G4 PB OS X 10.4.11 Safari 4 = No boot.

[yakkoTDI]

I am posting this for a friend since her PB will no longer boot.

She upgraded to Safari 4 and was told to reboot. Now when you try to boot it gets to the Apple screen with the spinner. It will stay there for a few minutes and then go to a blank screen for about 10 minutes and then you get just the spinner again. A couple hours later it is still on that screen.

I personally do not know much about Macs and OS X and I am trying to fix this without a reinstall as I don't want her to lose everything on the computer.

Any help that can be provided is greatly appreciated.

 

[yakkoTDI]

Got this reply at another Mac forum.

Most likely there was some Disk Corruption ahead of time.

Could be many things, we should start with this...

"Try Disk Utility

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.

She also may be critically low on HD free space.

I am trying to fix this without a reinstall as I don't want her to lose everything on the computer.

Actually, on Macs we have what & called Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space and no Disk corruption, and is relatively quick & painless...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120

Just be sure to select Preserve Users & Settings.

But make certain the HD Directory is OK & there's 10 GB or more of free space first.

Now I am at the part where I would like to Archive and Install but there is only 4.2gb of space. Can someone tell me how to access the drive to delete some files?

 

[yakkoTDI]

See how this was resolved here.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2446097&tstart=0