HELP! She's stuck

[chichcom]

I have an eMac which normally allows you to choose between using OS 10 and OS 9. You can restart the computer in OS 9 by clicking on the start up options in OS 10 and vice-versa, but this morning, when I was trying to swap into OS 9 it started up and got as far as showing me all the little icons at the bottom of the screen as it started but when it moved to the desktop page it didn't open up fully but stopped giving me the desk top with nothing on it but the time in the top left corner. The time was accurate to when it opened but frozen at that point. I can't get it to go any further than this and cannot therefore open up in either OS 9 or OS 10. In other words, I'm unable to do anything.

Has anyone any ideas how I might get round this. I am having to use an older mac in the meantime which hasn't got any of the things I need to access on it.


Many thanks.

 

[bluekatt]

you dont have to post the same message twice this is a smal forum with a limited amount of posting members
we w oudl have come round to it
now if you do a hard reboot can you boot in to mac os X ?
or do nothing at all
try booting with an x or a classic cd
if you boot with a classic cd go to the boot disc control panel and let it boot of the os x folder to see if it wil boot in x

if it does you are at least somewhere

 

[chichcom]

Thanks Bluekatt! Sorry for listing too many times. I now can' t see any of my questions on the message board and had to search hard to find your answer.
Being a novice I am not sure how to boot. Is it Control Alt Delete? When you say reboot with discs, they are all one hunderd and forty miels form me at present. Could i do anything without'em? Thanks.

 

[bluekatt]

normally its apple option and the power button on your keyboard
otherwise hold the power button til the machine powers down wait for a moment and then power up again
or the nasty way pull out the plug

you can do very little with out your discs i am afraid
with the 0s 9 disc you can boot in to 9 and chance your boot folder and use the utilities
with the x discs you can also let loose the X utilities

 

[Kyomii]

Thanks Bluekatt! Sorry for listing too many times. I now can' t see any of my questions on the message board and had to search hard to find your answer.

This is the very problem I had when I first started using the site. It is bcause the home page shows a SELECTION of posts from the different forums - unlike many other forums that show the headings of each forum section.

What you need to do when you log in, is look at the top right of the screen where it says "site navigation" - in that list, click on "forums" and you will be taken to the forum home page.

From here you can easily navigate. For instance you have posted this question in the "Mac hardware" section, under "desktop macs" so, scroll down the page until you come to "desktop macs" and your posts and any answers to it will be in there.

As for your machine, try pressing X on your keyboard during bootup and you should start in OSX (not OS9). It may take a couple of tries, but keep the X key deoressed for quite a few seconds.

If you can boot into OSX, then at least you can perform certain tasks, such as repairing permsissons on both volumes etc.

 

[chichcom]

Thank you for that and to Bluekatt. I have now got into OS X. I can also get into OS 9 with extensions disabled.
Can anyone explain to me as if they were explaining to an ancient technophobe who can bearly scew in a light bulb, how I find out the culprit in OS 9 and remove it? Or do I need my discs to do that.
I'm really grateful for the help I've had so far. This is a brilliant site! chichcom

 

[zeyhra]

That you can get in to OS 9 with extensions off indicates that you've got an extensions conflict, a very common OS 9 problem. To resolve, the best way is to usually restart in OS 9 with the space key held down, which should bring up Extensions Manager before booting. Using Extensions Manager at start up, you should have a pull down menu that is probably on something like "My Extensions" or something similarly named to indicate that you're using a set of extensions that includes extensions for things you've installed (as opposed to the stock OS 9 extensions). To troubleshoot, what you should do is turn half your extensions on and leave the other half off (always make note of where you've made your halfway dividing line), then let it finish booting. If it boots normal with the first half on, go to Extensions Manager and turn on half of the second half of extensions and then restart. If it continues to boot properly, use Extensions Manager to turn on half the remaining extensions and restart. Keep going along with this pattern of turning on half the remaining extensions and restarting until the computer no longer boots properly. Provided you've kept track of your cut-off points, you've pinpointed the batch the bad extension is in. Restart into Extensions Manager and disable half of the last batch you enabled (or, if you're just down to a few extensions, you can do them one by one, restarting each time). Keep going this way till you find the exact extension that makes your computer not boot. Once you've identified the culprit, make sure there's no problem booting with all the extensions on except the suspect one. Depending on what the problem extension is, you may be fine with just running with it disabled, but if it belongs to something you need to use, you'll have to reinstall the software it goes with.

If it doesn't boot properly with the first half enabled, reboot again with the space bar down and disable half of the first half of extensions (so only a quarter of your extensions are running). Basically, you'll be working backwards from the first case, disabling by half until your computer does boot normally, then adding back half the extensions from the last batch you disabled before it worked.

All in all, locating an extensions conflict can be a time-consuming process.

 

[chichcom]

Thank you very much for all your help and time. I'll get on with it. Really Grateful.