Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OSX won't boot

R

ryanmangos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 20, 2007
19
0
I am still new to macs and i purchased a MBP a few weeks ago. Today, the computer suddenly wouldn't boot. It would get stuck in the command prompt saying: Localhost:/ root#

Any ideas on how to get it to boot back to osx?
 
Boot holding OPTION and it should give you a choice of different disks. Choose the regular OSX system and once it's booted, reselect your startup disk in System Preferences. :)
 
mad jew said:
Boot holding OPTION and it should give you a choice of different disks. Choose the regular OSX system and once it's booted, reselect your startup disk in System Preferences. :)
Click to expand...


when I did that it went straight to the black screen again saying:

localhost:/ root#

=(
 
mad jew said:
Do you use Cocktail or some such maintenance app? If so, try resetting the PRAM. :)
Click to expand...

I do have one of those programs, but I dont remember which. I installed it but didn't do anything with it yet. I didn't get a chance to check it out. As far as reseting the PRAM, i did it but it still boots to the same screen.

I boot the computer i see the apple logo and the gear turning then it just goes to a black screen and it says localhost:/ root#

i checked out past topcs and it mentioned to type reset-nvram but even after that it says command not found.

boooo all this as soon as i start loving my mac
 
mad jew said:
Think carefully. What exactly were you doing right before this happened? :)
Click to expand...

well my friend who was telling me about macs, he shut down shut the lid took out the battery and was looking at stuff. he put it back in and rebooted the machine i guess he wanted to check something out. :(
 
mad jew said:
If you type the following and press RETURN, do you go back to Single User Mode (black screen), or do you get into OSX?


Code: 
reboot
Click to expand...

when in localhost..... i type reboot, it just restarts and goes back to the same startup sequence. apple screen, gears turn, black screen with localhost....
 
You shouldn't have to hold it terribly long, but to be safe (excuse the pun) hold it from before the chime to the point when the system stops loading. Hopefully it'll have a GUI this time, so you'll notice the difference.
 
mad jew said:
You shouldn't have to hold it terribly long, but to be safe (excuse the pun) hold it from before the chime to the point when the system stops loading. Hopefully it'll have a GUI this time, so you'll notice the difference.
Click to expand...

hmmm seems like it takes the gears a bit longer to show up. it looks like its stuck on the apple boot scree. i havent seen the gears turn yet :confused:

but i can hear the hd spinning if that counts for anything
 
mad jew said:
Crap. Try booting from the OSX discs and use Disk Utility to verify and possibly repair your drive.
Click to expand...

alright, ill try that might take some time tho.

btw thanks so much for taking the time to help me out. appreciate it =D
 
its fairly new so i didnt have anything too great on there but i dont want to have to start all over and dl proggies and reinstall. i also have a few documents stored on there that i dont want to lose.

now im getting a disk utility internal error. it has lost its connection with disk management tool relaunch disk utility.

did that and does same thing =\

is there a way that i can get into the hd and back up some data.
 
Okay, well if you want to back everything up then you may need either an external drive or another Mac. Either boot from the external drive and attempt to access the Mac, or use another Mac in Target Disk Mode to do the same. I can't think of another way to get your data back for now. :eek:
 
mad jew said:
Okay, well if you want to back everything up then you may need either an external drive or another Mac. Either boot from the external drive and attempt to access the Mac, or use another Mac in Target Disk Mode to do the same. I can't think of another way to get your data back for now. :eek:
Click to expand...

hmm after doing a repair on the hd, it says 1HFS volume checked. and then 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error. does that mean its time to reinstall osx? or should i take my mbp to an apple store?
 
Wait. Don't reinstall OSX just yet. It'll simply place extra strain on the drive and you'll never get your data back. Even though it's theoretically the same, try running fsck. If it makes any repairs, run it again until it makes no more changes.

At this stage I'm not sure if it's a drive problem or something else. The fact Disk Utility lost contact with the drive is a bit of a worry. If fsck doesn't work then it's probably a good idea to take it back 'cause a reinstall won't help. Good luck! :)
 
mad jew said:
Wait. Don't reinstall OSX just yet. It'll simply place extra strain on the drive and you'll never get your data back. Even though it's theoretically the same, try running fsck. If it makes any repairs, run it again until it makes no more changes.

At this stage I'm not sure if it's a drive problem or something else. The fact Disk Utility lost contact with the drive is a bit of a worry. If fsck doesn't work then it's probably a good idea to take it back 'cause a reinstall won't help. Good luck! :)
Click to expand...


when i ran that command it goes through checking and then at
**Checking Catalog file it gets an error

disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Invalid node structure
(4, 456)
** Volume check failed.


i do have parallels installed. could this have anything to do with it failing?
 
Maybe, but it's unlikely. Boot Camp partitioning often messes with the drive's structure to an extent, but it's almost always fixed by Disk Utility. I think your problem might be slightly different and I think the fact you lost connection with the drive is indicative of this. Mate, take it back to Apple. They should be pretty good about getting it repaired since it's so new. Sorry I can't help more. :eek:
 
mad jew said:
Maybe, but it's unlikely. Boot Camp partitioning often messes with the drive's structure to an extent, but it's almost always fixed by Disk Utility. I think your problem might be slightly different and I think the fact you lost connection with the drive is indicative of this. Mate, take it back to Apple. They should be pretty good about getting it repaired since it's so new. Sorry I can't help more. :eek:
Click to expand...

its ok man. thanks sooooo much for your help. one of the reasons why i bought a mac is just to learn about it and toy with it since im in the IT field doing help desk stuff. A lot of jobs are asking for mac experience, and what better way than to have an error like this and figuring out what the problem is and how to fix it. Thanks again for the help. i will try to take it to an apple store tmw and keep ya updated for future users.
 
That'd be great thanks mate. At a guess, you've got either a dodgy logic board (Apple name for motherboard), a dodgy hard drive, or a loose drive cable. Hopefully they'll get it fixed for you promptly. :)
 
Wow, MJ, that was impressive!

ryanmangos - when in Disk Utility did you see the SMART status of the drive? It'll say Verified if the disk believes itself to be OK. Otherwise, if it thinks it's in trouble, it'll say something else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back