macbook startup problem

[Jeff.N]

hi, my 2.0 Ghz macbook that I bought back in April is acting up.

Yesterday, I shut the thing down (which i don't do very often) and when I tried to boot it back up this morning, I noticed that once the background and the little spotlight icon on the top right hand corner had loaded, the thing would just stop. Hovering over the splotlight icon gives me the beachball, and I've already tried reseting it via taking out the battery (as indicated on the manual), as well has trying the P+R+option+command thing to no avail.

Also, as an aside, I'd like to mention that I can adjust the volume, contrast, and even eject CDs once the computer stops loading

what's up?

 

[mad jew]

What recent changes have you made to your system?

Try booting from the OSX discs and using the bundled version of Disk Utility to repair the hard drive. If that doesn't work, then see how far you get by booting into Safe Mode (press SHIFT at startup). Remember to unplug all your third party peripherals beforehand.

 

[Jeff.N]

What recent changes have you made to your system?

Try booting from the OSX discs and using the bundled version of Disk Utility to repair the hard drive. If that doesn't work, then see how far you get by booting into Safe Mode (press SHIFT at startup). Remember to unplug all your third party peripherals beforehand.

I'm away from home right now so I don't have access to any of my OSX discs.

I booted my computer up in safemode, and found something peculiar in my trash can; a folder named "501.189191051". In the folder are important looking things like annex.db, annex_aux, filetoken.db, FondResourceCache,...etc

The thing is, I don't remember putting it in there (maybe it got dragged in there when I was tossing other things out?). Do you think that this folder needs to be somewhere else? Thanks.

 

[Jeff.N]

update

ok, so I tried to boot up the macbook in normal mode (after not having done anything other than look into the trashbin in safeboot), and the damn thing works!

the mystery file is still in the trashbin though, so I guess that wasn't the root of the problem

 

[bill4588]

maybe it could be bad ram or HD? i'd run a hardware test just in case (even though everything seems to be fine ATM).

 

[Jeff.N]

maybe it could be bad ram or HD? i'd run a hardware test just in case.

how do I do that?

 

[bill4588]

 

[Jeff.N]

hmm, like I mentioned, I dont have my OS X discs with me right now, but I'll do that once I go back home.

thanks for the suggestion

(by the way, any idea of what i should do with the mystery folder?)

 

[mad jew]

They were font caches but they're gone now.

Even though you don't have the OSX discs, you can still repair the drive to an extent by using Single User Mode and fsck. Maybe give this a try, just to be sure.