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salpacino14

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 22, 2011
7
0
So my Mac crashed today. I don't know what I did, it was running just as good as the day I bought it this morning. It started running real slow, I powered it down and now it won't even boot up. The only thing I can think of is that I tried viewing a video in quicktime and it led me to an Apple site to download a plug in and ever since then it's dead. I don't know what to do. It boots up with a gray screen and apple logo but thats about it. I can hold shift after the boot up tone and that will get me a blue screen.
 
Third party codecs can be virus-ridden malware in disguise. I hope that you've backed up your important data as you way need to re-install the system.
 
Ive got most of my pictures and such on dvds but my music hasn't been backed up in a while. I got it all on ipods however. I just dont know how id sync it back on to my mac. I dont even have the leopard boot disk bc I bought the family pack and the disk is at my parents house. Apple themselves led me to this site so I assumed it would be ok. But you know what people say about assuming.
 
I was wondering if it was really an Apple site you downloaded it from or something masquerading as an Apple site?

apple codecs should be fine, but codecs from anyone else are suspect.
 
QuickTime will take you to Apples site for plugins, not some malware ridden site. Try booting from the Mac install disc (hold 'c' on startup) and repairing the hard drive and drive permissions.
 
I am running leopard. Would I have to put the leopard disk in, or can I use the Tiger disk it came with or use a snow leopard disk. Also, any help on how to transfer music from ipods back to a computer would be helpful in the vent that my hard drive is wiped.
 
Any Boot disk will do. Even a friends grey disk. The grey disks wont let you install but you can still boot up from it and when you get to first install screen continue through till you get the menu car at the top of the screen. Open disk utility and repair the disk and disk permissions.

Then see if you can boot from the HDD.

If you still cant. Run the hardware test from the Install disk. Again, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard discs will work for you.
 
so i put it any boot disk and press and hold c on startup and that should prompt me?
 
Ok. I got to the disk utility but its saying it cant repair the disk bc of an invalid leaf count and the volume check is failing. Repairing disk permissions isnt an option and verifying the disk fails too.
 
I just ran a hardware test and the code i got back was: 4hdd/11/40000004:SATA(0,0). I dont know what this means. I appreciate all the help everyone has given me. Im stuck and dont know what else to do. Thanks again everybody.
 
4hdd/11/40000004:SATA(0,0)... Im pretty sure this means the S.M.A.R.T status of the HDD is failing.

Do you have everything backed up? If you can get your hands on your original install disk or the retail version you could try reinstalling OSX.

Wort case scenario is you need a new HDD. They are not expensive and not difficult to fit.
 
Ive got my photos backed up. My entire music/movie library is on my ipod classic (not in data format however.) I've got my original Tiger disc and my Leopard disc is on its way. I'm guessing there's no way of salvaging what's on the hard drive. What about archiving? I thought I saw that somewhere.... I really appreciate your help. Im really clueless about what to do.
 
Sounds like your HD is about to die, find a friend running OS X or Linux, boot your machine in target disk mode (hold "T" at startup until you see a FireWire icon on the screen) and connect the 2 machines via FireWire cable, hopefully your computers HD will mount as an external drive on your friends machine and you can get your data off.
 
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