My G4 Mac crashes during startup

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My G4 Mac crashes during startup

My computer is a Power Mac G4, Dual 1 GHz, 1.5GB, OSX.5 (leopard)

In late December, I started having problems with my computer. When I switched it on, I was getting the message;

"You need to restart your computer. Hold down on the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button."

When I did what it told me (Hold down on the Power button for several seconds) I eventually got onto my computer normally. The computer would send me an error report, and would give me an option to send it to apple, which I took.

This happend three or four times until in early January when I switched on my computer, and got the message. I did what it told me to do, but this time I was not getting a response. I would see a white background and the apple logo, but no signs of loading. I held down on the Power button, to switch it off, then try again. I would get the same response, sometimes bits of code would interupt the white background, and there was a time when the apple logo changed to a circle with a cross going diagonally down it. But most of the time no signs of loading, if I did not switch my computer off it would show the white background and apple logo for hours (I've tried it). Eventually after turning off and turning on my computer, I get a loading response, (the circle underneath the apple logo) it looks like the computer is going to run normally, but then it switches it self off.

I have tried doing trouble shooting like reseting the computer's parameter random - access memory (PRAM). I start up the computer and immediately hold down the Command, Option (alt button), P and R keys until I hear the startup sound a second time, but all I get is the white background with the apple logo. I have even changed the battery but no change.

When I turn my computer on and immediately press the Media Eject key on my Apple Pro Keyboard, the CD/DVD tray comes out. I was wondering, if I start up using the Mac OSX Leopard CD would that solve the problems and would I lose applications, files and other data that I saved on my hard drive.

PowerMac, iOS 5.1

Posted on Apr 26, 2013 12:53 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Apr 26, 2013 3:22 PM in response to David.007

This is a sign of a hardware problem.

You haven't backed up your data yet? What are you waiting for?

You should try starting from Leopard dvd. This will not cause a problem unless you install a new version of Leopard.

1) Try a safe boot.

Shutdown your machine. Hold down the shift key. Poweron. Wait awhile Wait awhile while you harddrive

is being checked.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

2) You should run disk utility

a) verify the disk

b) update your permissions.

3) Run hardware diagnostics.

I suspect disk corruptions.

verify & repair your startup drive

To verify & repair you file system on the startup drive, you will need to run disk utility from you installation DVD.

This article will tell you how to get to disk utility. Once in a disk utility, you can go and attempt to recover the disk.

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

To repair your startup drive, you will need to run disk utility from your startup DVD.
Mac OS X 10.4: About the utilities available on the Mac OS X 10.4 Install DVD

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2055

How to run disk utility from your startup DVD.

Insert your startup DVD into your reader. Power down your machine. Hold down to the c key. Power on your machine. This will bootup your startup DVD.
This will bring you to a panel asking you for your language. Pick your language.

You you come to the Install Mac OS panel. Do not install.
Click on Utilities menu item. This will give you a pulldown list of utilities.
Click on the disk utility.
You are now in disk utility. Pick your disk. Click on repair it should be on the lower right of the panel.
Once the repair completes successfully, you should update your permissions.

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Answer 2

Apr 26, 2013 11:47 PM in response to David.007

David.007 wrote:

I was wondering, if I start up using the Mac OSX Leopard CD would that solve the problems and would I lose applications, files and other data that I saved on my hard drive.

simply booting the OSX CD does not require that you go through the installation process, so you can keep your hard drive in tact and run the diagnostics described above, if it will boot.

If you are not able to boot from the CD/DVD then there may be some other hardware problem going on before the boot process even gets to the point of loading the OS from a drive.

These kinds of problems are tricky. Say it might be one of the RAM sticks or one of the slots itself, hypothetically. Take out all RAM sticks but one, try booting the machine with each RAM stick individually in each slot. position until you find one working combination, if any at all. Can you borrow a compatible RAM stick from another known working machine?

Unplug any non-essential USB or FW external devices, does that help? Any extraneous PCI expansion cards? take them out. Get down to a bare-bones system to see if the OS DVD will boot, then start adding parts back. Since you had a previously working system, but did not make any changes to it, then it's kind of hard to backtrack form where you are to see when or what is causing the problem.

Good luck, these issues can be real frustrating.

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Answer 3

David.007 Author

Level 1

0 points

May 1, 2013 2:36 PM in response to rccharles

Thanks for the help

I run disk utiliy from my startup DVD, and I got the following message;

'First Aid Failed

Disk Utility stopped repairing "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered:

Filesystem verify or repair failed'

In the actual disk utility it says:

Verify and Repair volume "Macintosh HD"

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking Extents Overflow file

Checking Catalog file

in red the following says;

Invalid key length

Volume check failed

Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed

What went wrong and what should I do next.

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Answer 4

May 1, 2013 8:37 PM in response to David.007

Well, it's good news that you are able to boot from the OS DVD and run the Disc Utility, then you have a working computer hardware-wise. The bad news is that the hard drive seems to be having problems that Disc Utility can not repair. It is not obvious what kind of issue this is, perhaps a logical formatting problem that might be able to be fixed with stronger software, or a hardware problem that requires replacing the hard drive with no hope of data recovery.

To run other third-party utilities (perhaps more powerful than Disc Utility?) you need to be able to boot from another drive with that software and the Mac OS installed on it. If you don't have another such emergency boot disc for performing repair and maintennace on the main boot drive, then you will need to get another hard drive to perform a fresh installation.

I would suggest adding a new hard drive, either internally or an external FW bootable. Install the OS from the DVD on that new drive. Get the machine back up and running on the new drive. Maybe try some other utility like Drive 10 or Drive Genius, if you can get a version for 10.5, maybe even a trial download can tell you if the software can fix your problem or not.

a few examples, (I have not ever had experience with these fixing a problem like this)

http://www.micromat.com

http://www.prosofteng.com

http://www.intechusa.com

PS - just wondering, were you running any Norton Utilities on that machine ? ...

(any one out there with fond memories of System Works 3.0 ... )

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Answer 5

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

May 2, 2013 6:45 PM in response to Glen Doggett

Will rebuild your filesystem.

Perhaps Disk Warrior will be of some help:

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

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