Imac wont boot after trying to set permissions

[tammyinkansas]

I have an imac with Mac OS X 10.5 on it. Here is what happened:
I wanted to network my imac with another pc in the room that has Windows on it. I set permissions to allow read write access for other computers on the network. The pc on the network were displayed on the imac but could not be opened when clicked on. Message box stated needed to reboot imac. On rebooting the imac all that comes up is grey screen with apple symbol and gear running underneath it. Tried booting in safe mode-screen displays progress bar.Progress bar completes and then goes away and then all i have is a grey screen with an apple symbol and rotating gear. Also tried resetting the PRAM which ended with same result of grey screen,apple symbol and running gear. Have recently moved and can not find my install disc. Help.

 

[bmcgonag]

I have an imac with Mac OS X 10.5 on it. Here is what happened:
I wanted to network my imac with another pc in the room that has Windows on it. I set permissions to allow read write access for other computers on the network. The pc on the network were displayed on the imac but could not be opened when clicked on. Message box stated needed to reboot imac. On rebooting the imac all that comes up is grey screen with apple symbol and gear running underneath it. Tried booting in safe mode-screen displays progress bar.Progress bar completes and then goes away and then all i have is a grey screen with an apple symbol and rotating gear. Also tried resetting the PRAM which ended with same result of grey screen,apple symbol and running gear. Have recently moved and can not find my install disc. Help.

Not free, but I definitely suggest Disk Warrior 4 or later. It will boot from a CD Image which can be burned with any computer I imagine, and then you can do a full Disk Repair and Rebuild if necessary.

 

[dashcs]

If you changed the permission on the mac HD and clicked apply to enclosed items.

You just screwed up your computer.
Apple computer has special permission on the HD with certain read/write permissions that the OS follows.
You can change any permission you want in your home dir but the on the root level,you do not.

However if you just change the permissions on the Mac HD without enclosed items,your good then.
You can boot into single user mode and enter certain commands which will restore the root level permissions

 

[tammyinkansas]

If you changed the permission on the mac HD and clicked apply to enclosed items.

You just screwed up your computer.
Apple computer has special permission on the HD with certain read/write permissions that the OS follows.
You can change any permission you want in your home dir but the on the root level,you do not.

However if you just change the permissions on the Mac HD without enclosed items,your good then.
You can boot into single user mode and enter certain commands which will restore the root level permissions

What are you referring to when you say "enclosed items"?
Why would Apple provide a popup window giving me choices of how to set the permissions on something thats not supposed to be changed? Now, please understand, I am primarily a pc user, and not a mac so I may be missing something.

 

[killerrobot]

What are you referring to when you say "enclosed items"?
Why would Apple provide a popup window giving me choices of how to set the permissions on something thats not supposed to be changed? Now, please understand, I am primarily a pc user, and not a mac so I may be missing something.

He's talking about different permissions than what you are - so it's not relevant.

Without your OS disk you might be SOL.
Try booting again and holding down option - this will show the boot options. Choose the HD if it's present and hopefully it will start.
If not, you need to find your OS disks or buy Snow Leopard and boot-up off the disk, go into disk utility and try to repair disk/permissions.
If that doesn't work, then you should boot off the disk holding D to do a hardware test. It might be that you're HD is hosed.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

What are you referring to when you say "enclosed items"?
Why would Apple provide a popup window giving me choices of how to set the permissions on something thats not supposed to be changed? Now, please understand, I am primarily a pc user, and not a mac so I may be missing something.

There are various threads on here about this, yes by changing permissions in the wrong way you can effectively lock yourself out. Sorry cant point you at one but there is a simple and documented fix if you can find the right thread. And yes I agree it shouldn't be possible to do this so easily.
Hopefully someone else will be able to point you at one or search along the lines of "cant boot changed permissions" .

 

[tammyinkansas]

He's talking about different permissions than what you are - so it's not relevant.

Without your OS disk you might be SOL.
Try booting again and holding down option - this will show the boot options. Choose the HD if it's present and hopefully it will start.
If not, you need to find your OS disks or buy Snow Leopard and boot-up off the disk, go into disk utility and try to repair disk/permissions.
If that doesn't work, then you should boot off the disk holding D to do a hardware test. It might be that you're HD is hosed.

Tried holding down Option, it showed my HD, I selected it and still same thing-grey screen,apple,running gear. Am gonna do a little more research on this site regarding my issue and if nothing works, I am gonna have to just buy Snow Leopard. Thank you very much for the suggestions!

There are various threads on here about this, yes by changing permissions in the wrong way you can effectively lock yourself out. Sorry cant point you at one but there is a simple and documented fix if you can find the right thread. And yes I agree it shouldn't be possible to do this so easily.
Hopefully someone else will be able to point you at one or search along the lines of "cant boot changed permissions" .

Thank you...I will search the site like you suggested. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[killerrobot]

Tried holding down Option, it showed my HD, I selected it and still same thing-grey screen,apple,running gear. Am gonna do a little more research on this site regarding my issue and if nothing works, I am gonna have to just buy Snow Leopard. Thank you very much for the suggestions!

Well it's good news that it's finding the HD.
One other thing to try - boot into safe mode. Hold down shift at startup - and see if that gets you booted up.

EDIT: I reread your first post and it seems like you tried safe mode.
Just to double check- you only changed permissions in System Preferences>Sharing correct?

 

[calderone]

You can fix this in Single User mode, but to give you the right command we will need to know what you changed exactly.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Just buy Snow Leopard. You will sooner or later need the install disks for something, and it's only $30. On the other hand, I believe you can order replacement restore disks (including iLife, which SL doesn't) from Apple for around the same price, although I'm not sure how long they would take to arrive.

I'm no lawyer, but since you already own a Snow Leopard licence, I don't think there's anything wrong with downloading a replacement copy, since it's no different than if you had had the foresight to make a backup copy of the software disks in advance.

 

[tammyinkansas]

You can fix this in Single User mode, but to give you the right command we will need to know what you changed exactly.

I am trying to retrace each step in my mind. All I can recall is that the screen that I was on when I changed permissions was to do with Folder sharing with network users. It had a list of each available folder and then you would click on a folder and it would highlight that folder and on the righthand side of it said something like "set access permissions" and under that you had 3 choices with checkboxes. One of them was "read only". One was "read and write". Dont remember what third one was. The music folder, the pictures folder and the movies folder were set as "Read only". I changed each one to "Read and write". At that point I closed that window. Not sure of what I clicked next to get to the window that displayed the computers on the network but it was a small window that showed an icon of the pc that I am trying to connect to and the pc's name underneath it. I clicked on it and got a message that said "can not connect.....restart computer to save settings". I then went to the apple logo at top left of screen and clicked on the Restart that is in that dropdown box. It began to restart as it normally does so I walked into the other room for 10 minutes or so. When I returned it was hung up on the grey screen,apple logo, spinning gear thing.

 

[killerrobot]

The sharing permissions, especially on those folders, should have absolutely no bearing on start-up or getting the icon with the gear spinning.

Until you get an OSX disk there's no sure way of ruling out either some other software error or a possible hardware error.

 

[calderone]

I have seen this issue before, but under different circumstances. Did you change permissions on the drive itself? See the attached image to see what I am talking about.

I had a user change the permissions on the drive from Everyone, Read only to Everyone, No Access. This is not a good thing. If that is something you did, well, you can fix it. But it doesn't sound like that is the case.

Have you tried booting to your Install DVD and repairing permissions?

 

[tammyinkansas]

I have seen this issue before, but under different circumstances. Did you change permissions on the drive itself? See the attached image to see what I am talking about.

I had a user change the permissions on the drive from Everyone, Read only to Everyone, No Access. This is not a good thing. If that is something you did, well, you can fix it. But it doesn't sound like that is the case.

Have you tried booting to your Install DVD and repairing permissions?

That is definately the window that I changed permissions in but under SHARED FOLDERS, I did NOT highlite Macintosh HD. There were 3 different folders-Music, Pictures, and a Videos folder. Those are the ones I changed. They were set to read only and so I changed each one to read and write. And under USERS, I only changed these settings for EVERYONE.
As far as an Install disk...I dont have mine. I moved and it got left behind in one of the boxes in my storage.

 

[tammyinkansas]

You can fix this in Single User mode, but to give you the right command we will need to know what you changed exactly.

I replied back with each step that I did. Can you tell me now please how to fix it in Single User mode?

 

[DoFoT9]

That is definately the window that I changed permissions in but under SHARED FOLDERS, I did NOT highlite Macintosh HD. There were 3 different folders-Music, Pictures, and a Videos folder. Those are the ones I changed. They were set to read only and so I changed each one to read and write. And under USERS, I only changed these settings for EVERYONE.
As far as an Install disk...I dont have mine. I moved and it got left behind in one of the boxes in my storage.

are you positive it was that window? are you sure that it isnt the picture that i attached below?

i changed permissions for that folder a while back and lost my computer - i had to restore from Time Machine!

 

[Consultant]

Easiest way is to reinstall your OS. Doesn't take that long and you can keep your user account, all your apps, documents, etc.

What are you referring to when you say "enclosed items"?
Why would Apple provide a popup window giving me choices of how to set the permissions on something thats not supposed to be changed? Now, please understand, I am primarily a pc user, and not a mac so I may be missing something.

That's like saying how come PCs allow you to get viruses and spyware?

 

[tammyinkansas]

Easiest way is to reinstall your OS. Doesn't take that long and you can keep your user account, all your apps, documents, etc.



That's like saying how come PCs allow you to get viruses and spyware?

I do not have the disc to reinstall it. A few months ago, a friend of mine upgraded my imac from Leopard to Snow Leopard. He also did not give me any kind of disc. To buy a Snow Leopard upgrade disc is only around $30.00 but I dont think that will work like a restore disc will it?

 

[BlueRevolution]

Yes it will. The only difference is that the OS install disk doesn't contain iLife or Apple Hardware Test.

 

[tammyinkansas]

are you positive it was that window? are you sure that it isnt the picture that i attached below?

i changed permissions for that folder a while back and lost my computer - i had to restore from Time Machine!

No the pic you attached was not the window where I changed permissions.

Yes it will. The only difference is that the OS install disk doesn't contain iLife or Apple Hardware Test.

Oh well that is great news! So, I will go buy the upgrade disk and then I will need you to give me step-by-step instructions on what to do next. Im so excited-thank you. I will let you know as soon as Ive got disk in hand and ready.

 

[tammyinkansas]

I have a brand new Mac OS X Snow Leopard disc in hand. Now what do I do?

 

[killerrobot]

Check your private messages - I responded.

Let us know if that fixes the errors or if problems persist. I'm subscribed to the thread again so I'll see your posts here as well.

 

[tammyinkansas]

Im running the permission repair in disk utility and it seems to be repairing alot of stuff. ALOT of stuff. Estimated time to completion:35 minutes...28 minutes...I will let you know how this goes...keeping fingers crossed.

 

[spe-h]

I am a MUPPET!

Sadly, i have done exactly the same thing, trying to set permissions for the entire hard rive, and enclosed folders.

Screwed up to the point of no restart so I eventually did a full archive and install and now it will boot and log in with my original password as the sole and admin user.

Now, however, I am locked out of my Filevault home folder as ' not having sufficient privileges'.

So far I have created a new admin user, have changed ownership of the folder and the sparseimage bundle to that new admin user but no change.

Help?

Having been an 'expert' on the old systems (pre-OS X) I have never really bothered to look at the guts of OS X and unix so am really lost here.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Stephen

 

[vonski]

I have seen this issue before, but under different circumstances. Did you change permissions on the drive itself? See the attached image to see what I am talking about.

I had a user change the permissions on the drive from Everyone, Read only to Everyone, No Access. This is not a good thing. If that is something you did, well, you can fix it. But it doesn't sound like that is the case.

Have you tried booting to your Install DVD and repairing permissions?

Hi there. This is exactly what happened to me a few minutes ago. Literally locked myself out of my own computer. How can I fix this problem? Please help.