Welcome to Mac OS X!

ishawnishawn
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Well, finally last night I got my powerbook. It's so beautiful. Getting used it and bookmarks, documents has been a breeze. The only software I've installed is Office for school, but it went well. Then, all of a sudden I turn it on to write some notes, and I get the flashing question mark. What a way to start. I would have to say that was the 4th or 5th time I started it up. I was like....welcome to mac os x! I have been a Windows user since I was first typing...quite a while ago for school kids.



So I did like the troubleshooting did and put in the installer CD and held down C while it restarted, I repaired the disk, and it seems to be working fine now. I installed office last night (So I don't think it was that) and I'm in the process of getting software updates for security and stuff....and also creating an index for the hard drive.



So...any reason for this you know of? Before the question mark was a picture of a flashing globe and then it showed the question mark of death, well I restarted it after it said it was okay twice and it seems to be fine but we'll just have to see. Just wondering if anyone would know why it would do something like that. Rather more than anything satirical that I just switched and I get an equivalence to the blue screen of death. But I do love it!



I've seen people's desktops on here that have (I assume) AppleScripts or something running so that they can see how much free space and how much space is on the harddrive on the desktop. I guess this is somethign easy to do...but being a Windows person for so long I have only heard of what people can do with scripts and don't know much more about it other than that. How can I do that? (And other stuff!)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    As far as the last part, if it's just the item listing with things underneath saying "37.65 GB, 10.25 GB free"... then click on the desktop, view menu --> show view options... check show item info. Info pertaining to things like disks, images, audio/movies should show up.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    ishawnishawn Posts: 364member
    Ha! Easier than I thought! Thanks bud.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iShawn

    Then, all of a sudden I turn it on to write some notes, and I get the flashing question mark. <snip/> Before the question mark was a picture of a flashing globe and then it showed the question mark of death...



    These are the natural symptoms when a Mac loses a system folder, be it classic System Folder or modern System. Flashing globe, AFAIK, indicates that the Mac is trying to find a netboot volume. And this is really weird. Did you check you Network and Startup Disk settings? Also, after installing MS Office, the first thing I'd do is repair disk permissions.



    WRT the actual reason... I think you should forget about it until the boot problems resurface. Mac OS X is a very complicated beast, coupled with OpenFirmware and Chinese hardware. Sometimes strange things do happen, but having worked with OS X since 2001, I'm sure it's the most stable desktop OS.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    ishawnishawn Posts: 364member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by costique

    These are the natural symptoms when a Mac loses a system folder, be it classic System Folder or modern System. Flashing globe, AFAIK, indicates that the Mac is trying to find a netboot volume. And this is really weird. Did you check you Network and Startup Disk settings? Also, after installing MS Office, the first thing I'd do is repair disk permissions.



    WRT the actual reason... I think you should forget about it until the boot problems resurface. Mac OS X is a very complicated beast, coupled with OpenFirmware and Chinese hardware. Sometimes strange things do happen, but having worked with OS X since 2001, I'm sure it's the most stable desktop OS.



    I have since rebooted quite a few times and haven't run across the problem since so I think that it is all good. Actually, did reset the disk permissions, as prompted by the disk utility and I went into the system prefs and it said it was booting from a question-marked drive...so I clicked on it and was able to set it to the Mac OS X System Files (or something along those lines) and then I locked the bar. I really like that lock mechanism. Lol...if anything else arises, I'll be sure to post. hopefuly it was just one of those one-in-a-million chance things.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iShawn

    Well, ...

    Rather more than anything satirical that I just switched and I get an equivalence to the blue screen of death. But I do love it...





    Well, do you know what irony is?

    Well, i know someone, a 10 year windows user, who switched, who hated windows and fell in love with Os X. He ordered his first Mac ( from 10 year using windows), and this Mac was a DOA.



    This is real sh**!



    best
  • Reply 6 of 8
    ishawnishawn Posts: 364member
    What is "DOA?"
  • Reply 7 of 8
    mattjohndrowmattjohndrow Posts: 1,618member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iShawn

    What is "DOA?"



    dead on arrival
  • Reply 8 of 8
    jimdreamworxjimdreamworx Posts: 1,095member
    At least it wasn't NFG... Not Factory Guaranteed.
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