Installation appears stuck on a plain blue screen

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Level 1

13 points

Installation appears stuck on a plain blue screen

I'm upgrading my 20" iMac (Core Duo) at the moment and the installation 'completed', then the computer rebooted and it has been sitting on a plain blue screen for the past 30 minutes.

There is no progress indicator of any sort but I can occasionally hear the hard drive seeking.

Should I restart my Mac or keep waiting???

Thanks,

Paul

iMac (20") Intel, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Oct 25, 2007 7:32 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 25, 2007 7:33 PM in response to nitramluap

phone apple

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Answer 2

Oct 25, 2007 7:50 PM in response to nitramluap

"Should I restart my Mac or keep waiting???"
-----------------------------------------------
You really have no other choice at this point - other than to re-start [actually power down and start-up] - and pray!

Did you have any non Apple devices plugged in the USB or FireWire ports? If so ... disconnect them before you do the power down and re-start.

Good luck!

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Answer 3

nitramluap Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2007 7:53 PM in response to shanty140

I'm on the phone to them and they can't help!!

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Answer 4

nitramluap Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2007 8:04 PM in response to Royce Walthrop

Rebooted.

Same problem. The question is: If I wait, how long is too long?

sigh

Paul

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Answer 5

Oct 25, 2007 8:29 PM in response to nitramluap

Even 5 minutes is too long.

I sincerely hope that you backed up your data before you installed 10.5.
If you did - then I would suggest that you try the whole process again from the beginning.

But this time ... when the installer screen comes up - choose Disk Utility from the drop down menu bar - and verify and repair the hard drive.

What type of install did you do?
Did you have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse that you were using when you installed? If so - try it with wired components.

I don't know what else to tell you. I'm sorry.

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Answer 6

Oct 25, 2007 8:41 PM in response to nitramluap

Same thing happened to me, I powered down, restarted and waited around 10 minutes. It loaded up fine. Just wait it out.

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Answer 7

nitramluap Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2007 8:43 PM in response to Royce Walthrop

I did an upgrade.

I'm trying it again (the upgrade that is) with the wired keyboard/mouse to see if it irons out the wrinkles the second time around. I didn't do a backup... actually, I should clarify that... I used the Backup program which repeatedly failed to do the backup. I gave up after a few days.

I have most of the important info accessible but I'm not keen on wiping the drive. If it comes to that stage I'll reboot it in target disk mode and suck ALL the data off it - that should work, shouldn't it?

Anyhoo... another 45 minute wait to see if anything has changed. I'll report back.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Cheers,

Paul

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Answer 8

nitramluap Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2007 8:44 PM in response to mikesharkey

That is the next option if it does it again - I'll leave it overnight if I have to!

🙂

Paul

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Answer 9

Oct 25, 2007 9:23 PM in response to nitramluap

I am having exactly this problem -- after half a day's work, I still cannot get past the blank blue screen. I left it for about four hours, with no result. A check of the system.log (via single-user mode) seemed to imply (to my educated-layman's eye) that the loginwindow process was repeatedly exiting and restarting itself -- there were multiple error messages to this end in the logs. I've tried all the suggestions here, and none have helped -- I can't boot into safe mode. Considering that this is at least the second thread I've seen here with this problem, it looks like this is not an isolated issue. Does anyone have any ideas?

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Answer 10

Oct 25, 2007 10:02 PM in response to Adam Conover

Adam, have you got any external drives, USB hubs etc. connected? I had heaps of stuff connected to my laptop, I disconnected this before I restarted and this seemed to help?

Sorry I can't help you more, that is a real shame.

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Answer 11

Wingrove

Level 1

15 points

Oct 25, 2007 10:18 PM in response to nitramluap

phew not just me!!!

i had this issue with my mac pro and my 17"MBP had to force restart both of them.. now having mail quitting issues big time and havent even really tried much more beyond that.... but maan when stuff works its fast
j

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Answer 12

Oct 25, 2007 10:31 PM in response to mikesharkey

Nope, I have nothing else connected. I'm trying Archive and Install now (as much as I hate to -- reconstructing that much of your setup is not fun.) I'll let you guys know how it works. As it is, this problem seems common enough that it deserves a knowledge base article or two. (I can also post logs if anyone here is interested in debugging the issue further.)

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Answer 13

Wingrove

Level 1

15 points

Oct 25, 2007 10:35 PM in response to Adam Conover

hmm yes its not really launched yet and already theres plenty of grief out there
jeez don they test this stuff

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Answer 14

nitramluap Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2007 11:58 PM in response to nitramluap

Well, it worked (sort of).

I watched the Leopard video, nice the first time. and then it asked me for all sorts of data, which I couldn't enter as the keyboard refused to work for some bizarre reason (it was working before).

It wouldn't recognise that any users were already installed on the computer.

The installation log listed over 500,000 errors - all sorts of weird things.

Disk Utility reported no problems prior to the install or after it - and it showed that there were 2 user accounts and that the data was still there...
Nothing but the keyboard & mouse was plugged into the iMac during the installation process.

So...
I'm using the Macbook, connected to the iMac in target disc mode and connected to a 1TB external drive and I'm copying everything in my User folder to this drive.

I've had a look through all the other folders and I don't think there is anything of importance (that I can't install again) in them Root/Library, System/Library, etc.

I have 4 hours to wait until it has copied, then I'm erasing my iMac and doing a fresh install.

That better bloody work. What a waste of a day...

Paul

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Answer 15

Oct 26, 2007 3:17 AM in response to Adam Conover

Installed perfectly on my current model Mac mini.

However, it has killed my iMac G5. Unplugged everything except for USB keyboard/mouse and still didn't help. Running disk utility on the DVD didn't show any errors. Tried running the upgrade again but still the BSoD.

I guess I'll have to boot it up in FW disk mode and copy everything off and try a clean install. No big deal, just very annoying and very time consuming (so glad for FW disk mode).

Not a very good start at all. My other Macs (Macbook, PB, and iMac G4) will be waiting some time until this is sorted ...

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