Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Need help with login

K

kilo67

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 24, 2007
8
0
Not sure what happened. Leopard was running fine and I needed to change a setting in system preferences regarding the screen saver while performing a erase with disk utility on an external drive. When I tried to unlock the system preference panel, I got the little spinning wheel and it's been downhill since. When I try to reboot, I get the Apple gray logo, followed by a light blue screen with the little spinning image, as it it was looking for something. I can boot from the command line using COMMAND S, but am a novice and not sure where to go from there.
Don't mind doing a reload if necessary, but really need to recover some files. I am open to any criticism or suggestions. Sure could use some help. I would be happy if I could transfer my files to an external USB drive. Problem is.....I don't have enough knowledge with the command line to to this.

2.8 Al Imac
2.4 MBP
 
See if you are able to backup your data onto your other Mac by using Target-Disk mode. To do this, connect both your Mac's by firewire, then on the broken Mac turn it on and press T immediately until the firewire logo appears.

You'll be able to browse your Mac's hard drive as if it was an external one, assuming that there hasn't been any corruption to the file system.

See when you said you get the grey Apple logo - do you see the spinning image or is it when you get the blue screen it appears?
 
Need help with Login

When I boot up, I see the usual gray screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel for several seconds. Then I get a light blue screen with the same spinning wheel, which nevers goes away. I am able to boot into the command line and look at various directories. Is there a way to do a reinstall without overwriting my data files? Thought this might easier, although your suggestion with my other Mac sounds good.

Thanks for the input.

2.8 Al Imac
2.4 MPB
 
kilo67 said:
When I boot up, I see the usual gray screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel for several seconds. Then I get a light blue screen with the same spinning wheel, which nevers goes away. I am able to boot into the command line and look at various directories. Is there a way to do a reinstall without overwriting my data files? Thought this might easier, although your suggestion with my other Mac sounds good.

Thanks for the input.

2.8 Al Imac
2.4 MPB
Click to expand...
I'd recommend an Archive and Install of Mac OS X, assuming you can boot from the install DVD. Your choice whether or not to check the "Preserve users and network settings" box, but I'd recommend checking it in your specific case - it'll save you a lot of trouble trying to restore your user data from the archive.
 
Need help with login

Kilamite,

Thanks for the info. The target-disk mode worked very well. I am now on the road to recovery.

2.8 Al iMac
2.4 MBP
 
When you boot into single user mode (command s) it spells out exactly how to run fsck. this will check to make sure everything is ok with the bot procedure. Tust type /sbin/fsck -f to force it to run the utility, then you just mount the disk and reboot. If it passed the tests
 
kilo67 said:
Not sure what happened. Leopard was running fine and I needed to change a setting in system preferences regarding the screen saver while performing a erase with disk utility on an external drive. When I tried to unlock the system preference panel, I got the little spinning wheel and it's been downhill since. When I try to reboot, I get the Apple gray logo, followed by a light blue screen with the little spinning image, as it it was looking for something. I can boot from the command line using COMMAND S, but am a novice and not sure where to go from there.
Don't mind doing a reload if necessary, but really need to recover some files. I am open to any criticism or suggestions. Sure could use some help. I would be happy if I could transfer my files to an external USB drive. Problem is.....I don't have enough knowledge with the command line to to this.

2.8 Al Imac
2.4 MBP
Click to expand...

Archive and Install will save your data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back