BIG boot problem with my macbook...

[Space Opera]

i have a new macbook g4 1.8 ghz, and i've owned it for about two months.

my computer will not boot up at all. when i turn it on the white apple screen comes up with the little circle underneath it and it wont boot. the screen stays there endlessly. there is no noise internaly. what happened before this started was i had made a cool music video in imovie, transfered the file to itunes. then i tried to open that file in itunes and my mac froze up. so i rebooted. it then took 20 minutes for it to boot up completely and when it was done it was so slow i couldnt stand it. i could barely move the mouse without it starting to load endlessly. so i shut it off again. this time it took even longer to boot up but the same thing happened, it was slothy. so i reboot AGAIN. this is when it decided to not boot at all. im afraid that i am a rare individual who got a virus using azureus or something.

i booted up with the instal disc and it booted fine into install mode. i ran a hardware test and everything checked out fine. then i tried to do a reapair disk permissions on the disk a message comes up saying "Disk Utility internal error- disk utility has lost its connection with the disk management tool and cannot continue. please quit and relaunch disk utility." so obviously somethings wrong there but i dont know how to fix it.

PLEASE HELP!

 

[Space Opera]

oh and also it will not re-install mac os x. an error message pops up. should i resort to whiping everything completely?

 

[Ric]

Hi there and welcome,

it sounds like your Mac has crashed and when it is starting up... FSCK is being run in the background...this can make your Mac along time to start up. How long did you leave it trying to biit up ?

You can start up the Mac and hold down the command + s keys...untill you get to a "prompt"

Then type

/sbin/fsck -fy

then press return

This will manually run FSCK...then once it has finished (it may take a while) type

reboot

and press return.

Your Mac should now boot up successfully.

Give this a go first...

regards

Ric

 

[Space Opera]

thanks ric.


i ran the fsck program and it worked succesfully. now it boots real nice and fast. also, whilst in the midst of trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer i had done an archive and install, but it just placed a folder in my hardrive saying 'previous system' or something with all of the original os x saftware. ui thought that when i did an archive and install it would whipe the slate clean with a new drive and archive all of my old programs. anyways some of the same problems are happening now that happened before my mac crashed:

-when i open safari it freezes and won't load the page, so i uninstalled it thinking that some other software had affected it and used the safari that had installed in the old system folder but it did the smae thing so i got rid of that one too, and now cant figure out how to reinstall safari via installation disk.

-other programs will crash as well when i open them like photoshop cs and my widgets will also screw the system up too. the system just slows down to a near halt and i have to force quit some apps.

i just need to figure out what made my computer crash in the first place to make fsck run in the background, because whatever it was is still affecting some of my software. is there any kind of software check that i can do to see if any files are illegaly affecting others?

thanks ric.

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

no problem !

When you do an 'Archive and Install' it leaves the previous System Folder so if there are any bits in it that you 'need' you can then just copy them across after. Then you can throw it away.

The rule of thumb, once you have done your 'Archive and Install', then open up each Application on your Mac, if they all open correctly then you can throw away the 'Previous System Folder'.

Now that you have done the Archive and Install I would suggest doing a 'Repair Permissions' using Disk Utility.

The restart and see how you get on.

With any computer, the more software on there the more chance of one bit conflicting with another !

The only way of double checking everything is to back everything up, then wipe the drive and do a completely fresh install. Then run Software update and make sure all the System is up todate.

Then 'Repair Permissions' (do this whenever you have installed software).

Then add one Application, run your Mac for a while check that everything is okay, then add the next App, etc.

Generally a 'clean' system should be very stable, do you have any 'helper' apps for Safari, like Saft etc ?

When the Systen does a slow down, open up Activity Monitor (Applications-->Utilities) and see what is using up the most proccessing power) this may give a clue as to whats happening...

If you 'forceable' turn the Mac off, ie by holding down the Power button or pulling the plug, then when the Mac reboots it knows that it was not Shut Down correctly and it runs FSCK (thats why you get that grey screen with the 'ticking' circle)

regards

Ric

 

[Space Opera]

thanks again ric!

well, the funny thing is, after i did an archive and install and rebooted, it opened on the same desktop before i archived and installed. all of the same programs, EXACTLY like the way it was before it crashed. in my hard disk file there is a folder that it created that says 'previous system' and contains another copy of mac os x with apps and stuff, i thought it would be switched with a clean desktop with no excess programs and the same folder in the hard disk with all of my previous system apps after doing the archive and install; basically it archived a copy of os x, not my previous stuff.


"The rule of thumb, once you have done your 'Archive and Install', then open up each Application on your Mac, if they all open correctly then you can throw away the 'Previous System Folder'."

i had tried doing this by tossing the old safari completely and opening up the one that was in the 'previous system' folder. i knew i had done it right because the new safari browser had none of my bookmarks or history in it, but the same glitch happened. it would load the browser page then stop and struggle then just stop altogether, leaving me with a blank browser page. even if i tried typing in another address in the bar it wouldnt load. then when id click the 'X' to quit it would do so ,but then a pop up said that it had 'quit unexpectadly' which is very strange.

also, when i tried loading the 'install bunch software' thing from the os x install disk nothing would happen, the installer icon would pop up, it would load for a little, then stop and nothing would happen leaving the installer icon in the dock.

'HELP' also wont work for any apps, just freezes then quits itself.


everything else seems to be running fine, itunes can access the internet so there's no problem with my connection settings.

i think what the problem is, is that i had downloaded to much software from macupdate.com, basically a bunch of fun stuff, and somewhere down the line it corrupted my files. i dont know which ones though. i went around and deleted all of the ones i could spot but there are still the problems listed above.

any help would be awesome!

thanks ric!

 

[kittcat]

hi ric,

i have exactly the same problem with my macbook.

i tried to press command + s keys...with the result that it told me that the sbin/ launch.....whatever failed...

i am really really desperate by now, as i am abroad and need it urgently.

thanks for your help, claudia

 

[Ric]

Hi there kittcat and welcome !

have you managed to get any further ?

regards

Ric

 

[jmenu]

Hi there and welcome,

it sounds like your Mac has crashed and when it is starting up... FSCK is being run in the background...this can make your Mac along time to start up. How long did you leave it trying to biit up ?

You can start up the Mac and hold down the command + s keys...untill you get to a "prompt"

Then type

/sbin/fsck -fy

then press return

This will manually run FSCK...then once it has finished (it may take a while) type

reboot

and press return.

Your Mac should now boot up successfully.

Give this a go first...

regards

Ric

I've tried this, to no avail. It's still having problems starting up. I haven't gotten it to successfully restart yet.

The /sbin/fsck -fy results said everything was OK

 

[djkidblast]

i had the same problems but now cannot access the previous system folder, it says i have insufficent privelages. Does anyone know how i can get files from this folder? Thanks.