Suddenly, my iBook G4 1.33 GHz (just out of warranty...) will not boot.
It stops at the grey apple before the little carousel appears, or even a
tad before, mostly not allowing me as far as a single-user boot so I can
see what happens.
It was running Tiger (10.4.6 w/latest updates) in 768 MB of RAM at the
time this happened, and we can see no clear change that happened just
before and that maight have a connection.
The funny thing is, the disk spins and works. In Target mode, I got all
the data off the disk, no sweat. I reinstalled Tiger on it via FW, doing
a clean install w/format, given the circumstances. Both that _and_
Migration Assistant ran without a hitch (MA both ways).
It is worth noting, though, that the iBook also would not boot from the
Tiger Install DVD, but that I had to connect to another Mac and run the >Installer from there. However, that ran smoothly.
However, once having a new OS installed, the same symptoms: No boot,
only the disk spinning idly.
Is it poossible that a repartitioning (slight shrinking) might eliminate
bad (boot) blocks at the start of the default single partition, or is
the disk simply a goner and should be replaced? Or are there other
solutions compatible with the scenario, such as a bad disk controller or >connection somewhere, or RAM gone bad (suddenly)?
It looks as if your PRAM is corrupted. Boot and press Alt-Opt-p-r until
you hear the startup sound. Keep the four keys pressed until hear the
startup sound a second and a third time. Then release the keys and see, whether your iBook will boot (might take a long time the first time afterwards).
Alternatively, when you press Alt-V during boot, do you see anything interesting?
Christoph Gartmann <gartmann@nonsense.immunbio.mpg.de> wrote:
It looks as if your PRAM is corrupted. Boot and press Alt-Opt-p-r until
you hear the startup sound. Keep the four keys pressed until hear the startup sound a second and a third time. Then release the keys and see, whether your iBook will boot (might take a long time the first time afterwards).
That seemed to help in that the iBook then gets past the grey apple, but stops at the blue screen before the login window appears. I repeated,
but got the same result.
I tried taking all power from the computer for 30 minutes + resetting
P-ram for good measure, but got the same result.
Alternatively, when you press Alt-V during boot, do you see anything interesting?
The last item before stop seems to be pretty consistent:
"Login Window Applicaton started" *)
*) Please remember that this is a completely fresh system install and
that this happened both before and after that install, which makes it
hard to believe that two copies of the same app in different versions
(first the one from the 10.4.6 system and then the fresh 10.4.0 version) should be shot in both cases.
After that it either stops, still in console mode, or goes on to the
blue screen and then stops.
I then tried to delete the loginwidow prefs by mounting the machine in
Target mode, but that had no effect.
I am running out of options here. And as you can gather, the FW Target
mode still works without a hitch. Strange!
Christoph Gartmann <gartmann@nonsense.immunbio.mpg.de> wrote:
It looks as if your PRAM is corrupted. Boot and press Alt-Opt-p-r until
you hear the startup sound. Keep the four keys pressed until hear the startup sound a second and a third time. Then release the keys and see, whether your iBook will boot (might take a long time the first time afterwards).
That seemed to help in that the iBook then gets past the grey apple, but stops at the blue screen before the login window appears. I repeated,
but got the same result.
I tried taking all power from the computer for 30 minutes + resetting
P-ram for good measure, but got the same result.
Alternatively, when you press Alt-V during boot, do you see anything interesting?
The last item before stop seems to be pretty consistent:
"Login Window Applicaton started" *)
*) Please remember that this is a completely fresh system install and
that this happened both before and after that install, which makes it
hard to believe that two copies of the same app in different versions
(first the one from the 10.4.6 system and then the fresh 10.4.0 version) should be shot in both cases.
After that it either stops, still in console mode, or goes on to the
blue screen and then stops.
I then tried to delete the loginwidow prefs by mounting the machine in
Target mode, but that had no effect.
I am running out of options here. And as you can gather, the FW Target
mode still works without a hitch. Strange!
To eliminate hardware as an issue, start the _other_ machine in Target
Disk Mode, connect it to the failing iBook, and start the iBook while
holding the Option key down. Select the other machine's disk and
continue the startup.
If you get the same class of failure, you have a non-disk related
hardware failure.
If everything is normal, something is wrong with the installation or configuration on the iBook. Attach the iBook in TDM and examine its log files for some clue.
Tom Stiller <tomstiller@comcast.net> wrote:
To eliminate hardware as an issue, start the _other_ machine in Target
Disk Mode, connect it to the failing iBook, and start the iBook while holding the Option key down. Select the other machine's disk and
continue the startup.
Will do - in fact, have done. Doesn't work, because I don't get far
enough to select the other startup disk.
If you get the same class of failure, you have a non-disk related
hardware failure.
That is what I am thinking now.
If everything is normal, something is wrong with the installation or configuration on the iBook. Attach the iBook in TDM and examine its log files for some clue.
I'll do that. Thanks.
Suddenly, my iBook G4 1.33 GHz (just out of warranty...) will not boot.
It stops at the grey apple before the little carousel appears, or even a
tad before, mostly not allowing me as far as a single-user boot so I can
see what happens.
| Sysop: | Gate Keeper |
|---|---|
| Location: | Shelby, NC |
| Users: | 790 |
| Nodes: | 20 (0 / 20) |
| Uptime: | 41:36:11 |
| Calls: | 12,115 |
| Files: | 5,294 |
| Messages: | 564,934 |