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gray screen, rotating gear thing after running software update

I just did the latest round of software updates. Computer chimed and restarted - that was close to an hour ago. Have the gray screen with the gear thing going round and round. What should I do? HOld the power button down or bad idea???? Help?
!

iMac intel, Mac OS X (10.5.8), I don't know for sure which OS as I don't dare restart

Posted on Aug 18, 2009 9:21 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Aug 18, 2009 9:28 AM

sandyfeet wrote:
HOld the power button down or bad idea????

It seems you have no choice.

Try starting in single user mode. At the prompt type
fsck -fy
remember to leave a blank space before the "-fy".

This will run a file system check, like Repair Disk and repair any problems if it can. If you run into errors run fsck multiple times until it reports OK.

Then, type
reboot
reboot to restart to OS X.

Do you have a backup you can try booting from? Another option is to use another Mac in Firewire target disk mode, so you can copy data from it and run Repair Disk.

Let us know.


User uploaded file
-mj
7 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 18, 2009 9:28 AM in response to sandyfeet

sandyfeet wrote:
HOld the power button down or bad idea????

It seems you have no choice.

Try starting in single user mode. At the prompt type
fsck -fy
remember to leave a blank space before the "-fy".

This will run a file system check, like Repair Disk and repair any problems if it can. If you run into errors run fsck multiple times until it reports OK.

Then, type
reboot
reboot to restart to OS X.

Do you have a backup you can try booting from? Another option is to use another Mac in Firewire target disk mode, so you can copy data from it and run Repair Disk.

Let us know.


User uploaded file
-mj

Aug 18, 2009 4:53 PM in response to sandyfeet

So, I was able to do a full backup from Time machine (man o man am I glad I set that up and thank you Apple!) but I am still concerned about the health of my drive. Why would it suddenly go all kerfluey on me like that? I had been noticing massive slow-downs and was not able to repair permissions last few times I tried. Is this a sign that my drive is sickly?

Am downloading a buttload of updates right now after verifying disc and permissions.

gray screen, rotating gear thing after running software update

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