I have a dual 2.7 powermac with tons of photos on it. Of the photos i have is one of a friend who had passed away, these are the majority of the photos i have of him. I recently downloaded the new updates for my powermac and i reseted it like i usually do. Then it happened. Instead of booting up into mac osx like usual i now just see a half the startup process and a black screen. on the black screen i see something about darwin console, and its asking me to put in my login and then my password. I tried my username and password but its not working. I have been seeing many people having this problem when i started browsing online but i have not found anything to fix this. I dont know any code really so if anyone can put simple instructions please do so, i cannot afford to lose these pictures.
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oh my god i need help immedietly (PowerMac not booting)
- Thread starter absolutmp5
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absolutmp5 said:
Two things... find another mac and boot in target mode (holding down the T key after the chime) and connect via firewire on the other mac and your PM will show up as an external HD where you can rescue, or
Boot in "Safe Mode" by holding down the shift key after the chime. Don't get discouraged because it takes a long time for the boot to complete. when you get to the login screen you will see "safe boot" in red. log in as normal. my 12" PB did this after i installed 10.4.7. Hope this helps
(try option 2 first)
If secure boot and doesn't work and going into target mode won't resolve the problem, you can do an archive and install.
Same thing happened to me on my intel imac after trying to install 10.4.7. I ended up having to do archive and install. All my files and data were there after this long process. Make sure that after archive and install you update to 10.4.7 using combo update not software download. Also repair permissions after archive install and after installing 10.4.7. Run OnyX if you use it.
Same thing happened to me on my intel imac after trying to install 10.4.7. I ended up having to do archive and install. All my files and data were there after this long process. Make sure that after archive and install you update to 10.4.7 using combo update not software download. Also repair permissions after archive install and after installing 10.4.7. Run OnyX if you use it.
Boot off the system install disk, and go through the install process, at the point when it asks you which drive you want to install to (I think) there is an "options" button down the bottom which lets you choose between, erase or archive and install etc. From memory it includes brief instructions as to where it puts your current system so you can retrieve your old Pictures folder etc.
Simple document folders like Documents, Pictures and Music (in your User folder) can be copied across in their entirety to the new user folder.
Simple document folders like Documents, Pictures and Music (in your User folder) can be copied across in their entirety to the new user folder.
Insert the CD and hold down C after switching the Mac on.
I would connect it to another mac and get all your files off it first. Doing an 'archive' install isn't completely reliable and it could remove all your stuff...
Doing this is very very easy. Firstly you need another Mac with a firewire connection, and a firewire cable. Connect the two computers together and get the other mac (not your dodgy powermac) into OS X, completely booted.
Then, boot up the PowerMac and straight away, press and hold T. After a few seconds (keep holding T), an icon will appear on the other mac's desktop (or Computer folder). This is the hard disk on your PowerMac. Just copy all the photos across!
I had to do this on an eMac which someone at the art department at my school had dropped, breaking the CRT.
I would connect it to another mac and get all your files off it first. Doing an 'archive' install isn't completely reliable and it could remove all your stuff...
Doing this is very very easy. Firstly you need another Mac with a firewire connection, and a firewire cable. Connect the two computers together and get the other mac (not your dodgy powermac) into OS X, completely booted.
Then, boot up the PowerMac and straight away, press and hold T. After a few seconds (keep holding T), an icon will appear on the other mac's desktop (or Computer folder). This is the hard disk on your PowerMac. Just copy all the photos across!
I had to do this on an eMac which someone at the art department at my school had dropped, breaking the CRT.
Please don't go the reinstall route until you've run fsck on this disk in Single User Mode. At this point, you've go no way of knowing whether the problem is a hard drive failure or a disk directory issue. If it is (and this is far more likely than a corrupted OS), then a reinstall will not help and might even make the problem worse. If you don't know how to do this, please ask.
absolutmp5 said:
Reboot, at the chime hold down cmd-s until the black screen with text appears. Wait for the prompt. At the prompt, type:
fsck -f [including space, return]
If the disk verifies, or reports a successful repair, type:
reboot [return]
If it doesn't, run fsck one more time. If it still reports errors which can't be repaired, then your problem is with the drive, not OSX.
The Target Disk Mode advice is also good, if you happen to have another Mac around. If the drive on the problem Mac doesn't want to mount on the host Mac in TDM, then again, you know the problem is the drive, not OSX. A commercial disk repair utility such Disk Warrior might fix it.