No apps launching, now won't boot up.

[whooleytoo]

Strange problem last night, sat down to use my G5 PowerMac (had been left on) and no applications would launch - just one hop and they're gone again. I also noticed the app and file icons were being replaced by generic file icons in the Finder.

I tried the Console and Disk Utility to look for problems, but obviously (d'oh!) couldn't launch them.

Tried restarting the machine, but after some brief disk activity, it just stays at the gray-ish screen with the progress indicator still spinning.

I guess I've no option but to reboot from DVD, try a disk repair, otherwise a re-install of OSX - annoying, I just did a clean Tiger install a few weeks ago. But has anyone else seen this? Odd that this happened while I wasn't using the Mac. The last thing I did was stream some music & videos from it to my 360 using Connect360.

 

[mad jew]

Was the clean install because of previous issues? If you can't find the discs for now, then run fsck from Single User Mode. Good luck mate.

 

[whooleytoo]

Cheers for the response! Well, actually it was due to problems, but strange, random problems over a long period of time.

Like the volume/CD eject buttons wouldn't work, but if I booted from another volume they worked perfectly. Then my Bluetooth keyboard stopped working and nothing could get the Mac to recognise it. Also Spotlight would stop working (index needed rebuilding) every couple of months, though I've seen that one on every Mac I have.

So I reinstalled and everything was ok, until last night. I'll try fsck* tonight, thanks.

(the geek in me thinks that'd make a great ****-esque T-shirt!)

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, it'd be a cool shirt.

Erm, so the reinstall you did a while back, was it a complete reformat and install? If so, then I'd start worrying about the health of your hard drive. It shouldn't collapse this soon after a reformat. In fact, I'd start looking around for a new replacement hard disk.

 

[whooleytoo]

Yeah, it'd be a cool shirt.

Erm, so the reinstall you did a while back, was it a complete reformat and install? If so, then I'd start worrying about the health of your hard drive. It shouldn't collapse this soon after a reformat. In fact, I'd start looking around for a new replacement hard disk.

Nope, it was an "Archive & Install". I never do upgrade installs, and didn't have the time & patience to back everything up before reformatting (but I will do now - if I can boot it up again!).

I check the SMART status periodically, but hadn't done so in a few weeks. Yikes.

 

[mad jew]

Ahh, okay, that's comforting. Do you have another Mac you could use with Target Disk Mode to get your junk off this one?

Also,the Archive & Install won't have affected the drive structure or formatting at all which might be why the problems are still occurring (albeit in different areas). Repairing the drive with the OSX discs (or fsck) may help, as may reformatting the drive. However, I'd recommend you start looking into getting a new drive for this thing. Have you repaired it yet? Keep running fsck or Disk Utility 'til it makes no changes.

 

[tuartboy]

I agree. Every symptom here leads me to believe your hard drive is failing. If you have access to a copy of spin right, give it a go and see if you can't find and repair some bad sectors. Either way, I would get any important data off onto a new drive.

 

[mperkins37]

I agree 100%

At very least you probably have a couple bad block /Sectors on the HD. At the worst , the harddrives Bearing is worn. Have you had hard crashes, Or Power failures without a battery backup on to keep it from crashing?
Crashes from power failure is probably the biggest cause of premature HD Failure & The biggest cause of bad blocks as the disc doesnt spin down normally, as the arm that reads the info usually falls directly ONTO The disc scratching the hell out of it = bad sectors wherever it fell.
If you do not have a Battery Backup system, do yourself a favor & Pick one up when & If you buy the new HD. Best investment you can make.

 

[whooleytoo]

Well, I was hampered by the fact I have neither the G5 DVD nor my retail Tiger DVD handy; and that I just realised I can no longer use the 'hold option'/'hold C' methods of choosing an alternate startup volume if my USB hub is attached.. grr.

Anyway, I booted from a Firewire drive, and did a Disk Utility check on the internal drive. The SMART status is still ok, but it gives several "Overlapped extent allocation" errors, then finishes without repairing with an unspecified error. I'm not sure fsck would do any better. At least now I can start backing my stuff (mostly lots of iTMS music that I had no other copy of!) and when I find the DVDs I can erase and reinstall.

It might have been due to a power hiccup alright, there have been a few lately and I might have missed one during the night. We tend to have one or two a year in our office, and invariably at least one device dies as a result - a switch, router, or worse a PC or server.

 

[tuartboy]

(mostly lots of iTMS music that I had no other copy of!)

The iTMS has been known to allow an occasional redownload of all purchased music when people lose the whole batch. If you can't recover anything (knock on wood) then you can likely get someone to flip a switch for you and at least get your music back.

 

[whooleytoo]

The iTMS has been known to allow an occasional redownload of all purchased music when people lose the whole batch. If you can't recover anything (knock on wood) then you can likely get someone to flip a switch for you and at least get your music back.

That would be excellent, but I'd rather not have to rely on it, I think I'll back up to play it safe.

Incidentally, does anyone know if 10.3.5 install DVDs will install on a G5 (Dual 2GHz) or is 10.4 the first 'reference' release that supports the machine?

 

[mad jew]

Some dual 2GHz G5s will allow you to install 10.3.5, but not all. A Mac won't let you install an OS that's older than the machine on it, even point releases. We'd have to know more about your machine specifically (when it was bought) to be able to say if the discs'll work.