blue screen upon login

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blue screen upon login

Hi all!

I'm running into a very strange problem on my MBP. Everything was working just great on my machine yesterday. Today, I tried to fire it up, and the computer stays on a blue screen after the progress bar that says (paraphrasing) "loading Mac OS X" finishes. What happens after that is basically a blue screen, followed by a "flash"--the blue background lightens a little--then back to the original color. I can move the pointer, but nothing else reacts.

I have already tried to start up into safe mode, except that when I do, the computer just shuts down. I tried running disk utility on the installation DVD, which gave me the error "invalid record count." I ran "fsck -yf" in single user mode, and received another error. Any ideas? I would love NOT to have to reinstall. Thanks all.

Macbook Pro 17" Mac OS X (10.4.8) duo one

Posted on Feb 17, 2007 5:16 PM

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Answer 1

b3av1s

Level 4

1,010 points

Feb 17, 2007 5:57 PM in response to Fake Brain

Get yourself a copy of Diskwarrior, or borrow one from your school's/company's IS department. Be sure and get the version 4 which supports Intel Macs.

PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacBook Pro

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Answer 2

Fake Brain Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2007 9:12 PM in response to b3av1s

Okay, will do, I will post again whatever the outcome. For now, it is rant time.

I have had this machine for less than six months and already this major problem comes up. I recently switched from PCs, and I was mad raving about the Mac when I got it. I have owned the crappiest of crap Dell laptops (power button issues, dead onboard nic, clock runs too fast, would not restart after recent shutdown, etc.) but at least it would eventually come back to life. That pc, however--and I never thought I would actually defend that machine, because I hated it--was marketed as a value machine. Macs are uber-expensive and here it so **** fragile. It may be that this problem is not Apple's fault at all; perhaps a third party software caused the error or maybe I made an error. But even then I would say this: Apple should make it a lot easier to recover from problems. Why should I have to pay $100 in third party software to try and repair my sys files. fsck and disk utility really really suck, and their error messages are meaningless. And to top it off, recall that I cannot even get into Safe Mode--the machine just shuts down; whatever problem is causing my blue screen is probably crashing safe mode. That is horrible design. Safe mode should mean just that, safe! It should not crash. Even in windows, I never broke a machine so that I could not get into safe mode, SAFE MODE for god's sake. That should not break so easily.

Granted no computer, no OS is perfect, but $3000 is a hefty price tag for a machine that is fragile and difficult to repair. And what's more, the 90 day telephone support is a joke; for the price, Apple should be giving a year AT LEAST.

Perhaps this issue is just a weird rare event, like a tornado in New York. I am, however, inclined to accept a Bayesian view that given I have already observed a major problem in this laptop, it is likely that the laptop is prone errors. And for the price that is unacceptable. I am not inclined to switch back to windows just yet, though for the meantime, I am forced to write this rant on my ThinkPad. I will wait to see how this MBP ages. But maybe I'll run OSX on this thinkpad instead; it's a friggin' tank.

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Answer 3

b3av1s

Level 4

1,010 points

Feb 17, 2007 10:17 PM in response to Fake Brain

Your problem may be hardware related. Apple WILL cover hardware for 1 year. Based on your history of bad luck, you should have (and you still can) purchased the AppleCare. With that you would receive a copy of TechTool Deluxe.

As with any machine, you should be making regular backups. Hard drives can fail any time, especially on laptops. If the the read/write head doesn't get parked off the cylinders and your laptop suddenly gets bumped hard enough, the head will scrape nicely over the cylinder and render part or all of your drive useless.

The problem you are having may be fixable without using DiskWarrior. DiskWarrior is easy to use and some techs have it. If you don't want to fork out $100 for it, don't. You will just need to post more details on the error you got in single user mode with fsck.

PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacBook Pro

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Answer 4

Fake Brain Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 18, 2007 6:54 AM in response to b3av1s

Yes, I know that Apple will cover the machine for a year. I did not purchase the machine, my job did; buying (or not buying in my case) AppleCare was their decision not mine.

Luckily I backed up the files that I really need from the machine. I am just really upset about the time I have to waste fixing this.

Okay, if you are interested in some of the gorier details:

fsck -fy

** Root file system
** Checking HFS Plus Volume
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
Invalid record count
(4, 248)
** Volume check failed.

If I try to start the machine sh /etc/rc

hfsswapBTNode: invalid forward link (0x5F03C1E7)
node=248 fileID=4 volume=Alexandra device=/dev/disk0s2
Find NextLeafNode: Error from hfsswapBTNode (node 240)
hfsswapBTNode: offsets 41 and 42 out of order (0x0000,0x0000)
node=19765 fileID=4 volume=Alexandra device=/dev/disk0s2
FindNextLeaf Node: Error from nfsswapBTNode (node 19765)

After this, either a login prompt appears and I can get to Darwin or I just get a blank screen where I can press return and get back to the root prompt of single user mode.

Macbook Pro 17" Mac OS X (10.4.8) duo one

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Answer 5

Feb 18, 2007 11:02 AM in response to Fake Brain

I cannot even get into Safe Mode--the machine just shuts down; whatever problem is causing my blue screen is probably crashing safe mode. That is horrible design.

No, it is actually very sensible. A Safe Boot runs fsck -fy: if it fails, it halts. This avoids any further corruption of your disk.

So your disk has an error that fsck, and therefore Disk Utility, cannot fix. Quote from the Disk Utility screen:

• If Disk Utility cannot make repairs, try other disk repair programs or back up your data and erase the volume.

That is probably why b3av1s gave you the link to DiskWarrior.

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Answer 6

b3av1s

Level 4

1,010 points

Feb 18, 2007 8:21 PM in response to Fake Brain

I think node=248 is referring to inode 248 but I'm not positive.

You could boot back into single user mode and find out what inode 248 is by typing find / -inum 248 Then you could try deleting this file if it's a non critical file. You would have to mount the volume as read/write first by typing /sbin/mount -uw / After doing this you could run fsck -fy again a few times. You may have to repeat this for inode 240 and 19675 and then run fsck -fy again a few more times.

OR

The only other two options are DiskWarrior or reinstall with archive and install option.

PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacBook Pro

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Answer 7

Fake Brain Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2007 10:11 AM in response to Michael Conniff

Yes true, but then again the computer will start up in normal mode. Why not spit out an error message at least?

Don't get me wrong, I still love macs, but I do have to question whether my problem was just terrible luck or is it something more systemic to macs. Again, I have had many, many problems with windows and linux, to the point of ulceric aggravation. But I never had a situation like this.

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Answer 8

socokid

Level 4

3,151 points

Feb 20, 2007 2:16 PM in response to Fake Brain

If it was systemic to Macs, Apple wouldn't be in business... however, booting to blue screen could mean a few things. Usually DiskWarrior can help (takes 10 minutes to run), an attempt at an archive and install which will not touch any of your installed apps or user data (about 45 minutes). If you do not need any data on the hard drive, then the safest root would be to reformat and install the OS which again is very easy to do. As you stated, every computer on the planet is prone to having issues at times. Yes, they are less likely on a Mac (from my own experience), but they certainly do happen. If you are near an AppleStore, they can fix it for you or at least tell you exactly what's wrong so that you can fix it.

If it's a failed hard drive (every hard drive on the planet, even the ones used in Macs - Apple doesn't make hard drives - will fail at some point, especially in laptops), then you will need Apple to replace it, simple as that.

That's the difference between Apple and say, Dell. You can take it to an AppleStore to have the look at it right now, face to face with a certified tech. If you aren't near an Apple store, then call AppleCare, if they can't help you over the phone (if you have AppleCare, they will help you for free) they will send you a box next day to ship the machine to them for repair. (I won't mention virii, adware, unintuitiveness, etc... of the Winside).

Good luck, and please let us know what happens. Thanks!

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Answer 9

Fake Brain Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 1, 2007 2:08 PM in response to Fake Brain

Well, my sysadmin did not have the latest version of DiskWarrior--the one for Intel Macs--so I had to proceed to reinstallation; I did not try the other single user mode suggestions given by b3av1s just because I wanted to move forward. I was able to boot in target mode using another mac, so data and settings for a lot of software were rescued.

During reinstall, archive mode did not work because system settings were corrupted. Therefore, I went to a clean install, and everything has been up for about a week now without a hiccup (fingers firmly Xed 😉

It makes little practical difference to me now, but if anyone has any reasonable hypotheses on what happened with my mac, I would love to hear them.

Thanks all for your advice.

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Answer 10

socokid

Level 4

3,151 points

Mar 1, 2007 2:28 PM in response to Fake Brain

Sounds like you had some major directory issues. In this case an archive and install would have failed just as you stated. Disk Warrior may have been able to help.

Unfortunately, how it happened could take a team of engineers weeks to figure out... it's one of those things that you just have to say "stuff happens". Sorry... but, you might want to pick up a copy of DW, it's always good to have around.

Good luck!

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