Mac OS X
Q: Pismo Meltdown
Yesterday when I came back from lunch I found that my Pismo was shut but running, with the fan working really hard. THe cursor was frozen. Upon Restart it froze again.
I tried to run Applejack in Single User mode. It verified the disk, but it hung while attempting to Repair Permissions. Last message on it was USERS/SHARED/SC INFO does not exist. I left it for over an hour but it didn't budge.
Next startup it got as far as the aqua screen and froze. Half the screen turned to a black scroll with white lettering saying CORRUPT STACK.
Ran Disk Utility and it also verified the disk, and also froze when trying to repair submissions. Upon Restart I got a black rectangle instead of the Login window.
By the way, it kept BOOPING every time I restarted--ie, just before the orchestra hit, a loud BOOP, which I've never heard before.
Tried to Run Onyx, which also verified SMART status. But upon verifying, I got the black rectangle saying "You need to restart..." Upon restart, I was seeing lettering flash that said System Failure.
After many tries, I finally did manage to repair permissions with Onyx, but I could not get it to my user desktop. So, with all the boops and signs I figured I should just let the thing COOL OFF (the fan was still going 90 mph.)
So I left it for a few hours. When I tried it again it started up okay, and even let me open programs and documents. So I put it to sleep and left it overnight--closed, and not running!
Now, this morning I opened it up and I got the "YOu need to restart..." rectangle again.
Please advise: Is this a hard disk issue? (because I believe there's some warranty left on it.) Or is it a motherboard issue? As you see from the model details below, this is one souped-up Pismo. I just love it, and I use it solely for work, but I use it many hours a day (almost entirely in Word, with iTunes playing in the bg.) It has been a personal project of mine to see how long I can keep this onetime superb machine functioning in a useful way. But if it's going to seriously jeopardize my work that's another matter.
I do have an external firewire drive with a backup on it. But it is several months old. I don't want to clone the drive at this point because I'm afriad I will clone the problems (which has happened in the past!). Luckily I have backed up everything that needs backing up.
Any advice much appreciated.
Best,
Giles
I tried to run Applejack in Single User mode. It verified the disk, but it hung while attempting to Repair Permissions. Last message on it was USERS/SHARED/SC INFO does not exist. I left it for over an hour but it didn't budge.
Next startup it got as far as the aqua screen and froze. Half the screen turned to a black scroll with white lettering saying CORRUPT STACK.
Ran Disk Utility and it also verified the disk, and also froze when trying to repair submissions. Upon Restart I got a black rectangle instead of the Login window.
By the way, it kept BOOPING every time I restarted--ie, just before the orchestra hit, a loud BOOP, which I've never heard before.
Tried to Run Onyx, which also verified SMART status. But upon verifying, I got the black rectangle saying "You need to restart..." Upon restart, I was seeing lettering flash that said System Failure.
After many tries, I finally did manage to repair permissions with Onyx, but I could not get it to my user desktop. So, with all the boops and signs I figured I should just let the thing COOL OFF (the fan was still going 90 mph.)
So I left it for a few hours. When I tried it again it started up okay, and even let me open programs and documents. So I put it to sleep and left it overnight--closed, and not running!
Now, this morning I opened it up and I got the "YOu need to restart..." rectangle again.
Please advise: Is this a hard disk issue? (because I believe there's some warranty left on it.) Or is it a motherboard issue? As you see from the model details below, this is one souped-up Pismo. I just love it, and I use it solely for work, but I use it many hours a day (almost entirely in Word, with iTunes playing in the bg.) It has been a personal project of mine to see how long I can keep this onetime superb machine functioning in a useful way. But if it's going to seriously jeopardize my work that's another matter.
I do have an external firewire drive with a backup on it. But it is several months old. I don't want to clone the drive at this point because I'm afriad I will clone the problems (which has happened in the past!). Luckily I have backed up everything that needs backing up.
Any advice much appreciated.
Best,
Giles
PowerBook G4 Pismo 550 Mhz, 100 GB HDD/7200, 1 GB RAM, OS 10.4.11, Mac OS X (10.4.11), PowerBook G4 12" Superdrive w OS 10.4.10
Posted on Sep 8, 2010 4:17 AM
