Intel G5 Mac Pro Tower stuck at startup

[BeechyBoy]

If your a Mac expert (even if your not) please take yourselves back to that gut wrenching feeling you got when your Mac first went wrong and you didn't know why - that is currently how I am feeling right now

I have an Intel G5 Mac Pro Tower, and it gets stuck on the blue screen everytime I startup. The mouse loads, then dissapears and re-appears in a cycle. I had been using it this very day and can't think I did anything to cause it?! What is the problem and does it sound serious?

Courses of action so far:
Unplugged all external cables and devices before restart.
Booted into Safe mode and got no further than logging in before it would then cycle back to login window again.
Booted onto system CD and ran some Disk Utility repair tools
...Still nothing

Potemtial courses of action I have so far:
There is a lot of dust in the machine, so grab the Hoover.
ReInstall the System from OSX disk ( is this a good idea or is there a way I can backup before I do this?)
Get DiskWarrior and let it have a go?

Ideas and solutions are really really appreciated before my only course of action left becomes to begin to rock back and forth in despair. Many thanks in advance,
Ash

 

[11800506]

I'm assuming it's a Mac Pro, not a PowerMac G5?

 

[BeechyBoy]

I'm assuming it's a Mac Pro, not a PowerMac G5?

It's a Mac Pro.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Put in the DVD that came with your Mac, and start up while holding down the D key to start up into the hardware test. Run the extended test.

Could be a hard drive failure.

 

[BeechyBoy]

Put in the DVD that came with your Mac, and start up while holding down the D key to start up into the hardware test. Run the extended test.

Could be a hard drive failure.

That sounds nasty. Currently running it through the disk utility again on the startup disk; the Macintosh HD appears to be there and displayed as "appears to be okay". Can this still be a HD faliure?

 

[BeechyBoy]

Any more ideas... Still getting stuck on the blue screen on startup

 

[ziggyonice]

I don't think it's hard drive failure. A lot of machine have seen the blue screen stuck at startup, and it's often the result of something software related not working properly. The easiest method is to archive and install, by using the discs that came with the computer.

 

[BeechyBoy]

I don't think it's hard drive failure. A lot of machine have seen the blue screen stuck at startup, and it's often the result of something software related not working properly. The easiest method is to archive and install, by using the discs that came with the computer.

Okay, sounds not so bad. I have a Time machine backup from that very morning... can anyone tell me the best way to safely restore everything from the T Machine HD to my MacPro? Any useful links on this and archive installing?
Cheers for the great advice,
Ash

 

[BlueRevolution]

That sounds nasty. Currently running it through the disk utility again on the startup disk; the Macintosh HD appears to be there and displayed as "appears to be okay". Can this still be a HD faliure?

Have you run Apple Hardware Test as Jethryn suggested?

Okay, sounds not so bad. I have a Time machine backup from that very morning... can anyone tell me the best way to safely restore everything from the T Machine HD to my MacPro? Any useful links on this and archive installing?
Cheers for the great advice,
Ash

Archive and install is an option selected during a normal install. If you select the option labelled "preserve users and network settings", you'll get everything back as it was before, but perhaps minus the problems. If you want to restore from a Time Machine backup, just choose erase and install instead and the installer will ask if you want to restore a Time Machine backup.