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Stuck in Safe Boot

jacksonmf

jacksonmf

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 6, 2015
14
9
Earlier today I converted an old quad G5 to use air cooling. It brought back to life a system that wouldn't boot at all before the conversion. I was able to install leopard without issue. But it boots to safe boot every time and has since the first boot after installing Leopard. I performed the apple diagnostics and everything passed. I reset the PRAM and it still boots to safe boot every time. I have no idea how to get it out of safe boot or what logs to read to find out what could be causing the issue. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
jacksonmf said:
Earlier today I converted an old quad G5 to use air cooling. It brought back to life a system that wouldn't boot at all before the conversion. I was able to install leopard without issue. But it boots to safe boot every time and has since the first boot after installing Leopard. I performed the apple diagnostics and everything passed. I reset the PRAM and it still boots to safe boot every time. I have no idea how to get it out of safe boot or what logs to read to find out what could be causing the issue. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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That’s odd. What happens if you boot into the install media?
 
jacksonmf said:
It boots fine with the leopard install dvd I have.
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Where'd you get the install media? If it wasn't the one from the Macintosh Garden, I'd recommend using that one.
Wouldn't hurt to try a different drive either. Is it the original drive? HDDs can fail but not actually report as failing, and they can do some real weird things when it happens.
 
I'm pretty sure I got it from Macintosh garden years ago. I'll try a different drive and see what happens.
 
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I've tried 2 different hard drives and tried Leopard, Tiger, and Sorbet. And it still does safe boot every time it boots up. But I did notice that if I do a reboot and not a shutdown it will boot normally until I do a shutdown then it boots into safe mode. I've been checking the logs in /var/log but I am not seeing anything stand out other than in the system log it says it is in safe boot.
 
jacksonmf said:
I've tried 2 different hard drives and tried Leopard, Tiger, and Sorbet. And it still does safe boot every time it boots up. But I did notice that if I do a reboot and not a shutdown it will boot normally until I do a shutdown then it boots into safe mode. I've been checking the logs in /var/log but I am not seeing anything stand out other than in the system log it says it is in safe boot.
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I can safely say I've never seen that before. I did a quick google, found this reddit thread talking about a similar issue. Someone in there said if the drive is partitioned MBR that can happen (I wasn't aware a PPC would boot an MBR in any capacity) I assume you partitioned it as APM (GPT will also work since it's a late model G5).

Things I'd do from here is remove the PRAM battery completely if it isn't. Try booting off an external install (not an installer, a full install) via firewire, such as a Target disk mode mac, or an external drive and see what it does.
 
I changed out the pram battery and it still boots in safe boot. I don't have any firewire cables or drives, so I can't try that. I hopefully have some RAM that I can swap in to see if that helps.
 
I think I solved it. It appears my keyboard is the culprit. I started swapping out everything and it boots up fine with a pc keyboard. I plug in the old Mac keyboard I've been using with it and it boots to safe boot. Only think I can think if is the Mac keyboard has USB hub built into it and maybe that is causing issues as I can type with the keyboard just fine. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Reminds me of when I had a QS that was booting non stop into OF. The reason was I took the case apart completely to clean it and when Input it back together I accidentally pinched the programmer button on the front panel lol. It took me some time to realize my mistake. No mistake on your end of course just a wonky KB.
 
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jacksonmf said:
I think I solved it. It appears my keyboard is the culprit. I started swapping out everything and it boots up fine with a pc keyboard. I plug in the old Mac keyboard I've been using with it and it boots to safe boot. Only think I can think if is the Mac keyboard has USB hub built into it and maybe that is causing issues as I can type with the keyboard just fine. 🤷‍♂️
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Matias_ said:
I had a small USB keyboard that caused my MDD to always eject it's optical drive upon boot. It seems PowerPC Macs can be rather picky with USB HIDs.
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You know, I was thinking this in the back of my head but I figured it wasn’t it. But sometimes the simplest solution is the solution.

I have a keyboard that force ejects every PPC Macs optical drive if it’s plugged in while booting (it’s actually a trackpoint keyboard so it’s a mouse too). Can’t say I’ve ever had one force safe boot though lol
 
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