10.4.3 has broken my powerbook :(

[dodonutter]

Posted this in the 10.4.3 news section first but really need some help with this if any one has any ideas

Well i updated last night and when i restarted i got the grey apple screen then it went straight to a black screen and a command line prompt of

localhost:/ root#

Now i no next to nothing about unix commands apart from exit and reboot. i've run fsck but it bombs out and says something about invalid extent entry. I've tried to boot into safe mode which had no effect, i've done a hardware check which gave me a green light on the hardware in the Powerbook (1.5GHz 15") If anyone has any suggestions i'd be grateful!

I'm at uni and i've left my Tiger disk at home so only have the software restore disks that came with my PB but they have 10.3 on and i really don't want to have to down grade then upgrade again when i go home.

Stuck borrowing my housemates dell at the moment. REALLY wish i hadn't updated now!!

 

[eva01]

my powerbook booted into darwin and then i just typed in the wrong login and password and it booted properly.

either have your parents send you tiger or install 10.3

 

[dodonutter]

my powerbook booted into darwin and then i just typed in the wrong login and password and it booted properly.

either have your parents send you tiger or install 10.3

How do you boot into darwin and what does it look like? Is that just the command line prompt? can you login to an account from the command prompt and if you can how do you do that. Sorry for all the questions but i would rather fix it than go through the hassle of installing 10.3

Thanks for the help

 

[eva01]

i don't know how it did it but it was just up on the screen when i came back to my computer after ten minutes.

hmmm you could try booting into open firmware, i think you hold down O+F on boot up

and for what darwin looks like, command line that said welcome to darwin

 

[yenko]

I'm at uni and i've left my Tiger disk at home so only have the software restore disks that came with my PB but they have 10.3 on and i really don't want to have to down grade then upgrade again when i go home.

Boot from the 10.3 disk you have by holding down the "C" key after you hear the chime.
When you get the installer window, look at the top in the finder in one of the menus. It will say Disk Utility.

Run Repair Disk; see if that fixes your problem.

Before you run updates, make sure that your system is in perfect working order.

 

[eva01]

Boot from the 10.3 disk you have by holding down the "C" key after you hear the chime.
When you get the installer window, look at the top in the finder in one of the menus. It will say Disk Utility.

Run Repair Disk; see if that fixes your problem.

Before you run updates, make sure that your system is in perfect working order.

also of note do not repair permissions from panther disc

 

[caveman_uk]

Have you tried booting into single user mode (hold down 'S' or 'Apple-S' can't remember which one) then doing

/sbin/fsck -yf

In single user mode you can do repairs on /

 

[superted666]

Not sure about darwins core but operating levels are traditionally defined by run levels.

command line being innit 3 and innit 5 being graphical.

could try typing innit 5 after logging in through command line?

 

[dcv]

Not sure about darwins core but operating levels are traditionally defined by run levels.

command line being innit 3 and innit 5 being graphical.

could try typing innit 5 after logging in through command line?

it's init, innit?

 

[clayj]

it's init, innit?

That was terrible.

 

[dodonutter]

Well i tried to verify the disk with the panther CD and it gave me an error saying that there was a problem with my HD and it couldn't be verified. Booted in single user mode and ran fsck as caveman suggested but it says:

/dev/rdisk0s3
Root file system
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid extent entry
(4, 15957)
Volume check failed.

Thinking thats not good
I just tried the innit 5 thing but have a slight problem in that if i try to login (by typing login) then i type tom (that being my user name) and my password (no characters of any type appear when i type my password) and it says Login incorrect.

Plan at the moment is to install panther and get my computer running then next weekend when i can get hold of my tiger disks i will back everything up and completely reformat my drive and repair it so that i have a fresh start. Odd things have been going wrong or not working for a while now so think it needs it. Keychain refuses to add items to itself, eg i had to write a little applescript for Messenger because it wouldn't login by itself, keychain refused to remember the password so i had to manually type it in everytime.

Thanks again for your help

 

[JDOG_]

Take it to an Apple store if you're at all close by. When my iBook wouldn't start up at all (after updating to 10.4.2) they did an emergency archive & install with a fresh Tiger disc. And ran a bevy of diagnostics on it.

Your current plan sounds good, and this time do the update to 10.4.3 before installing any programs or waste time tweaking things...just in case.

 

[dodonutter]

Hmmm...well something is very wrong with my PB.I just tried installing panther 3 times and everytime it said there was an error on the disk and just gave me the restart option. Looks like im with out my Mac for a week until i can get home to takeall my data off and do a clean install. Wondering if its a physical problem with the hard drive even though the SMART facility on it wasn't registering a problem and hardware check said it was ok.

Also started my PB in target disk mode with my friends 17" PB with tiger on it and it mounted fine and i could see all the files. I ran disk utility but it bombed out saying there was a problem with my HD just as it did when i ran it off the panther disk. Im a little worried that when i try and do a erase and installl off the tiger disk it will give me an error message and i'll be,in a word, screwed.

Is there a way to format the HD? I know how to do it on a PC with a Win 98 boot disk for example but i've never had to do it on a mac!

 

[dodonutter]

Take it to an Apple store if you're at all close by. When my iBook wouldn't start up at all (after updating to 10.4.2) they did an emergency archive & install with a fresh Tiger disc. And ran a bevy of diagnostics on it.

Your current plan sounds good, and this time do the update to 10.4.3 before installing any programs or waste time tweaking things...just in case.

Would take it to the apple store but it would mean taking a trip up to london, i live fairly close but mums birthday next weekend so won't have time. Wish they had a store in southampton!!

 

[gekko513]

Is there a way to format the HD? I know how to do it on a PC with a Win 98 boot disk for example but i've never had to do it on a mac!

Yes, if you boot from the Panther CD/DVD, you can start Disk Utility. You can find it in the menus.

 

[dodonutter]

All fixed

I don't know if anyone who reads this cares but i always like hearing how problems work out when i've tried to help people.

Laptop is now working after transferring all my data onto an external HD and erasing the disk in disk utility. I've put 10.3.3 on just to check my HD out and as im typing this on a fresh installation of panther everything seems to be working. Disk utility now says that the HFS volume has no errors instead of unfixable ones as before. First thing tomorrow im erasing the disk and zeroing everything then installing a fresh installation of tiger. As JDOG_ suggested im going to update it to 10.4.3 first, check everything for about the 50th time then put all my files back on and rebuilding my system just how i like it.

Anyway thanks to everyone for their help

Happy bonfire night for tomorrow to anyone in the UK

--DoDo

 

[TodVader]

It's good to see you got all this fixed up. Broken computers suck

 

[dodonutter]

They really do! I didn't realise how oftern i just sat down infront of my PB and browsed the net or listened to iTunes etc...not having it for 4 days felt very odd! Oh how sad

Im running 10.4.3 now with all my settings back to the way they should be so im happy (and a tiny bit relieved!!) mac seems much happier now