Powerbook g4 wont turn on.

OK, let's back up for a second and see where it is stalling. To do that, you need to boot up in "verbose mode" which will throw you to a Unix terminal screen which will show you (somewhat) how things are progressing. To start up in verbose mode, hold down the cmd-v combination while booting until you get to the grey screen, then it should switch to a black screen and you will start to see terminal output coming up the screen. Eventually, this should stop.

What you need to do is not what the last few lines of terminal output are, as this should be an indication of where the boot is hanging.

As for the discs, they need to be either (a) a black retail version (you would want the tiger one) or the gray PowerBook G4 Software Install and Restore DVD, possibly part number 691-4060-A, but there are others that were shipped. The Power Mac G4 disc would probably not work, as it is likely set up for a specific machine install/restore and is OS 9, anyway.

If the Tiger disc is a grey disc, you would likely have problems with that as well.

SSMMAC wrote:
Well I like it for like 15 min and it just sat at the grey screen with apple logo. Anything else I may try? I remember reading on a blog something like type in the white screen <fsck>? Ill try anything as I need this Mac.....

Let's try the verbose boot to see what is going on. Then we can walk you through single-user mode and using fsck.

SSMMAC wrote:
Ok well i did it but nothing happened. I tried holding cmd-v before boot, after boot, ect. NOTHING. well should i try <fsck>? and what should i do?

OK, we'll try single user mode, then.

Boot while holding down the cmd-S combination. You should get a black screen with white characters which is a Unix terminal window.

When you get the teminal prompt, you need to enter the following two commands:

*/sbin/mount -uw / <cr>*

*/sbin/fsck -fy <cr>*

and then let fsck do its thing.

At this point, fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found:

** The volume (name ofvolume) appears to be OK

If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message:

*** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***

Important: *If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2* until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).

More information here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

If this works, you can then issue the following terminal command to shut the computer down and try a new reboot:

*shutdown now <cr>*

Message was edited by: old comm guy to add the shutdown command.

SSMMAC wrote:
It IS a grey disc but it says "Mac OS X install disc v10.4.8

Not likely that it would start the machine. You could give it a try, but it is specific to a different, much later machine.

Message was edited by: old comm guy

SSMMAC wrote:
just had a idea. I cant boot into single user mode or verbial(?) mode (cmd-s or cmd-v) so can i boot into Open Firmware mode (cmd-optoin-o-f) and then use that to boot into single user mode with some kind of code?

No. It appears that you have a fundamental problem with your boot drive.

First, let's see if the machine even thinks you have a boot volume on your hard drive. We will try a boot into the system selection routine by holding down the option key while powering up. You should eventually get to the Startup Manager, which should have a circular arrow icon, a right arrow icon and maybe an icon for your hard drive and boot volume with system version information. If it does see a bootable volume, select that and then click the right arrow icon. You probably won't get very far into the boot, but what this tells us is that at least something on that volume makes the machine think that it can boot from it.

Now, if the volume did show up, we can try to boot from the Tiger disc you have and see if it actually starts the machine. I have my doubts, but you may luck out.

Try booting into the OS X disc by holding the 'C' key down and inserting the disc at power up. Either it will work or it won't. Then, if the installer does come up, select the language and then stop for a moment. *Do not start the install process.*

Once started from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Utility menu.

See if your hard drive and boot volume show up in the disc pane of the Disk Utility window.

If the volume shows up, then use Disk Utility to perform a disk repair of your Mac OS X volume; if no issues are found, perform a permissions repair as well. If issues are found during the disk repair, try repairing again.

After the Disk Utility operations are complete, restart without holding any keys.

SSMMAC wrote:
hey it booted up and i can use applications and all!! but should i shut it down or will i encounter same probs? the admin account i still cannot get into though....but I would like to know if i should shut it down or if i should run a program to reset and clean it up? thanks so much

On its own? Or after doing something?