Hardware or a new Mac virus? iMac stuck
I hope there is some genius out there who can help! I've tried all the tricks I can find in the forums and can't get my iMac (G4 running 10.3.9) to boot up! It gets stuck on the gray apple screen with the spinning indicator every time!
I zapped the PRAM.
I have all the peripherals ('cept mouse & keybd) unplugged.
It won't start in safe mode, just hangs at gray screen.
It won't start with the Install disc, it hangs at gray screen.
It WILL start in single-user mode but won't allow me to type anything (can't reboot, cant use fsck). I get 16 lines of white text on black, ending with:
Load of /sbin/mach_init, errno2, trying /etc/mach_init
Load of /etc/mach_init failed, errno 2
I ran the Hardware "extended" test from disc and got the error code: "post/ 16/2048 DIMM0/J22" but everything passed.
We had a power outage while it was on. The machine hung 3 times - it went to a gray screen with a light gray box about 5"X3" with a light colored power switch as a background, that says "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button" (then says it in French, German, and what looks like Chinese letters maybe?) at the bottom of the box is has FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.
I was able to restart it twice, but no more. I had just installed the update for iTunes.
HELP! NEED MAC GENIUS! I just loaded my vacation pix from Egypt last month (but still had tons of memory left) and didn't back em up!!
I zapped the PRAM.
I have all the peripherals ('cept mouse & keybd) unplugged.
It won't start in safe mode, just hangs at gray screen.
It won't start with the Install disc, it hangs at gray screen.
It WILL start in single-user mode but won't allow me to type anything (can't reboot, cant use fsck). I get 16 lines of white text on black, ending with:
Load of /sbin/mach_init, errno2, trying /etc/mach_init
Load of /etc/mach_init failed, errno 2
I ran the Hardware "extended" test from disc and got the error code: "post/ 16/2048 DIMM0/J22" but everything passed.
We had a power outage while it was on. The machine hung 3 times - it went to a gray screen with a light gray box about 5"X3" with a light colored power switch as a background, that says "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button" (then says it in French, German, and what looks like Chinese letters maybe?) at the bottom of the box is has FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.
I was able to restart it twice, but no more. I had just installed the update for iTunes.
HELP! NEED MAC GENIUS! I just loaded my vacation pix from Egypt last month (but still had tons of memory left) and didn't back em up!!
Comments
POSSIBLY... RAM got burned. Beg, borrow or steal a minimal amount of RAM and put it in the Mac and see if it starts now (remove all the old stuff.) Could be any number of other chips on the MB got hit and cause a problem like that... but RAM is easy to replace and check.
I'll see if I can get my hands on some RAM. Thanks.
I wonder if there's any RAM I can use from my iBook in my iMac. I'll look into that.