iMac G5 Finder Issue

marcphisto

Hi,

Hi,

My boss has handed me his iMac G5 to find out what is going on with it.

Basically this is what is happening. When you boot up normally the computer gets as far as loading up finder, stays there for a second and then goes to the blue screen with the rotating dial and then loads finder, stays there for a second and then goes to the blue screen etc......

I have tried to boot up in safe mode but when I enter the password it attempts to log in, begins to load up finder then bombs me back to the login screen again.

The operating system is mac os x 10.4. The system has already been re-installed to no effect and nothing has been upgraded recently. It started happening on Monday evening he managed to click on an application before finder disappeared and he got things to work but now finder doesn't stay active long enough to start any applications.

I have used the disk utility from the startup disk and from the single user mode console and both have reported back that the volume is ok.

My knowledge of Mac's is weak to say the least but seeing as I can't login in safe mode I don't know what to do.

Any ideas or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

irlrobins

Moved

SystemError51

marcphisto wrote:

Hi,

Hi,

My boss has handed me his iMac G5 to find out what is going on with it.

Basically this is what is happening. When you boot up normally the computer gets as far as loading up finder, stays there for a second and then goes to the blue screen with the rotating dial and then loads finder, stays there for a second and then goes to the blue screen etc......

I have tried to boot up in safe mode but when I enter the password it attempts to log in, begins to load up finder then bombs me back to the login screen again.

The operating system is mac os x 10.4. The system has already been re-installed to no effect and nothing has been upgraded recently. It started happening on Monday evening he managed to click on an application before finder disappeared and he got things to work but now finder doesn't stay active long enough to start any applications.

I have used the disk utility from the startup disk and from the single user mode console and both have reported back that the volume is ok.

My knowledge of Mac's is weak to say the least but seeing as I can't login in safe mode I don't know what to do.

Any ideas or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Any information on what application he clicked before the Finder went dead? That might be the culprit...

Maybe it's a login item that causes the Finder to crash.

Other than that, I have no idea whatsoever. I'd suggest to contact the Apple Support, they're located in Cork. Maybe they know another trick to get it working again.

marcphisto

He didn't click on an application to kill it. He managed to get an application started and this seemd to allow him to work away.

He hasn't been able to do this since and I've tried a couple of times and failed also.

I've gone through all the checks on the support forums and nothing has worked.

I've tried to move folders while in the command line but the system comes up as a read only system and does not allow this. I've tried chmod but this doesn't work either :mad:

I figure that it is something in the login folder that is causing this but I can't get at this.

The worst thing is that when I try to boot up in safe mode I get bombed back to the login screen so I can't do anything!!!

Any chance you have a number to hand for the support in Cork?

There's one on the site for sales and that but I don't see any for support.

SystemError51

marcphisto wrote:

Any chance you have a number to hand for the support in Cork?

There's one on the site for sales and that but I don't see any for support.

The number of them is:
1850 946 191

Hugh_C

marcphisto wrote:

The operating system is mac os x 10.4. The system has already been re-installed to no effect and nothing has been upgraded recently.

How was the reinstallation done? There are three options, one of which writes a completely new system disk (can't remember what it's called but the instructions are pretty explicit) - this is the one you should be doing.

Another option erases the whole disk and install - you probably don't want to do this if you want to keep anything on the drive.

The third option is to overwrite the existing system - I personally don't trust this as much as a clean re-write.

for what it's worth.

hc

tonyboy247

You need to boot from system dvd reset password root as admin.
Access the security settings within system preferences and adjust.

marcphisto

It was the third option that he used.

I ended up calling tech support in Cork and after shelling out cash to be told to repeat the steps I had already taken I was told what I suspected would have to be done, the system needs to be completely re-installed.

The only piece of useful information I garnered from Apple was that a mac can act as an external drive also. If you have a second mac and a firewire cable then connect the two with a firewire cable, boot the working mac and then boot the troubled machine and press t you'll see a blue screen with a yellow firewire symbol floating around it.

The hard drive of the troubled machin will appear as a mounted drive on the desktop of your mac. You can browse through this then to recover your data.

The thing is that my boss is not a techno-barbarian so when he says he did nothing to fcuk thing up I tend to believe him. I'm just wondering what could have caused something like this!

Anyhow the data is backed up and a fresh install will be taking place today.

thanks for all the feedback

marcphisto

tonyboy247 wrote:

You need to boot from system dvd reset password root as admin.
Access the security settings within system preferences and adjust.

I can't get at the system preferences, thos options are all greyed out when I boot from the system dvd