you may have a corrupted font file in the os9 system folder.
to check this, restart in os9 (as per above) and open it's system folder (not the folder called system) drag the fonts folder to the desktop. restart in osX. if it starts up ok you know you've got a damaged font file in that fonts folder.
(taken from the trouble shooting section of david poque's osx the missing manuel.)
I had a same problem several months ago. I ended up reinstalling OSX. Once I did, all the other/old volumes and files reappeared. I then backed up everything I really needed. I reformated the disc and did a clean install. If you have a slow / dial up connection like I do, go to one of the Apple stores to get everything updated. 10.2 -10.6 combo is like 80 meg and with everything else I was sitting there at the genius bar for about 2 hours to get everything back to where it was before the crash.. I never figured out what caused the problem but it happened after I was trying out VCD players.
I dont know what the hell to do...Mac works perfectly for a year and a half then all of a sudden after I restart it the other day...all hell breaks loose. I called Apple, and they arent allowed to help me over the phone because I dont have Apple Care and I purchased the machine a year and a half ago. The guy told me to look online at their support and I did and thats the only really relevent thing I saw was going into single user mode and typing those commands out.
OK, so what did it say after you typed 'mount -uw /'? These are exactly the commands that my roommate received from the AppleCare support tech, and that fixed his problem.
I'm afraid I'm thinking that your HD crashed. And Disk Warrior would be your best option. \
Suggestion for data recovery since this is what seems to be at stake here:
Grab multiple disk utilitie programs, thats what we do here at the institution which I work at. We've typically had good luck with Nortons Utitlies and Tech Tool Pro. Never tried DIskWarrior or DataRescue X, so I can't say for those.
Try hooking up your station to another and booting it through target disk mode. Something tells me your harddrive is "blech" for a lack of a better word.
Finally, buy another drive and throw it in your station, and install X on it and then hook up your previous drive see if you can recover you -ish.
Best of luck, I do a lot of drive recovery here and seeing a fellow students work go kaputz knowing they haven't backed up makes me feel bad its like seeing someone losing a child or something...
norton is evil... i cannot believe you haven't used diskwarrior... it is a great program...
other then that, good advice
tiger, do you have any other firewire computers? you could try target mode (hold t on startup) which would turn your computer into an external hard drive...
as per backups... ive seen someone who only saved one copy of their final term papers onto a FLOPPY because they thought the hard drive wasn't safe enough...
of course, when the floppy got stuck in the computer she came to the help desk at 1 in the morning for us to fix it... it all worked out tho... she was luckey
Looks pretty much like a harddisk crash, and, sadly enough, that happens quite often in this world. Diskwarrior comes highly recommended. They're at version 3 right now. Try it, it should work miracles. Oh, stop repairing your disk with Apple's disk utility. Every iteration will only **** your disk up a little more.
Today I booted up my machine just for the hell of it to see if things magically started to work....and it actually showed the log in screen so I logged in....machine seemed to start up and loaded up my desktop with everything there....almost....until it just became all blue again. So I booted up with the command to choose which OS you want and the only choice it gave me was to boot up in OS X. I do have OS 9 installed on the machine ...so I have NO CLUE why I couldnt boot in OS 9 with this ....I have done it before, full OS 9 not none of that Classic ish either. Sooo...I boot off the OS 9 CD and I am in there right, but I cant move anything to the desktop or open anything up because it says the disk is locked.
Basically Ive almost given up and am about ready to break down and cry for real. This is some bull, I dont have backups or disk utility programs on my Mac because its a Mac...I dont expect it to suddenly not be able to start up, especially after going 2 years without having any problems whatsoever. There is no way I can lose ANY of that data either...I have business documents (yes, I do have a start up business venture), a HUGE music collection which I've worked hard to gain (I dont have that many cds...and I have an extremely slow connection here at home..some of my stuff is ripped from cds I borrowed off friends and stuff that I wont be able to get again etc), tons of programs I need that I got through education....just everything. That thing is like my precious baby..I love it. The worst part is I have been planning on getting a 120 GB hard drive to add....
You must have access to another mac, at least one. Just plop yours down next to it, get a 6pin to 6pin,...boot up the working mac and then hold down the letter "T" as you boot your mac to set it in target disk mode. Now go, there has GOT TO be another mac around somewhere!
Yea there are several Macs around, just not with Firewire. What is a 6pin or what does it look like?
And how do I reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
The 6 pin is just the normal large-ish style firewire connector. I got one free with the computer.
Good luck
DiskWarrior has worked excellently for me in the past, if it's any consolation my computer in the past has also just suddenly given up the ghost. There is maintenence work that needs to be carried out on computers, running disk checks etc, they help things tick along
Yea there are several Macs around, just not with Firewire. What is a 6pin or what does it look like?
And how do I reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
6-pin is the standard FW...the one that is on ur G4...i believe it provides power through the cord...the 4-pin which PC's use does not give out power somone care to correct me?
I thought the CUDA switch was just to reset the PRAM? and he has done this (u did confirm by it restarting and makign the sound or whatever right)?
Comments
do you have OS 9 installed?
have you tried booting from that?
hold option when you boot to choose the OS you want
to check this, restart in os9 (as per above) and open it's system folder (not the folder called system) drag the fonts folder to the desktop. restart in osX. if it starts up ok you know you've got a damaged font file in that fonts folder.
(taken from the trouble shooting section of david poque's osx the missing manuel.)
reg
Originally posted by Verbal Assassin
I switched the RAM to a different slot, took out all of my PCI cards...still the same problem that persists.
I also tried something that I found that is supposed to fix it.
started up in single user mode with Command-S
typed: mount -uw /
then hit return
typed: mv /var/db/SystemConfiguration/preferences.xml preferences.old
then hit return
typed: reboot
then hit return
machine still booted as before
...snip...
I dont know what the hell to do...Mac works perfectly for a year and a half then all of a sudden after I restart it the other day...all hell breaks loose. I called Apple, and they arent allowed to help me over the phone because I dont have Apple Care and I purchased the machine a year and a half ago. The guy told me to look online at their support and I did and thats the only really relevent thing I saw was going into single user mode and typing those commands out.
OK, so what did it say after you typed 'mount -uw /'? These are exactly the commands that my roommate received from the AppleCare support tech, and that fixed his problem.
I'm afraid I'm thinking that your HD crashed. And Disk Warrior would be your best option.
This ****ing sucks...
Grab multiple disk utilitie programs, thats what we do here at the institution which I work at. We've typically had good luck with Nortons Utitlies and Tech Tool Pro. Never tried DIskWarrior or DataRescue X, so I can't say for those.
Try hooking up your station to another and booting it through target disk mode. Something tells me your harddrive is "blech" for a lack of a better word.
Finally, buy another drive and throw it in your station, and install X on it and then hook up your previous drive see if you can recover you -ish.
Best of luck, I do a lot of drive recovery here and seeing a fellow students work go kaputz knowing they haven't backed up makes me feel bad its like seeing someone losing a child or something...
other then that, good advice
tiger, do you have any other firewire computers? you could try target mode (hold t on startup) which would turn your computer into an external hard drive...
as per backups... ive seen someone who only saved one copy of their final term papers onto a FLOPPY because they thought the hard drive wasn't safe enough...
of course, when the floppy got stuck in the computer she came to the help desk at 1 in the morning for us to fix it... it all worked out tho... she was luckey
Basically Ive almost given up and am about ready to break down and cry for real. This is some bull, I dont have backups or disk utility programs on my Mac because its a Mac...I dont expect it to suddenly not be able to start up, especially after going 2 years without having any problems whatsoever. There is no way I can lose ANY of that data either...I have business documents (yes, I do have a start up business venture), a HUGE music collection which I've worked hard to gain (I dont have that many cds...and I have an extremely slow connection here at home..some of my stuff is ripped from cds I borrowed off friends and stuff that I wont be able to get again etc), tons of programs I need that I got through education....just everything. That thing is like my precious baby..I love it. The worst part is I have been planning on getting a 120 GB hard drive to add....
****!
after you run DW... BACKUP your important data...
Originally posted by ast3r3x
this is a message i'm relaying for TigerWoods99 because well read about his computer...he got the blue screen of death on a mac!
help a brother out...he needs it!
Did you reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
That's the only thing I can think of.
However, to save your data you'd need to see if the disk will mount from another computer. Firewire is the best way to go here.
Second the advice about DiskWarrior. DFA and especially Norton are useless in severe corruption. Diskwarrior rebuilds the directory from scratch.
And how do I reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
Originally posted by Verbal Assassin
Yea there are several Macs around, just not with Firewire. What is a 6pin or what does it look like?
And how do I reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
The 6 pin is just the normal large-ish style firewire connector. I got one free with the computer.
Good luck
DiskWarrior has worked excellently for me in the past, if it's any consolation my computer in the past has also just suddenly given up the ghost. There is maintenence work that needs to be carried out on computers, running disk checks etc, they help things tick along
Originally posted by Verbal Assassin
Yea there are several Macs around, just not with Firewire. What is a 6pin or what does it look like?
And how do I reset the CUDA switch on the mobo next to the battery?
6-pin is the standard FW...the one that is on ur G4...i believe it provides power through the cord...the 4-pin which PC's use does not give out power somone care to correct me?
I thought the CUDA switch was just to reset the PRAM? and he has done this (u did confirm by it restarting and makign the sound or whatever right)?
I'm gonna hold you to that,...send me some of your stuff.
I have a lot of dreams that I don't carrry out, maybe you'll be my inspiration to stay awake and really lose my sanity...
Oh, and if you have a red eraser around, clean the contacts of the RAM with that. No, I'm not kidding.
This trick restored by Sonnet Tech G3 upgrade. Officially sanctioned by Sonnet's support team as well. 8)