osx into a dos like mode problem

[barhnt]

I have a friend who had an upgrade done to mac osx. however it often frezzes and then restarts into a dos like mode. I have never heard of this. does anyone know what could case this to occur and how to fix it?

[musicpyrite]

DOS=bad

Unix=good

The DOS thingy your friend did was called single user mode.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106388

[barhnt]

the computer freezes and then goes into this mode when it restarts itself. how do i change it so that it restarts in osx mode like normal.

[seamuskrat]

First, boot from a startup CD for OS X. Run disk utility. If that does not help, then they have 3 options.

1) Play unix geek in single user mode. Run fsck three times or more until it finds no errors next time it boots into the command line. Not good for the faint at heart.
2) Reinstall from CD downside is loss of data
3) Get a utility like DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro 4. Downside, they cost $100 or so and may not solve the problem, but are very handy and will save you at some point.

It sounds like some system file is corrupted, or damaged.A clean instal or at least a SAVE AND RESTORE instal would be advised. Hopefully you have the OS X instal disks handy.

[Sun Baked]

Hopefully you didn't install one of the OS enhancing widgets or Norton.

Norton is deadware, and any of those 3rd party widgets can cause problems when you update the OS.

Especially if they install/modify kext files.

You could always try booting into safe mode.

[Steradian]

the computer freezes and then goes into this mode when it restarts itself. how do i change it so that it restarts in osx mode like normal.
I had a similar problem, only it wouldn't let me restart cause I never set up a Root, try the Boot disk, then set a Root password, then just restart in OS X. Or just reinstall...which is a pain