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Virus G4 starts but before fully booted says I must restart and locks me up.

Mac G4 starts but before it fully boots a message pops up and say "you must restart your computer", locking up the machine until I hold the power button down shutting off machine. I have safe booted and it seems fine other than the screen has little tiny lines, almost inpersivable but there. I believe a virus of some kind. help if u can. Thanks.

PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Mar 23, 2016 1:43 PM

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Posted on Apr 1, 2016 11:07 AM

No, if you own a Mac the first thing to think is not a virus but a hardware or possibly corrupt software issue. I don't think I have ever heard of a G4, or any Mac for that matter, getting a virus in 20 years.


After booting to safe mode will it boot normally again? Safe Mode does some repairing and will sometimes take care of the issue.


The line thing is disturbing, maybe a video card issue. Are you sure they were not there before? As part of your original installer disc set you should have received one labeled Apple Hardware Test. Try running that and see if it reports hardware problems.

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Question marked as Best reply

Apr 1, 2016 11:07 AM in response to Bigoceans11

No, if you own a Mac the first thing to think is not a virus but a hardware or possibly corrupt software issue. I don't think I have ever heard of a G4, or any Mac for that matter, getting a virus in 20 years.


After booting to safe mode will it boot normally again? Safe Mode does some repairing and will sometimes take care of the issue.


The line thing is disturbing, maybe a video card issue. Are you sure they were not there before? As part of your original installer disc set you should have received one labeled Apple Hardware Test. Try running that and see if it reports hardware problems.

Apr 1, 2016 11:08 AM in response to Bigoceans11

Notes on Safe Mode working, but not regular boot...otes on Safe Mode working, but not regular boot...


One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...


PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive


Reboot, test again.


If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. Or an errant process eating up RAM.


Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.


Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...


/private/var/run/StartupItems


/Library/StartupItems


/System/Library/StartupItems


/System/Library/LaunchDaemons


/Library/LaunchDaemons

Virus G4 starts but before fully booted says I must restart and locks me up.

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