The magical disappearing Desktop

[Helen]

Hi there

I have a G4 Power Mac and am using Tiger OS. I was uploading a music cd to itunes, which (unbeknown to me) was pretty badly scratched. The mac slowed right down and eventually would not respond at all, so I switched it off using the power button at the bottom left of the dome. When I switched it back on it started to load, I got the chime and the grey box with the apple at the progress line, it says "loading Mac OS X" and then the screen goes blue but the desktop never appears. I have tried starting it in Safe mode and Single User mode, neither of these seem to be recognised as it does the same thing. I have also tried to use the Utility Disk on the Tiger installation dvd but the start-up disk is not listed under the hardrive components in "first aid" tab. I am now officially lost as to what to do next. Help!

 

[karazelle]

The first thing you might do is to simply unplug the computer from the power outlet completely and let it rest a couple of hours. I know it sounds weird, but its worth a first shot.

Then you could try to reset nvram by doing: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

 

[Helen]

Thanks, I will try that, and then go for the other thing. Fingers crossed!

 

[Ric]

Hi all and welcome !

once you have tried resetting the NVRAM, give Single User Mode another go...hopefully it will work, then you can run FSCK to help repair the disk.

let us know how you get on.

regards

Ric