HELP... I think my computer is dead! (urgent!!!!)

Question

HELP... I think my computer is dead! (urgent!!!!)

Hi... this morning when i turned on my computer, it didnt start up correctly.. instead the monitor turned grey, and in the middle of the screen their was a grey box with a globe inside, globe was blue and it was just blinking. and i couldnt get to my desktop or anything my mouse was inactive which means i couldnt move it or click anything and yea.. thats about it. HELP

The night before the only thing i did was search imdb and play the sims2. so i have no clue whats wrong.. help

Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Sep 1, 2006 2:12 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

BOB SHIBASAKI

Level 1

15 points

Sep 1, 2006 2:17 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

Your computer is trying to startup to a netboot server if you let it run it will eventually startup. Afer it starts up go to system preferences, startup disk, and choose the mac os x folder

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Answer 2

besous

Level 1

120 points

Sep 1, 2006 2:18 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

hello
first thing u should enter the system by pressing the option at the start up i meen when u just press the power botton
then mac will ask u 2 choose a start up disk...choose ur macintosh hard disk...after that the mac will start as usual...but uv not finished yet...
enter the system preffrences...start up disk...choose ur macintosh hard disk......try it after that by making restart ...that will finish up ur proplem ...byeee

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Answer 3

Sep 1, 2006 2:25 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

You have your startup disk set to Network Startup. Since you can't boot up to use System preferences to change the startup disk, try using Startup Manager.

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Answer 4

Sep 1, 2006 2:47 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

I let the computer load.. finally the globe went away, and i got a folder with a happy face mac on it, and then it blinked and turned into a question mark, after that the apple logo went on the screen and it restarted my computer and took me to my desktop. after that i went to my system preferences area, and went to my start up disk area (My start up disk area has a question mark on the icon) i clicked the start up disk area and i selected the mac os x folder, and proceeded to restart my mac, and it restarted and took me back to my desktop, should i be worried about anything else let alone coming back again?..

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Answer 5

Sep 1, 2006 2:47 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

I let the computer load.. finally the globe went away, and i got a folder with a happy face mac on it, and then it blinked and turned into a question mark, after that the apple logo went on the screen and it restarted my computer and took me to my desktop. after that i went to my system preferences area, and went to my start up disk area (My start up disk area has a question mark on the icon) i clicked the start up disk area and i selected the mac os x folder, and proceeded to restart my mac, and it restarted and took me back to my desktop, should i be worried about anything else let alone coming back again?..

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Answer 6

Kevin Horn

Level 4

1,836 points

Sep 1, 2006 5:00 PM in response to WinterFresh2790

Hopefully, there will be no more problems. You probably just had a corrupted cache or preference file that got overwritten when you changed the settings back and restarted.

However, things like this can be a sign of worse problems, such as hardware problems that can manifest in lots of ways. Keep an eye out for odd behavior.

Do you know how to do maintenance and repairs? Or back ups?

Go to Dr. Smoke's X-Lab site and read some of his FAQS:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintainingmacosx.html

This one is on maintenance but you can look around for others.

You also need to back up your hard drive just in case something more serious is going wrong. Dr. Smoke recommends Retrospect but I recommend SuperDuper! If you are a novice at back ups Retrospect will look intimidating but SuperDuper! is easy to use. Just get a Firewire external hard drive that is at least as big as your internal drive then you can make a clone, which is an exact duplicate. This means you can even boot off of it in case of problems.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Download and cloning are free, if you want to use some of the more advanced features and you need to buy it.

And no, I have no financial or personal interest in SD or any software in any way. I recommend what I use and like.

Kevin

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