Booting up takes FOREVER

atlasatlas
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
On my girlfriend G4 iBook, it takes forever to boot up. My iBook doesn't take as long, and I think I have narrowed down the problem. When it boots up, before it shows the Apple logo on the grey screen, it shows a folder with the old Macintosh logo and sometimes a disk. I am thinking it is trying to boot from a different location or something.



Any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    rob05aurob05au Posts: 348member
    Ok that means it having some issues locating the startup drive/system.



    If you have the Boot DVD startup from it and check the HD for errors and then goto startup disk and choose the internal HD.



    This should help with the problems. If they continue the best solution would be to backup any data and do a clean install.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    atlasatlas Posts: 90member
    Hmmm... I'll try to find that. What if I don't have it?
  • Reply 3 of 4
    rob05aurob05au Posts: 348member
    Disk Warrior is another app which can detect and repair errors also Tech Tool Pro is another.



    If you don't and know somebody who has a retail version try and borrow it to run it as it will also do the same thing.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Atlas View Post


    Hmmm... I'll try to find that. What if I don't have it?



    Boot up holding command-s. This will enter single user mode (like a full size terminal). Then type fsck -f and hit return. This will check your drive for errors and try to fix them and when it's done, type reboot and hit return.



    Choose the startup volume first though in the system prefs.



    If you still get the flashing icon after setting the startup disk, it may be that something is wrong with the PRAM. This stores your startup disk setting. You can reset this by holding down command-option-p-r at startup. If the ibook is an older model, it may be the PRAM battery starting to lose power - they tend to last around 5 years but it depends on how long you leave the machine without power. For example, if you take out the main battery and power cable, the PRAM battery is on its own and draining away slowly.



    I wonder why they don't use solid state media like flash memory instead of a battery + memory these days. Hmmm, after a quick google:



    http://www.htlounge.net/articles/182...--flash-memory
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