PowerBook was stuck on startup...

[cb911]

my PowerBook 1.25GHz suddnely didn't complete the startup process. my bro was using it and saw the nasty multi-language "you must restart your computer" screen. i did a search and found some very helpful info from yellow in this thread:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/132934/

i did this:

Boot into Single User Mode (hold down Cmd-S at boot). At the prompt, type:

mount -uw /

Hit return, and then type:

mv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist /var/root/

Hit return (please note, that is "mv<space>/Library/Preferences/com.appl.loginwindow.plist<space>/var/root/"), and then type:

reboot

Does it boot normally now?

and that fixed the problem!

but now my question is what exactly did that command do? well okay i know it moved the main preference file for the Login Window... but what should i do now? that means the pref file was corrupt? how did that happen? can i stop it from happening again? can i just delete that file from /var/root/ ?

i was beginning to think that my HD was failing! well i'm relieved to say the least that it all seems to be working now.