blank grey OS X screen at startup

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blank grey OS X screen at startup

hello all,

i have os 9 and os x on the same hard drive in two different partitions.

usually i startup in os x but now the grey screen just hangs there.
Instead I have to startup in os 9 and then select the os x startup disk and then press restart.

i have just replaced the clock battery.
i have run disk first aid in os 9 but that did nothing.

i did try booting from the os x startup disk so i can use disk repair but it went wrong and somehow messed up the header or whatever it is called.

can anyone offer suggestions?

beige G3, 233 mhz,, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Mar 27, 2006 11:53 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 3, 2006 4:55 PM in response to David Na

David,

I am surprised that your post has twenty views and no suggestions. Here are my humble suggestions:

First is actually the last thing you will be able to do. I always make what I call a polaroid copy of my drives. By that I mean that I burn a CD of just the system folder on each partition. I always asked clients "How fast can you be back to yesterday with your computer?" That polaroid copy on a 10¢ CD has saved me a lot of anguish on many occations, mostly with lost network connections.

With that said, start with Disk Warrior or even just rebuilding the desktop.

If you have a second drive, pull the plug on the first one, and take this opportunity to do a clean install of X on a first partition and then 9 on the other. Then burn your backup CD that has all your local network configurations, preferences and printer drivers, etc.

It really is nice of Apple to allow computers to work for us and not the other way around. Reinstalling system software on a PC is a nightmare. Use the benefits that Apple has given us to recover from the phantom file or HDD corruptions that are bound to happen.

Good luck,

Jim

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