Can't boot up. Multiple "Application quit unexpectedly" messages

[togocurian]

My macbook was running rather slow and I hadn't restarted it in a while so I figured it'd be a fine time to restart. I did so, now when I turn it on it loads up normally till the point where it SHOULD show me my background and the finder starts up and everything. Instead it stays on that blue screen and "The application xxxxx quit unexpectedly." messages pop up. I can see one up front and one behind it, right now it's showing "AirPort Base Station Agent", it's been other things other times. I can't click on "Relaunch" or anything, it doesn't do anything. I would just re-install OSX, but I don't want to lose my itunes library that I have no way of backing up without being able to get to the finder.

If anyone can help, please do, I need it urgently!

 

[SwampWitch]

Hello, and welcome to mac-help.com!

So it won't start up at all? Try this:

shut down your MacBook (hold the power button down for about 8 seconds)
insert the OS X system disk
start up your Mac while holding down the C key (this will boot from the disk)
go to Disk Utilities and select "Repair Disk Permissions"
when finished, restart MacBook


If that doesn't help, you can reinstall the system without losing your iTunes library or anything else. Let us know how it goes!

 

[togocurian]

How do I reinstall without losing my library? When I was looking through the booklet that came with my macbook, it said to back important things up because it would erase everything.

 

[togocurian]

Bump!

can someone tell me how to go about reinstalling without losing my itunes library?

 

[togocurian]

Help?

 

[SwampWitch]

Sorry, busy time of year. Here's the Apple link that guides you step by step. You should back up first, though, just in case.

Reinstalling Mac OS X - while keeping files and user settings intact

 

[togocurian]

Thank you so much. I'll get back to you with the results after I try it. I understand. This is definitely a busy time of year.

 

[togocurian]

I assume that booting from the disk by pressing C while it loads up will work instead of clicking the icon, since I can't get to the finder to do that.

 

[togocurian]

Ok! I got it fixed! It's working and I still have all of my files, though it's running slowly. Maybe that will change when I get everything updated right.