a powerbook, so the only thing plugged into it was the power cord. When I got her disk, I booted it, and ran the disk util, and it just tried to find a harddrive. So now I need to find a very tiny philips and take the harddrive out and try to save what I can off of it. Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.