No smoking sign on reboot

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Level 1

11 points

No smoking sign on reboot

I just don't know what else to call that sign but it is the one used with no smoking. 🙂 Anyway, I put Leopard on the third computer I own, (I did buy the family pack) and it installed fine. There were some glitches like Firefox didn't work perfectly. Then we restarted and it kept booting up to the no smoking sign. I have tried Disk Utility from a reboot to the Leopard disk. I have tried Disk Warrior. Nothing worked. I am trying to reinstall the program as we speak. Is there a compatibility issue with this program and Norton. I'm just curious because disabling Norton on another computer allowed me to do Time Machine more effectively. Can you tell me why this could happen?
Thank you

24" iMac IntelCore 2.16 GHz 2G, Mac OS X (10.4.10), Macbook Pro

Posted on Oct 28, 2007 9:33 AM

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Answer 1

Ahbe

Level 1

15 points

Dec 9, 2007 4:00 PM in response to verandoug

I'm having just about the exact same problem. I have been running Leopard fine for over a month now, but just today, I came back to my Rev B MacBook to find it locked up. Upon reboot I get the prohibitory sign. After some reading it appears to be a problem with the EFI boot loader, but nothing seems to fix it. DiskWarrior doesn't recognize the disk. Hardware Test doesn't even see the hard drive. I was starting to think it was a dead hard drive, but if you boot holding OPT I can see my Bootcamp installation. I really don't want to rebuild my computer. Does anyone have a suggestion?

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Answer 2

Dec 9, 2007 4:04 PM in response to verandoug

That sign generally means that the startup disk has NOT been chosen..

Startup holding down the option key on the keyboard...
When it allows you to choose the startup disk with your mouse, do so...

Once you get restarted, open up your system preferences -> startup disk, and choose your startup disk. Next time it should startup fine.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,252 points

Dec 9, 2007 4:28 PM in response to Joseph Kriz

Actually, Apple calls it a "Prohibited" sign. I had to search the discussions to find this link as I couldn't find it through the KB search engine. Essentially, a necessary system file was moved, deleted, or corrupted. Sometimes, resetting NVRAM will fix the issue (according to the doc). Otherwise, you may have to Archive and Install to get the file back.

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Answer 4

Dec 9, 2007 4:33 PM in response to Barney-15E

Actually step #2 in that document is the same as I mentioned above...

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1. Reset the NVRAM and PRAM. See Note: Resetting NVRAM/PRAM may change some system settings and preferences. For example, your volume and mouse speed settings may change. You can use System Preferences to restore preferred settings.
*2. Hold the "X" key during startup. This may force the computer to start up to Mac OS X. If it does, open System Preferences and be sure that your Mac OS X System Folder is selected.*
----

It hopefully will allow the system to start.
I have personally experienced this before when a client did NOT have the startup disk chosen in the preferences...

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Answer 5

Ahbe

Level 1

15 points

Dec 9, 2007 5:24 PM in response to Joseph Kriz

I've actually already read that KB article, and tried all of the mentioned steps. I did a NVRAM reset. I tried rebooting holding down X, I even booted off the Leopard install disk and used the Startup Disk utility. But, here's the kicker. My hard drive doesn't even show up as an option to boot from. I can put my MacBook into target disk mode and connect it to my old iMac, and Disk Utility on the iMac can see the hard drive, but I can't seem to do anything with it. I can't mount the volume, and I can't repair anything. I can't even verify if there's a problem. But, I can see both partitions on the drive. I can boot my MacBook holding down OPT and I get a choice between my MacBook HD and Vista HD (what I named the partitions). After all this I gave up and tried to reinstall, but that's not even working because the Leopard DVD doesn't see the hard drive to install to. I can't even delete it with the Disk Utility on the DVD because it doesn't see the HD either. I'm starting to think this may be a hard drive issue after all. Any help is appreciated.

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