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PowerMac G5

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 30, 2016
26
1
Australia
Recently purchased an iBook G4, everything was working, however was really bugged by how dirty the keyboard was. So I took apart the iBook, took out the keyboard, airport card and ram. Cleaned the keyboard well, put everything back together and turned it on. It chimed, the grey apple screen came up then went to the loading bar (see photo) but the bar didn't move, and no words are under the bar show up. The mouse still moves around and if I press the power button the beach ball shows up but doesn't turn off.

Photo: http://origin.arstechnica.com/journals/apple.media/thumb/200/200/starting_macosx.jpg

Tried resetting the Pram, same thing.
Tried fsck, same thing.

Any suggestions?
 
I'd try getting a new RAM stick for it, or reseating it. Also, try taking out the stick and see if it boots since the iBook has built in RAM as well
 
Recently purchased an iBook G4, everything was working, however was really bugged by how dirty the keyboard was. So I took apart the iBook, took out the keyboard, airport card and ram. Cleaned the keyboard well, put everything back together and turned it on. It chimed, the grey apple screen came up then went to the loading bar (see photo) but the bar didn't move, and no words are under the bar show up. The mouse still moves around and if I press the power button the beach ball shows up but doesn't turn off.

Photo: http://origin.arstechnica.com/journals/apple.media/thumb/200/200/starting_macosx.jpg

Tried resetting the Pram, same thing.
Tried fsck, same thing.

Any suggestions?

Boot up in Verbose Mode and report what the last few messages say before it hangs.

Verbose Mode - turn Mac off. Turn back on. Immediately hold down CMD+V once the Mac chimes.

May want to get a pic of the screen when it hangs.
 
Try taking out the AirPort card and RAM and then putting them back in. If is still doesn't boot, try removing the RAM and AirPort card and then try to boot. Let us know what happens.
 
I'd try getting a new RAM stick for it, or reseating it. Also, try taking out the stick and see if it boots since the iBook has built in RAM as well
Try taking out the AirPort card and RAM and then putting them back in. If is still doesn't boot, try removing the RAM and AirPort card and then try to boot. Let us know what happens.

Reseated the ram, still stuck
Took the ram out and powered on, same thing

Boot up in Verbose Mode and report what the last few messages say before it hangs.

Verbose Mode - turn Mac off. Turn back on. Immediately hold down CMD+V once the Mac chimes.

May want to get a pic of the screen when it hangs.

Took a photo of what it said before it went to blue.

(Other pic shows where it is getting stuck)
 

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It's hanging trying to launch the login window (the dialogue box where you put in your name and password).

Let's eliminate the keyboard if it's not that.

Do you have a spare external USB (preferably Apple) keyboard lying around?

Try booting again with it and a USB mouse plugged in.

If that does not work then let's try a Safe Boot. Hold down SHIFT until you see the login window. If that does not work we'll have to see we can for an FSCK on the drive. Right now the log says it's skipping that.
 
It's hanging trying to launch the login window (the dialogue box where you put in your name and password).

Let's eliminate the keyboard if it's not that.

Do you have a spare external USB (preferably Apple) keyboard lying around?

Try booting again with it and a USB mouse plugged in.

If that does not work then let's try a Safe Boot. Hold down SHIFT until you see the login window. If that does not work we'll have to see we can for an FSCK on the drive. Right now the log says it's skipping that.

Plugged in both an Apple Mouse and Apple Keyboard, Still stuck

Held shift, took a really long time to load but still stuck on the same load screen

Ran an fsck and said that everything was okay, did a reboot and still stuck

Starting to think that I might just need to reinstall OS X
 
Plugged in both an Apple Mouse and Apple Keyboard, Still stuck

Held shift, took a really long time to load but still stuck on the same load screen

Ran an fsck and said that everything was okay, did a reboot and still stuck

Starting to think that I might just need to reinstall OS X
Hmmm…

Before that try booting from an install disk and seeing if you can repair the drive.

I would, if you can find a copy of DiskWarrior, also try that. DW can fix a lot of things Disk Utility doesn't even see.

EDIT: Last thought. When you opened the iBook up and cleaned things you didn't damage the HD cable at all did you?

I have a friend who gave me an iBook G4 and it keep freezing every time I tried to install Leopard. Turns out the actual socket for the HD connecter had partially been torn from the logicboard. Once disk activity really started the unit froze.
 
Hmmm…

Before that try booting from an install disk and seeing if you can repair the drive.

I would, if you can find a copy of DiskWarrior, also try that. DW can fix a lot of things Disk Utility doesn't even see.

EDIT: Last thought. When you opened the iBook up and cleaned things you didn't damage the HD cable at all did you?

I have a friend who gave me an iBook G4 and it keep freezing every time I tried to install Leopard. Turns out the actual socket for the HD connecter had partially been torn from the logicboard. Once disk activity really started the unit froze.

I put in a restoration disk, open disk utility, first aid, then clicked repair disk, it repaired 1 HFS Volume however 1 volume could not be repaired, this was an "invalid leaf record count". Could this be causing it?
[doublepost=1474348706][/doublepost]
Hmmm…

Before that try booting from an install disk and seeing if you can repair the drive.

I would, if you can find a copy of DiskWarrior, also try that. DW can fix a lot of things Disk Utility doesn't even see.

EDIT: Last thought. When you opened the iBook up and cleaned things you didn't damage the HD cable at all did you?

I have a friend who gave me an iBook G4 and it keep freezing every time I tried to install Leopard. Turns out the actual socket for the HD connecter had partially been torn from the logicboard. Once disk activity really started the unit froze.

After everything else didn't work I ran through and did fsck -fy 3 or 4 times, rebooted and it worked, Thanks for all your help.
 
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