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HELP!! Not booting up!

R

reykjavik

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 31, 2004
260
0
I had a friend coming over who had planned on using my comp when I wasn't home. So I wanted to make him his own account where he would not have access to my stuff. I changed the HD permissions to Administrator: Read and Write and Standard: No Access.

Now it won't boot up! It hangs on the gray apple/spinning black dash circle page for an hour now.

What I've tried so far: As I can't boot up there isn't much I can do, but I have tried unplugging everything, waiting 30 seconds and rebooting but this had no effect.

Please any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I'm at work so I cant try anything till I get home but I will respond to everything and let you know the results.
 
The normal SMC/PRAM resets are not going to change anything here. I don't think repair disk permissions will revert the settings either. This will require booting into single-user mode which is basically a command line interface that ought to allow you to switch the permissions back over. And in the future, just enable the guest account or make a standard user account for the visiting friend. Not even other administrator accounts have access to data within another administrator accounts' directories, only the root user has universal access.
 
JediMeister said:
The normal SMC/PRAM resets are not going to change anything here. I don't think repair disk permissions will revert the settings either. This will require booting into single-user mode which is basically a command line interface that ought to allow you to switch the permissions back over. And in the future, just enable the guest account or make a standard user account for the visiting friend. Not even other administrator accounts have access to data within another administrator accounts' directories, only the root user has universal access.
Click to expand...


Thanks so much. Can you please tell me (possibly even step by step) how to go about booting up into single-user mode and how to enter the command line that will allow me to acheieve this result?
 
reykjavik said:
Thanks so much. Can you please tell me (possibly even step by step) how to go about booting up into single-user mode and how to enter the command line that will allow me to acheieve this result?
Click to expand...

If it wont boot up, how does one go about booting into a single-user mode?
 
Hold down :apple: + S while starting up. Your display will show a black background with white text. As far as the particular command line that's for someone else to say, not so good with Terminal :confused:
 
For those future people who may search and come across this thread, here is how I fixed the problem:

1) Boot up and insert Mac OSX Install Disc 1
2) Shut down the comp by holding the power button for 4 seconds.
3) Boot up again while holding only the C button on the keyboard (bluetooth/wireless keyboards shouldn't matter).
4) When it boots off the disc, go to the top menu and drop down and find/click Disk Utility
5) Click on the your main hard drive
6) Click "Repair Permissions"
7) Once complete, this is a good opportunity to click "Repair Drive"
8) Click Repair Permissions once more just in case.
9) Click quit or reboot (I forget which option it was)

That should fixed it, or should I say, thats what fixed mine.
 
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