Software :: PowerBook Refuses To Boot And Ignores Boot Keys?
Sep 13, 2009
I have OSX installed on a very old Powerbook. Well it was working and then I left it for awhile and now it is giving me the good old folder to question mark screen (maybe someone dropped it?). Well I'm not much of a mac user so I looked up all of the different boot key commands and tried to boot from my OSX CD. Holding down C did nothing, and neither did ANY of the other commands except holding down option and that key command that restarts the computer (apple, option, shift, esc?). Anyway, I got into the screen that shows your hard drive and all other devices and it actually listed the CD drive so I clicked it and clicked the next arrow. I waited for awhile and then the screen reloaded (as if it was rescanning for removable devices) and then stopped and only displayed the local disk. What is going on?! It only sometimes displays the CD in this screen and the next arrow never does anything regardless!!
I really don't know any of the computers stats but if I were to guess they're pretty bad. All I know is it used to run OSX just fine and then other people used it and now it doesn't do anything.
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.
I recently purchased a mac pro for my work! I just got my memory modules from OWC and i installed them. After installing them, my macpro refuses to boot normally. It keeps going to a black screen that tells me there is no boot disk available and please insert disk and press enter to boot. My bootable HDD is in the HDD bay. I held down the option key and it booted up by selecting the bootdisk. Problem is after i booted up, everything in my Mac OS is lagging. All the applications are lagging. As i am typing this thread, the words that i am typing are really lagging.
Brought snow Leopard from Apple, and got it yesterday. I installed it today, and whilst it seems faster I have a few problems. Mainly that it doesn't seem to boot into 64-bit mode, neither from an app changing it to boot into 64 bit or by pressing the 6 and 4 keys down.
Also, does anyone know why a plugin to make Quicklook have a list view for Folders won't work anymore?
my Macbook Pro 17" early 2008 (modell 4,1) had it's motherboard changed a week ago (the video card issue). I am running Snow Leaopard 10.6.8.
I decided to install Windows 7 on this machine, preparing a partition via Bootcamp, and ran into the following issue: each time I try to boot the Mac from the Windows 7 install DVD (official one), I get a black screen with a blinking cursor.
Now, of course I searched the web, tried a lot of things, burned several DVDs in different ways, from the original DVD as well as from .iso files downloaded from MS, nothing helped.
After some time, I head the idea to try my DVDs on another Mac, an iMac to be exact, and they all work!
So, it looks as if it is my machine that causes the trouble... but its motherboard is new, so it should not be a hardware issue.
Ok I connected my Air to a LG drive GSA-E50L USB DVD drive. It seems to work fine in Windows and OS X. For booting it does work with the OS X dvd's.
However, it refuses to boot from a Windows XP installation disk.
I've tried different boot disks aswell. No luck.
When I boot pressing the option key, the DVD drive is one of the options. It says "Windows CD". I then choose it. It starts reading the CD and then the apple sign is displayed. The apple sign changes into a stop sign and goes back to the apple sign again.
Does anyone know what is going on?
Has anyone been able to boot from a Windows disk with a non Apple USB drive?
I just bought an iMac with a G4 processor from a friend... The only problem is that apparently some vital file was deleted and as a result, it will not start up. I have a Tiger recovery disc, but because I'm only being shown the gray apple screen and the loading circle, I can't actually use it. Any ideas?
Yesterday, I had some issues with my MacBook Pro, the keyboard and trackpad were unresponsive (I tried a USB Keyboard/Mouse, didn't fix the problem), it took 10+ minutes to boot up, and it refused to wake from sleep. So I did some hunting, found out if I removed the FireWire kexts, then that would solve the issue. I removed the kexts, and rebooted it, and everything works perfectly fine, with one exception. Both FireWire ports are undetected and inoperable. Would a OS reinstall fix this, or is it some deeper issue that may require a logicboard/hardware component replacement?
I have just finished moving my G4 Sawtooth from one house to another. I shut down my machine properly at the one house carefully moved everything over and re-attached the peripherals. Fired up the machine and was greeted promptly with the Apple boot screen and spinning thingy. Then it spun and spun and continued to spin some more. After about 10-15 minutes my desktop backgrounds appeared on the dual monitors, but then sat there like that and no finder ever appeared. After waiting about another 5 minutes, I shut off the machine by holding down the power button. I waited about 10 seconds and powered it on again. Same thing, but this time it just sits at the grey Apple boot screen with the thingy spinning forever. Then I noticed something unusual.
I could hear one, or both of the internal hard drives park the heads and spin down like it was going to sleep. I hadn't noticed that before, but presume it was doing it all along. Meanwhile the computer kept spinning away on the boot screen. I thought, great my drive has crashed and burned. So I removed it and attempted to mount it on my G5 using an external ATA-USB adapter. It mounted without a problem and I was able to see and copy all of the files. So then, I took a spare drive I had with a valid bootable OSX Leopard install and put it into the G4. Fired it up and lo and behold, the same problem. The drive spins up, the machine shows the apple boot screen and keeps spinning the thingy, then after a bit of time the drive parks the head and spins back down. I'm stumped and would like some assistance in resolving this problem. Any suggestions? Oh, and yes, I've tried reseating all cards and memory and disconnected all peripherals.
1. I do occasional maintenance with onyx and have been getting a few startup disk errors in recent months. These seem to get repaired and the computer still functions as normal. I have never had these before in 8 years of using osx so they do worry me. Is the osx boot drive just a bit corrupted? Would a simple reinstall help or is the hd showing signs of failure?
2. The trash simply refuses to empty. The operation can�t be completed because you don�t have permission to access some of the items.
I've tried to bring the items back to the desktop and the folder they came from but they simply make a copy of them. I've tried the option key method and sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash + sudo rm -rf /Users/user_name/.Trash in the terminal but get no change
I followed instructions from Apple and reformated a second boot drive with GUID partitions, loaded my Snow Leopard OS and updated to the last version. Downloaded Lion and installed, set this second HDD as the new boot drive and waited - one monitor came up but then nothing happened for so long I went away. This has happened three times now and while I'm not watching my MacPro Xenon 8 core reboots from the Snow Leopard drive..
Info: Avid Media Composer 6, Mac OS X (10.6.8), MacPro 2.8 8 Core14Gb, 6Tb, AJA Io
I just got an AirPort Extreme Card from Apple that has been refurbished. I installed it in my G5 and then on power-on, the system hangs before the chime even sounds? I remove it and everything is back to normal...
Information: Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHz Mac OS X (10.5.1) MacBook 2.16, PowerMac G3 B&W, PowerMac 8100 AV, PowerBook 540c, Mac Plus
Today my Powerbook fell to the floor from about 2 feet up.
At first all seemed OK, but I then noticed that Safari wouldn't start up, so i went to reboot to see if this would resolve the issue.
Anyway, upon turning the powerbook back on, it is going no further than the very first screen of the light grey background, with dark grey Apple logo in the centre of the screen, accompanied a few seconds later by the revolving "please wait" icon (apologies if this icon has a technical term - unfortunately i don't know what it's called!), and it just stays like that, without getting to the blue login screen.
I have tried going into Single User and Verbose modes to see if i can boot up that way, but no joy.
I find the placement of keys on my MBP very akward. But if only fn = ctrl, control = fn, option = windows, command = alt, then everything would be as close as it could get on a regular Windows keyboard. Is there a way to make that happen? I know there are utilities than let user remap keys but I can't find one that actually modifies the fn key.
I have a G4 Powerbook laptop. I have never had any trouble with it. It suddenly now will not start OS10. It starts up fine and the blue screen comes up and it says starting OS X. the blue bar lights all the way up then it just gets stuck.
My sons powerbook G4 died. He said it got slow and just hung. He forced it off and now it wont boot. It comes up to the apple logo then stops. No spinner or anything. I reset power management. When I try to boot from the install CD I get a kernel panic.
My Power book will not boot up. Upon powerup up I get the usual "bong" sound and then after several seconds I get a large icon in the shape of a gray folder blinking on and off with a white queston mark inserted in the folder. I have run the hardware test on the applications install disc and it checks out OK with the advsnced test. I have tried to reboot using the OSX Install DVD but it will not boot holding down "C" when starting up. When I try to reinstall OS X it stalls out because it cannot find a drive file to install in. Any ideas on what has crapped out, is it HD issue?
I have Mac Mini 1.66 Intel 2006 OS X 10.4.11 with CD-R and DVD Player that won't boot properly into single user mode using a IBM PC keyboard. I have tried the alt-s, windows key-s and control-s key combinations. from the mac keyboard hints sheet located on this web site.
I have also tried to boot with key combinations from the mac mini manual with no success. I have also tried to simply insert the install CD/DVD for MAC OS X 10.4 that came with the computer and start the computer with various key combinations and the cd/dvd drive will not boot.
What do I need to do to be able to accomplish these tasks with the PC/ Windows keyboard.
Recently I was unfortunate enough to witness the spilling of gin and tonic on my precious macbook pro. Luckily, having had spillage issues before, I reduced the damage and now have merely a few keys not working (including both option keys) and some dodgey letters.
After turning off my mac it restarted automatically in boot camp mode and with both option keys broken I can't get back into OS :/ What's more, my boot camp has no sound and the internet doesn't work so it's pretty much turned into an iphone charger.
I was wondering if anybody knew what I could do to rescue my files and what I should do about the broken key situation?
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.
I have had OSX 10.5 installed on one of my hard drives for quite some time and use it occasionally. Yesterday I installed the update to 10.5.8 and it will not boot anymore. The updater reported a successful installation, but when trying to boot from 10.5.8, the little lines in the startup circle keep going around for up to a half hour without end. Unfortunately, I cannot find my original 10.5 upgrade disk, though I still have the packaging and documentation that came with it.
I got an iMac 27inches and I tried to install win7 by bootcamp. So everything goes smooth until it ends the installation. When it resets to start windows its just continue in that cicle. So I turn on my mac, it goes to te windows7 promp "Windows Error Recovery" and when I select one of the options "Safe Mode" - "Start Windows normally" it just resets again. And the worst part is that I can't even boot from CD or from my HD. I tried all the key combination and nothing.
I finally went from Leopard to Snow Leopard (SL) by doing a clean install. But I found I was not able to boot from the install disk by the normal procedure -- restarting and pressing the Option or C keys. Before the SL install, I had a volume structure problem on my HD and tried to use the Leopard install DVD to repair the drive. I was unable to do that by using the normal boot up procedure.why I can't boot from the optiical drive by pressing the designated keyboard key(s)?
Info: MacBook Pro (17-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8), 400GB G-Drive FW800 Ext. HD; 4GB RAM on MBP; 60GB iPod Video
I have a very old PowerBook that did have OSX running on it fine. Recently it has stopped working completely and when you startup it takes you to a blue screen with a question mark and a finder icon flashing on top of a folder. If you give it long enough it will just shut off. I have tried booting from a CD but I can't seem to get that to work. I boot up holding down the option key and it brings me to a window with a picture of my hard drive and a picture of the CD drive but when I click the cd drive and then click the forward button it merely acts like it's refreshing the list and doesn't actually boot from the CD at all. I've also tried holding down C during boot up but it ignores that and just goes to the same old flashing question mark and finder icon screen. The CD I am trying to boot from is the same OSX cd that I originally installed OSX on this computer from so I know it works.
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?
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
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.
I am currently running a 15" Powerbook G4 1.67, 1GB ram, latest update for 10.5.
Yesterday my computer randomly went to sleep and wouldn't wake up. I forced it to shut down and then tried rebooting it. It started up, but went to sleep before even getting to the login screen. I have searched the internet, this website, and the apple support site to try and fix the problem. I have tried resetting the PMU (although I don't know if I did that correctly), leaving it to rest without any battery or AC power hooked up to it, and the CMD + ALT + P + R reset all to no avail.
It seems like the general outcome for random sleep problems hasn't been too good,
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.
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.
