OS X crashing...OS 9 style...

[shadowfax0]

Ok - if any of you remember a while back I had had a problem after installing the program 'BeachBall' To sum it up, it had modified my CoreGraphics file and messed my computer up. Anyhow, to remedy THAT problem I did a clean re-install. However, now my computer is crashing (OS 10.2.1, DP 450 G4) at the interval of about once every two days. The whole system just locks up for no good reason. The last time it happened (about 15 minutes ago) I was simply browsing the net, listening to iTunes, chatting on Proteus, and that was it. The time before that the screen had shut itself off (I have it set to do that in Energy Saver) and it wouldn't wake up. Any ideas? Im going to go buy Drive 10.1, or whatever the new version is, because this is crazy. Any ideas?!

P.S. - the only info I brought over from my old drive were my documents (like Excel/Word, etc) however I have 3 Hard Drives, do you think the problem may have resided on the other two somehow?? (they only contain movies and music, no system, so I don't know how that would happen...)

 

[Billicus]

Re: OS X crashing...OS 9 style...

Originally posted by shadowfax0
Ok - if any of you remember a while back I had had a problem after installing the program 'BeachBall' To sum it up, it had modified my CoreGraphics file and messed my computer up. Anyhow, to remedy THAT problem I did a clean re-install. However, now my computer is crashing (OS 10.2.1, DP 450 G4) at the interval of about once every two days. The whole system just locks up for no good reason. The last time it happened (about 15 minutes ago) I was simply browsing the net, listening to iTunes, chatting on Proteus, and that was it. The time before that the screen had shut itself off (I have it set to do that in Energy Saver) and it wouldn't wake up. Any ideas? Im going to go buy Drive 10.1, or whatever the new version is, because this is crazy. Any ideas?!

P.S. - the only info I brought over from my old drive were my documents (like Excel/Word, etc) however I have 3 Hard Drives, do you think the problem may have resided on the other two somehow?? (they only contain movies and music, no system, so I don't know how that would happen...)

From what I've heard, Drive 10.1 is a joke. It can't repair half of what it's sibling products can. I personally like Norton, but there are those who don't. Your situation isn't a very good one. (Suffice to say, I'm glad I'm not in your shoes.) Hope you get it fixed soon.

 

[scem0]

Sometimes norton can cause more problems then it can fix though.
I don't know much about errors like this one, but it really puzzles
me that a clean install won't fix them. It seems like a clean install
would wipe out everything, including the problems...

 

[mmmdreg]

have you tried just a normal fsck -y at boot?

 

[e-coli]

DO NOT USE NORTON!!! Your computer will never be the same after. TRUST me on this one.

i have no reason to lead you astray

 

[shadowfax0]

yeah see, this is all VERY trange, for instance, RIGHT now, my cursor kind of became this largee, multi-coloured magnified....thing when I opened InDesign 2. Also, another thing that happened to me was that (this was my first heads up that somehting wasn't right) was that the cursor just kind of disappeared. Couldn't see it, it functioned just fine, but I couldn't see it. If you notice the pattern, it all centers around my cursor (BEACHBALL!) but I erased my disk and did a clean install, so WHY IS IT STILL LIKE THIS?!?!?!!!! As for fsck -y, I do it all the time, as a matter of fact...I'll do it right now...

 

[GeeYouEye]

At this point, I'd say try four things.

1. Your HD may have bad sectors; get a new one.
2. Your vid card may be improperly seated; reseat it.
3. Your RAM may be badly seated; reseat it.
4. Barring those, take it to a repair shop. This think is sick.
   [/list=1]
   
   Oh yeah, one other thing: run a search for coregraphics, and make sure that the system isn't getting its graphics data from a drive without the rest of the system. Beyond that, I suspect option #1. That would also explain the original failure of Beachball.

 

[Fukui]

Backup and reformat

I have had similar problems.
First check your hardware like the previous poster said. If it doesn't help then I suggest a re-format.

I assume when you reinstalled, you didn't do a reformat right?

Backup your data.
COMPLETELY reformat your boot partition with apple's 10.2 Disk Utility right before installing (format it a couple of times just to be sure), and reinstall OS X with only the languages/drivers you would need.
Install all the updates for OSX. Reboot.
Next restore your files into your Documents, Movies, Library, etc folders.
Reboot. Everything should be fine now.

P.S When creating your user account again, if you decide to copy your library folder from before, it would be best to use the same username and password you started with.

 

[shadowfax0]

...that's probably it....I jsut 'erased' the drive, ut didn't re-format, son of a b*tch!

 

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by e-coli
DO NOT USE NORTON!!! Your computer will never be the same after. TRUST me on this one.

i have no reason to lead you astray

I have used Norton Disk Doctor (booting from CD) many, many times, it has found and fixed lots of probems and it has NEVER had a negative effect.

 

[crassusad44]

Originally posted by edesignuk

I have used Norton Disk Doctor (booting from CD) many, many times, it has found and fixed lots of probems and it has NEVER had a negative effect.

Norton also creates problems, and can corrupt files and folders on your harddrive. If you use FileSaver, Norton usually fixes the drive correctly. But when a harddrive crashes, I NEVER trust Norton. I've had one too many bad experiences with Norton to do that.

For the problem at hand, I would recomend fsck -y, and then Diskwarrior. If this does not work, try a re-install (zero all data). If it's still not working, try another harddrive...

Good luck!

 

[shadowfax0]

ok - I am writing this from a clean install, and in an angry mood Anyhow, BEFORE I re-install all my applications, is there any free/shareware program that can do some basic checks? Like for instance, I want to know if I have bad blocks on my disk, is there any way I can check for that? Drive 10 can do that apparently (or better being I'm paying mad cash for it...) but I'd like to do it now being that Drive 10 won't come in the mail for a few more days. Any suggestions?

 

[iJon]

two words, diskwarrior. great program. doesnt know how it deals with osx though. diskwarrior 3 should be coming out soon.

iJon

 

[GeeYouEye]

Originally posted by shadowfax0
ok - I am writing this from a clean install, and in an angry mood Anyhow, BEFORE I re-install all my applications, is there any free/shareware program that can do some basic checks? Like for instance, I want to know if I have bad blocks on my disk, is there any way I can check for that? Drive 10 can do that apparently (or better being I'm paying mad cash for it...) but I'd like to do it now being that Drive 10 won't come in the mail for a few more days. Any suggestions?

If you happened to format it as UFS instead of HFS+, you could stick it in a Wintel box and run ScanDisk, otherwise wait for Drive 10.

 

[King Cobra]

I'm surprised so many people are having bad experienced with Norton.

BOT: This may seem like a dumb question, but if the Hard Drive you are using, shadow, is from Seagate, consider getting a whole new Hard Drive. cr2sh experienced major problems with his Seagate Hard Drive, as well as MacAztec and Ms. V.

 

[shadowfax0]

Nope, this one is a Maxtor 60 GB, 7200 RPM. However, I had one fail on me last year sometime, so I'm not impressed with Maxtor at all Thanks for the heads up though!!