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what happened to my mac?

krossfyter

krossfyter

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 13, 2002
4,297
0
secret city
i hope my hd didnt die. well heres the deal...

i try to start the laptop up again and once it gets through the grey apple screen then the mac os x screen it turns into a black login screen. something to do with a darwin login console thing that asks me for my login and password. what do i do? im clueless about this stuff so please anyone help a brother out. thanks.


im praying for my mac right now.


:(
 
i just typed in "logout" in that command line bsd sh*t and it took me back into my regular login screen, a sight that made me happy.... and then i proceeded as usual. So it came back to life. My mac is slow as hell and somethings wrong with it but im not sure. I used drive os 10 on it recently. What should i do to it?
i have 14 gigs of free space so that shouldnt be a problem. so my macs really sluggish right now... im serious.
i must sound like a complete dumba*s to most of you tech folks. i apologize.


heh
 
I had the same problem before, but I could not log in at all... i simply replaced my HD because I wanted to do it all along anyway...

sorry I don't have any better advice for you... good luck
 
HDs vary in price a lot, from $60 to $300 depending on capacity. Try this to fix your mac first though.

Go to disk utility, disk first aid, and then repair permissions. Then restart the mac holding Command and S, and it will go to that text screen again, type
Fsck -y <press enter>
and let it work, when it's done, type that again and press enter until it stops saying it found errors, type reboot to restart.

And it's about time I left to my final exam, French....:mad: :( :(
 
thanks for the help wes. im trying to access my disk utility but its not opening. that beach ball thing is doing its thing... not able to get into it. messed up.
 
Originally posted by krossfyter
thanks for the help wes. im trying to access my disk utility but its not opening. that beach ball thing is doing its thing... not able to get into it. messed up.
Click to expand...

You could just wait (perhaps hours) and see if it responds or boot from the OS X install disk and use its disk utility app.
 
best buy has 120 gb western digitals with 7200 RPM and 8MB cache for $70 after fifty dollar mail in rebate. To good to pass up.
 
Originally posted by kuyu
best buy has 120 gb western digitals with 7200 RPM and 8MB cache for $70 after fifty dollar mail in rebate. To good to pass up.
Click to expand...

I don't see that on BestBuy's webby :(
 
I am 90% certain it is not a physical disk problem, boot off the CD as somebody else said, and try repairing permissions on your drive there.
 
he has a laptop, so drive wil lbe more expesnive and infintely harder to install
 
thanks for the help guys.

yeah so i did get to do that disk aid thing without using the cd. still sluggish. i did the fsck-y deal... still sluggish. im now using drive 10 and may use diskwarrior after that.

i have a powerbook g4 667 (rev c model).
 
just wondering what the cheapest price you all have seen a hard drive for a powerbook g4 667. im looking at the 40gb and or 60gb. I saw a 40 for near 200 bucks.

Just looking into hard drives just in case my hard drive is about to go to hard drive heaven. i used drive 10 on it and its still pretty sluggish. i wonder if i need to just wipe out my hard drive and re install mac os x?
 
Originally posted by krossfyter
I wonder if i need to just wipe out my hard drive and re install mac os x?
Click to expand...

Seems to be indicated. If you do an erase/install and it STILL does it... well, there you go.As for the black login screen on startup:
I have two towers running Tenon's iTools as DNS and Mail servers. Both are configured pretty much the same besides a few other apps like EmuMail. BOTH boot, but not always, to a black login screen. I have to type "exit" to retry a boot. Two or three tries does it. After a few phone calls Apple had no idea, I even had a UNIX god walk away from them. I can't do the reinstall because first these are too critical to have down for more than a few minutes, and I am in the process of configuring some XServes to take over for them. When those new servers are up and golden, I plan on investigating why the towers act as they do. Okay, lots of words for no advice. Sorry.
Well, okay, I say back the data up with target disk, and write some zeros.
 
Originally posted by Kwyjibo
he has a laptop, so drive wil lbe more expesnive and infintely harder to install
Click to expand...

Well, laptop HDs are more expensive, but the TiBook's HD is relatively easy to replace; it's not buried too deep in the case. A clamshell iBook on the other hand ... :rolleyes:

Can you get in long enough to backup? You might want to just reformat the sucker. Worked in the windows world ;)
 
your hard drive shouldnt be dead, if it was dead you wouldnt see the apple logo because thats part of the operating system, which it is obviously loading.

iJon
 
Originally posted by iJon
your hard drive shouldnt be dead, if it was dead you wouldnt see the apple logo because thats part of the operating system, which it is obviously loading.

iJon
Click to expand...


true. i mis stated what i was trying to say. what i mean was that my hard drive seems to be on the fritz. not sure but why is is acting so slow. i did the drive 10 thing and it has helped a lot. however when i start the computer up it takes forever for it to run.... other things are slow to but not as slow as before.

thanks for your kind support man.
 
Originally posted by 5300cs
Well, laptop HDs are more expensive, but the TiBook's HD is relatively easy to replace; it's not buried too deep in the case. A clamshell iBook on the other hand ... :rolleyes:

Can you get in long enough to backup? You might want to just reformat the sucker. Worked in the windows world ;)
Click to expand...


yeah man im backing my mac up right now so that i can do a clean install.
 
Originally posted by krossfyter
true. i mis stated what i was trying to say. what i mean was that my hard drive seems to be on the fritz. not sure but why is is acting so slow. i did the drive 10 thing and it has helped a lot. however when i start the computer up it takes forever for it to run.... other things are slow to but not as slow as before.

thanks for your kind support man.
Click to expand...
have you listened to it, it may slowly be on its way to giving you the click of death, try listening to see if it sounds odd.

iJon
 
Originally posted by Les Kern
Seems to be indicated. If you do an erase/install and it STILL does it... well, there you go.As for the black login screen on startup:
I have two towers running Tenon's iTools as DNS and Mail servers. Both are configured pretty much the same besides a few other apps like EmuMail. BOTH boot, but not always, to a black login screen. I have to type "exit" to retry a boot. Two or three tries does it. After a few phone calls Apple had no idea, I even had a UNIX god walk away from them. I can't do the reinstall because first these are too critical to have down for more than a few minutes, and I am in the process of configuring some XServes to take over for them. When those new servers are up and golden, I plan on investigating why the towers act as they do. Okay, lots of words for no advice. Sorry.
Well, okay, I say back the data up with target disk, and write some zeros.
Click to expand...

so this black login screen is very rare? i told an expierenced mac guy about this incident and they were perplexed.

huh.... i hope you get to the "root" (no pun intended) of the matter. good luck with this project man.
 
Originally posted by iJon
have you listened to it, it may slowly be on its way to giving you the click of death, try listening to see if it sounds odd.

iJon
Click to expand...

yeah man... it makes clickin noises... especially when starting up. click... click ....click.


i had this guy look at it (that expierenced mac guy) and he said he doesnt think my hd is jacked. but im still taking precautions and trying to set aside some money for a new hd just in case.
 
If it's clicking, you don't have much time. BACK THAT THING UP! It's only a matter of time before the reading head digs into the drive.
 
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