Mac Keeps Restarting at Boot

[celticpride678]

Today my Mac was running fine and I rebooted. When it came to the bootup (gray screen) screen, it was there for about 1 minute and it keeps restarting.

I popped the Mac OS X DVD in and am repairing permissions as I type this. It says 44 minutes remaining. There is a long list of permission issues. Could this fix the problem?
I also tried a Disk Repair, but it said that Macintosh HD is OK.

I really don't want to do an Archive and Install (hopefully the permissions repair will work). But if I do, will this fix it? Will it keep all my files? Settings? Applications?

Thanks for the help!

 

[geoffreak]

If it doesn't work, go to the Apple store. Your hard drive has failed or is failing, so I hope you have backups, because you may not have access to your data again.
If the repair works, it should leave all your data intact.

 

[celticpride678]

The repair permissions did not work. I am in the process of an Archive and Install. About 42 minutes remaining.

Is there a way to test the hard drive without going to the Apple Store??

PS- Yes. I do have backups. Thank you Apple, for Time Machine!!!

 

[killerrobot]

Follow these instructions to perform a hardware test.
It will let you know if there's any problems with the HD or anything else.
If there is, and it's still under warranty, call support and make an appointment.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

 

[celticpride678]

Follow these instructions to perform a hardware test.
It will let you know if there's any problems with the HD or anything else.
If there is, and it's still under warranty, call support and make an appointment.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

I will run that right now. Everything seems to be normal after the Archive and Install and it boots without problems. Thanks. I will report back soon.


UPDATE: Everything came back normal. It looks like it was just a problem with Mac OS X Leopard. Everything works normally right now. Thanks for the help.