PowerPC :: 12" Powerbook - Unable To Boot - Screen Stays Blank
Oct 4, 2008
I just bought a powerbook, and I'm trying to get it to turn on. It doesn't have a hard drive, so obviously it won't be able to get it to boot. I just want to be able to get to the flashing folder. When I press the power button, the computer does nothing, not even the fan spins. The only indication I have that it is on is the caps lock light turns on. I've tried resetting the pram, but the screen stays blank and does nothing. I don't have any ram modules in it, so it shouldn't be a ram problem.
View 11 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Nov 1, 2006
So I've got a powerbook G4, thats 8 days past its warranty. Conveniently, it now won't turn on. It won't wont boot from CD. If I turn it on, I get a gray screen that usually just turns my computer back off, if thats not the case I get a screen that shows the finder icon and a question mark and then turns off.
All it will do is boot into open firmware mode. Currently the install disc is inside of it and I've tried booting the cd using "cd:, bxi" and "dir hd", and it can't open both. Does anyone know how to wipe the HD, and start the installer using firmware? Otherwise, I think I'll have to take out the harddrive and plug it into an external case and then wipe it.
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jul 15, 2008
so i go to turn my imac on tonight and it makes the normal noise when it always turns on but the screen stays blank(light blue)....after about 2 minutes this little picture of a folder with a question mark shows up in the middle of the screen. it keeps making this clicking noise as well. ive tried unplugging everything and restarting it here is a pic of what the thing that pop ups looks like [URL]
View 8 Replies
View Related
Sep 30, 2006
I've got a 15in aluminium powerbook, a couple of years old. So far I've had nearly everything go wrong with it. replaced screen, knackered hd, ram port failiure, and a battery that lasts 10 minutes.
I recently replaced the harddrive, as the standard issue one packed up a few times. I followed the instructions on ifixit.com website. To my delight I actually managed to do it, and the pb worked well for a few weeks. Then suddenly, the screen froze and faded to white. So far I've tried everything -
Resetting the pmu. Resetting the pram and nvram. Opened it up to check I reconnected everything.
and checked to see if the hd is still working starting it up from another computer, and it works fine. Everythings still there. Someone also said if you hold 'R' key down on start up it resets the lcd.
BUT STILL BLANK!!!!!!!!!
The screen still seems to turn black after a little while, indicating the energy saver is still on. I'm thinking I may have dislodged an lcd connection or something?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Mar 12, 2008
I came home for lunch today, and found my Mac Mini G4 with the fan running, and a blank screen. It was obviously locked up. System has 10.5.2 with all of the latest updates. This is not my primary system, I have an MBP for that.
Here is what I did:
Force a power off/on, and I get the normal gray screen with the Apple, and spinning gear, but it never stops spinning.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Oct 26, 2008
I have a G5 that has started intermittently booting up with a totally blank screen - not blue, no video at all. Sometimes on reboot or after resetting the PRAM it works again.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jun 28, 2007
About a week ago I received my new battery due to the recall. The last few days my power book has been great when I open my power book today it will not wake up. So i figured I would plug it in. The light stays green, does not change to orange, and still continues not to wake up. Even taking the battery out and trying to turn it doesn't work. Power cord stays green then as well.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Aug 31, 2009
I was just using my powerbook G4 12" when it "clicked", the screen went black and it will not respond. the power cable light is on, and I've tried another battery, but it does not turn on! the little light on the latch button that glows usually, is not on. What has happened to my Powerbook????! I don't have applecare but I imagine I will be calling Apple this morning unless someone can help here
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jul 11, 2007
I bought a Powerbook G4 about 2.5 yrs ago, top of the line, new from an Apple Store and its been great. However over the last 2 months, its developed this habit of crashing/sleeping/going blank while it Itunes is streaming music, and/ or while Safari is up. Last night it did it while I was recording a Live DAT into garage band. I used to be able to hit the space bar or any key, and it would come back briefly, crash, repeat etc until I restarted. Now however, its just suddenly black. nothing. All I can do is take the battery out for a little while, wait, put it back in, and then restart. I've backed up everything as a precaution. I am diligent about uploading software updates, and I run MacJanitor from time to time...
I probably have 1200 songs, 15TV shows on Itunes, and 1000 pictures on iphoto, So I would hope my hard drive still has ample space.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Oct 11, 2006
I had a good-running Powerbook G4 for several years until -- seemingly out of nowhere -- it started rejecting all new, blank CDs (DVDs as well). It still reads disks with data on them, but after a couple of seconds, ejects blank ones. I'm running OS 10.3.9 and do all the software updating.
I've tried re-starting, while holding the option key down, and some other things I picked up on the Internet, but to no avail.
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 31, 2010
Loaded pics up for the 1st time from my 7d into Aperture 1.5 and left my computer on, woke up and it wouldn't come out of sleep. I did a hard shutdown holding down the power button and the screen just stays black and I never hear the chime, light on power button is solid white. Since I'm on vacation with my wife and infant daughter I don't have time to mess around troubleshooting but see it may be a failed logic board? Do they just fail randomly or what? My aunt that I'm staying with turned off a surge protector a light was plugged into, I was using her power charger for her MacBook Pro and only this morning found out it was plugged directly into the outlet below the surge protector was on that she flipped off.
Could that have created a surge on the other plug or something? She does this all the time with her MacBook Pro plugged in and its never created a problem, I'm writing this post from her computer right now! (Only brought the Mac out because my iPad wouldn't load the photos for some reason, don't know if it has something to do with the HD video or because I also had photos from my Canon 50d on there or if that has something to do with my Mac's problem?) I've attempted an SMC restart and it does the same thing? I'm now extremely stressed thinking I may have lost all my pics that I haven't backed up in months of my infant daughter. When I start it up I hear an initial sound of a hardrive spin or fan but then its basically silent.
View 17 Replies
View Related
Jul 30, 2009
My wife's macbook will turn on, it stays on the gray screen with the apple. After a while it will just shutoff. I have tried removing the battery and holding down the power button for 5secs but did not work. I also reset the pram and also did nothing.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jun 28, 2014
iMac os x Mavericks 10.9.3. I tried to boot up yesterday morning after completely shutting dwn the night before. Stays on grey screen with Apple logo. I tried safe mode, no luck, will not boot up in safe mode. I tried backing up to external hard drive from utilities, but it stopped and said something like couldn't perform function... I never used or set up Time Machine.
View 8 Replies
View Related
May 12, 2012
My iMac won't boot up fully. It stays stuck in the gray screen with the pinwheel spinning, then after about 5 minutes just shuts itself off.
Info:
iMac (20-inch Late 2006)
View 4 Replies
View Related
Oct 17, 2010
Got a Powerbook G4 with a "messed up" HD. Couldn't fix it, so got a firewire drive and ran a bunch of utilities from my newer intel iMac. Cloned the Powerbook's drive to a USB hard drive, did all repairs on the USB drive, formatted the Powerbook, cloned the USB drive BACK to the Powerbook, but it just gives me the flashing question mark when I try to boot.
What is REALLY weird is I can boot my iMac FROM THE CLONE ON THE USB DRIVE and it works fine.In Drive Genius the Powerbook drive (in TDM) shows as a single drive, but if I go to "Repartition" then it shows 3 smaller partitions on the drive; I believe they're called "Apple Free Space" or something like that (can't check right now, I'm running Repair on it AGAIN at the moment).
I feel like I'm missing something simple, like the machine just doesn't see one thing that tells it "Oh, yeah! There's an operating system on this drive!" I have tried partitioning from Drive Genius and Disk Utility. Have done clones back and forth with Drive Genius, Disk Utility, and Carbon Copy Cloner. Same results each time.
View 6 Replies
View Related
Apr 5, 2007
My brother's iBook G4 (I think it's a 2003 model) has a problem with the screen. When the computer is turned on, the screen stays black, although the backlight is on (the apple glows). Sometimes, on start up, the screen works normally for a random amount of time before going fuzzy and then black again.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Is it likely to be a problem with the hardware in the actual computer, or just the screen? Or is it a software thing?
View 4 Replies
View Related
Oct 6, 2010
I just recently purchased a powerbook g4 (1.33 12 inch) from PowerON Services. I turned it on for the first time and I was prompted to update to stuff ( osX being one of them) It then froze while installing the updates.
Now It wont boot, it is stuck on the grey screen. I tried loading from a tiger disc that I have but that didnt work. I just get a funky message saying to hold the restart button. Any words of wisdom??????
also note i tried resetting PRAM and tried booting in safe mode.
View 6 Replies
View Related
Jan 30, 2009
I'm trying to fix my GF's Macbook Pro. This thing since day 1 has had so many little issues she's replacing it with a Dell. Anyhow, I want to try to fix the computer and I'm very good with computer hardware, just not familiar with troubleshooting Macs. The computer when turned on doesn't make a sound, it just sits at a blank screen with the power LED on the front lit solid. I have tried resetting the PRAM, resetting the SMC, and reseating the memory. I even swapped the memory.
It's the same behavior each time, just sits there, nothing comes on the screen. No noises. It does get quite warm sitting there powered on, though not obscenely hot. I can power it off with the power button as well. I have heard of trying to boot off of the restore CD or something but I feel that won't work and the problem is most likely hardware related. Nothing strange happened before this computer stopped working. It was not dropped, no water, or anything like that.
Specs are the machine is as follows:
15" Macbook Pro 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB, 128MB VRAM, 120GB 5400 RPM Drive
View 15 Replies
View Related
Apr 17, 2009
From time to time, now, on my recently-acquired 2008 2.8x8 Mac Pro, it'll boot to a blank white screen, no Apple logo, no spinning indicator. It does not have Boot Camp set up. A single press of the power button will turn it off and it'll boot fine the immediately subsequent try. The console doesn't show anything.
View 4 Replies
View Related
May 13, 2012
All of a sudden my 13" MacBook pro (2011) takes a long time to shut down. And on boot up it remains on a blank white screen where all I can do is move the mouse around. It may or may not boot to the desktop. At the moment I'm leaving it on sleep and it performs fine, apps load like normal but I'm afraid to shut it down incase it won't boot up again. The shut down takes so long that I need to hold the power button to shut it down. I've read around that it could be hardware failure but like I said I have it on sleep and it performs fine when I wake it.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
View 4 Replies
View Related
Dec 8, 2014
My MBP 13" Retina just stopped rendering the screen. On boot, it chimes and the back light comes on but that's it. At first I thought it was non responsive, but when I connect an external monitor I can see that it works fine. It's just the primary display that doesn't render anything (only backlight with blank, black screen).
A few details worth knowing:
1) Last time I saw my primary display work, I had 10% battery left, I shut the lid. Next time I opened the lid, around 2 days later, it was just blank and backlit. I did a forced restart and from then on it only gave me a blank backlit black screen.
2) Works well if i boot it with an external monitor connected. when the chime comes on, I immediately shut the lid and use only the external display with external keyboard and mouse.
3) Video gets laggy when I use it on dual monitor mode (not the case before this problem happened). I boot up the macbook with an external display connected. No video on both screens. I have to login blindly before the second monitor gets video. Primary display still doesn't render anything, albeit showing a lighted blank black screen.
4) I've already tried resetting the PRAM. didn't work.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jan 24, 2007
I have a powerbook 12' 867 mghz, I know I would rather have a new one, but not ready to give up on this old gal yet! Anywhoo I thought the logic board was fried but after letting the powerbook "rest" I came back months later and sometimes it will boot but as soon as I try to do anything it freezes, so maybe the harddrive is fried? How do you get it to ignore the internal drive so it will boot from an external?
View 9 Replies
View Related
Dec 2, 2008
I just recently started to experience some very unusual behavior on an older PowerBook G4, and I was wondering if anyone has experienced this before, as I can't seem to find any documented info on this.Basically, out of the blue, the user began to experience issues waking from sleep, while using the laptop closed with external monitor, USB keyboard and mouse. Although a powercord was always connected, the machine seemed to be powering off.For a while, hitting the power button would boot things up again, properly, but not anymore. I have since disconnected all peripherials. Now, when pressing the power button, the machine will beep 3 times and then repeat itself every so often. The sleep led will blink three times, go solid, then repeat. Sometime the harddrive tries to spin, sometimetimes not
View 1 Replies
View Related
Sep 1, 2009
I have a second hand 12" PowerBook G4 that sometimes will not boot. It will sometimes chime and the LCD will stay black. Like I said this does not always happen. I have already tried to reset the PRAM and PMU and this does not seem to have any bearing on the machine.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Nov 7, 2006
when my PowerBook (15", bought new in Aug 2004) wakes from sleep, the harddrive makes a dreaded tapping/clicking sound. It's very prominent and is not your standard HDD "chatter."Often, Finder will hang and I'm forced to power-cycle the machine. Most of the time, it boots without incident.Lately, however, there have been incidents. Tonight, when I got home, it froze. I tried to power-cycle it, but got nothing. I plugged it in.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jan 28, 2008
I have a 12" Powerbook G4 running 10.3.9 Panther. I am having problem booting my computer from a Firewire HD. I have done a search in the forum but cannot get a definite and/or successul solution. Forum moderators and my respected macrumor fellows, please feel free to direct me to a specific link if you find the questions redundant.Recently, I have had the HD making terrible noise and several days ago, the computer cannot boot at all. When I pushed the power button, the screen shows a folder in the middle with a Mac face and switches to a question mark back and forth. However, it just gets stuck at that stage. I suspected that I have a HD problem and wanted to boot from my clone Firewire HD. Unfortunately, the computer will not boot with Firewire HD either.
View 7 Replies
View Related
Jul 6, 2009
when power pressed to boot, it will go into boot, but then the screen starts flickering from dim to bright a clicking sound is heard, the power cord on the side changes from dark to light amber. the screen then goes to black. some times am able to get to log in then it just goes black.- More information- my harddrive had been making erratic noises for about... 3-4 months. some loud clicking... in thinking that the hd failed i bought a 160gb WD Scoirpio blue IDE drive... These problems still persist. even when i option to start up with my external drive, which i have mirrored my hard drive. it will boot up for the external then this clicking noise as noted above.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Mar 13, 2010
to run ppc g4 powerbook from external hard drive with apps from external hd drive intel imac g5? I have a firewire hd but it is not being recognized by the ppc.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Sep 22, 2010
White MB about three years old. Was watching something on Hulu and HDD started making strange noises and screen froze. Forced reboot and only got white screen. Couldn't even get into single user mode. Got a new WD hard drive thinking it would fix the problem. Put in my backup of the Install Disk (lost the original like an idiot) but all it shows when I hold down the C key is a large blinking folder icon with a question mark on it. Still can't get into single user mode. I may have screwed up the backup of the Install Disk or am using the wrong DVD since I forgot to label it.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Nov 24, 2008
My Macbook will not boot up. I am now faced with a plain grey screen with no apple logo, chime sound or activity wheel appearing.
Like most Macbook users I know, I rarely go through the booting up process from day to day use unless the System Updater requires a restart, but this time there was a different reason for me restarting the system.
When I was expanding an archive with Stuffit Expander, the app froze up. I went and deleted the archive file knowing that it was corrupt, but I did this too soon before the app had a chance to close down properly. It became stuck as a process that couldn't be closed down. Its dock icon didn't have a 'Force Quit' menu option so, I chose to perform a restart.
The Macbook went through the startup process but took a very long time. (I guess after reading around the forums this was fsck attempting to scan and repair the potentially damaged hard drive). I mistakenly performed a hard reboot thinking the system had hung.
The second time, it displayed the apple logo and wheel for about 2 minutes before showing a circle with a line through it and no further activity. When I rebooted again the apple logo and wheel were displayed with the hard drive activity audibly in a repetitive on and off state. I left this for about 15 minutes before deciding to turn it off. At the present moment it starts up to a plain grey screen as mentioned at the beginning. I tried experimenting with removing the extra 2gb memory module but there was no difference with or without it. I tried resting the NVRAM with Option-Command-P-R but all I got back was the startup chime (i.e. the muted volume I had it at has now reset to the default level).
When Option is held down on booting, the mouse cursor is visible over the same blank grey screen. No volumes show up. I have selected the Finder Preferences option to hide all volumes from showing up on the desktop, but I doubt this would affect volumes from showing up on the boot up screen.
I have tried booting from the 10.4 CD that came with the Macbook and the 10.5 (retail) DVD. The 'C' or 'D' keys do not have any effect either.
I think my options now are either to try and obtain a firmware reset CD which might make it possible to recognise volumes again, or there's the possibility that I'll have to get a new hard drive. Can you suggest anything else I might be able to try?
On the subject of hard drives, if it turns out that the Macbook's hard drive is beyond repair and I need a new drive I only have a caddy for 3.5" PATA drives which I use for Time Machine. With an appropriate 2.5" SATA caddy is there any way I could access the filesystem in Windows? How else could I format the drive to the correct FS?
View 9 Replies
View Related
