she's guna kill me....help?

[Creative]

hi guys.
im in serious doo-doo. my friend lent me her emac cause he wanted me to install her 10.3 onto it and install some memory. its a emac 700 with 10.1 on there i recall.

put in the memory(512)...all good.
then a little later i started to install 10.3 from his slightly scratched up cd disk1. i only noticed now that it was slightly scratched.

Anyhow... it couldnt finish installation cause of some kinda -pax: error thing. wasnt too worried so i just restarted it and removed the cd from the drive. and waited...and waited. NOTHING!!!

all it has is the grey startup screen with the apple logo and that spinning loader thing (NOT the beachball!!).

i've tried restarting it holding apple+alt+r+P and let it do three chimes but no luck.
upon pushing apple v on start up i get lots of stuff i dont understand but this line stands out as its at the bottom!:

"load of /etc/mach-init faild, errno2"

what does this mean!! more importantly what the hell do i do??? all her stuff is on there. please some one help??
i aint got long till she wants it back!!!
thanks.

 

[liketom]

depending on how long you have got :

1 plug the mac into another machine and drag all her files off it
2 buy panther or tiger and install
3 restore her files

or

4 you could own up and say you shagged her Mac and then take what ever punishment she gives

5 blame her for not having any backup's

 

[Creative]

lol. im screwed...

lol thanks for "help!"
then my g/friend will dump me for fooling around with another girls cd drive!
how would i even get her files onto my p.c if it wont start-up? lol. she wants it back 2moro! also im a skint bugger till next week!

sheesh.....what do i do....

 

[liketom]

thanks for help!
how would i even get her files onto my p.c if it wont start-up? lol. she wants it back 2moro! also im a skint bugger till next week!

sheesh.....what do i do....

well failing all else IF ALL IS LOST , pull the HDD out of the mac and shove it in your pc - then you might be able to pull some files off it i think

anyone else done this ?

 

[mduser63]

lol thanks for "help!"
then my g/friend will dump me for fooling around with another girls cd drive!
how would i even get her files onto my p.c if it wont start-up? lol. she wants it back 2moro! also im a skint bugger till next week!

sheesh.....what do i do....

If it will start up in FireWire target disk mode, which it probably will, you can hook it up to another Mac via FireWire and get the files off of it. You'll need another Mac (a PC won't work) and a FireWire cable. Hold down "T" while turning the eMac on. Then hook it up to the other Mac which should be booted as normal. The eMacs hard drive will show up like a regular FireWire hard drive on the desktop of the other Mac. You can then drag all the files off for backup. After that, I'd recommend getting an unscratched copy of Panther or Tiger to install.

 

[ITASOR]

lol thanks for "help!"
then my g/friend will dump me for fooling around with another girls cd drive!
how would i even get her files onto my p.c if it wont start-up? lol. she wants it back 2moro! also im a skint bugger till next week!

sheesh.....what do i do....

First of all, it's no your fault. If she wanted to be 100% sure nothing went wrong, then she should have brought it to an authorized apple center to get it upgraded. It's not your fault if she puts all that trust in your hands and something goes wrong. It's inevitable. Stuff happens.

Tell her you were filling her request but her eMac has started acting up and you've done everything in your power, but for some reason you can't get it working. She shouldn't blame you because you're being truthful, and it's her fault for not bring it to a proper upgrade center anyway.

However, I do wish you good luck! Perhaps you should try an "archive and install". This will reinstall the system fresh, but keep the old system with all her preferences. I'm pretty sure most documents/files/apps get copied over. Anything that doesn't, however, can be manually dragged over to the new system folder that is created from the old one. If you are confused by this, or don't know what you're doing, I wouldn't suggest going any further. Get someone who knows how to do it and let them take care of it.

Archive and install is the way to go, though.

 

[rainman::|:|]

yeah, i'd say it's not your fault, they do still advise people backup important data before upgrading, because these kinds of problems can and do happen. best of luck.

 

[Creative]

ok...thanks for quick help you guys.

well, it does go into "t" mode (firewire mode).

lol i dont have another mac. if i do get hold of one how woupld i boot her emac up with the panther cd which aint scratched? reason being is i put the 10.3 cd in and rebooted earlier after it all went hay-wire and it didnt do anything different. it just got to that loading screen! any idea's?

thanks again guys!

oh and for some reason when i go into "apple+s" i cant type anything! is that normal? lol. this is slightly funny for some reason! lol.

 

[CanadaRAM]

well failing all else IF ALL IS LOST , pull the HDD out of the mac and shove it in your pc - then you might be able to pull some files off it i think?

Nope. A PC is not going to read the HFS+ format of the drive unless there is some specialized third-party software on it.

Put a workable Panther install CD in the drive and reboot holding down the "C" key - it will boot into the Panther installer. Before you install, go to the menu at the top and do a "Repair" on the drive. Then go ahead and do an Archive and Install. If youo don't have a non-scratched Panther CD, you job is to go and find one.

Don't Panic. All that is happened is that the OSX system software on the hard drive is damaged, due to your previous aborted insallation. As long as you hadn't done an Erase and Install, then the data files should still be there. All you have to do is to reinstall OSX and it will be fine.

 

[steelfist]

you should try to backup as much files from that twisted computer as you can, do a total reinstal, then it should be ok.

if the hardware is messed up, you should try to backup the files, then try another harddrive first, and then other parts of the computer if you have any parts. another easy way is to bring it to the retail store and have them have a look at it. these guys should fix the problem and your life will be spared

if you can't do anything at all, then buy a new emac (tell her that you upgraded the cpu, HD, and etc too) try to backup the old computer, and try to make it look like nothing happended. just the hardware and operating system is good as new, actually it IS new and have her think of you as a sweet guy who didn't only instal the operating system, but also upgraded her emac too.

and, if you can't do any of the options above, confess that the computer started having problems because of either the disk or the emac itself, and that you can't do anything possible to fix it. afterwards, if you are luckey she will forgive you, but i do advise you to be cautious when she has a hammer in her hand.

 

[Creative]

i read somewhere about pressing a red button or sumin inside the emac? what is that all about?

 

[CanadaRAM]

i read somewhere about pressing a red button or sumin inside the emac? what is that all about?

Whoa whoa. Climb down from the bridge. The only thing wrong is you borked the OSX on the hard drive. Reinstalling OSX is the only step you should be taking.

 

[Creative]

Whoa whoa. Climb down from the bridge. The only thing wrong is you borked the OSX on the hard drive. Reinstalling OSX is the only step you should be taking.

lol. no worries mate. i just held down cd and it started the intallation of the scratched cd. im not going to install it. im just goin to wait till 2moro and get another cd. thanks for your help man.

 

[zelmo]

Whoa whoa. Climb down from the bridge. The only thing wrong is you borked the OSX on the hard drive. Reinstalling OSX is the only step you should be taking.

That made me laugh, CanadaRAM. I know how it feels to be stuck in the middle of a tech issue you don't completely understand. That mild gnawing disquiet can transform into full-blown panic right quick, if there isn't someone around to talk you down.
Good job.

And good luck to the OP. Follow 'RAM's advice. It'll fix you right up.

 

[Creative]

update.. still need some help!!

hi.
i managed to get a copy of osx. as it's an earlier version of her osx then can i just archive and install? what does this do PRECISLEY?? (i think i spelt that wrong doh!) will it back up all her files on the emac then i can access them later or does it only save all the settings and preferences?

thanks again guys.

 

[wordmunger]

hi.
i managed to get a copy of osx. as it's an earlier version of her osx then can i just archive and install? what does this do PRECISLEY?? (i think i spelt that wrong doh!) will it back up all her files on the emac then i can access them later or does it only save all the settings and preferences?

thanks again guys.

It leaves her old files where they were. It takes the old operating system and puts it in a folder (marked "previous systems," I think). It installs the new system. Sometimes there are preference files or other such things you might want to borrow from the old system, but in your case, you can probably trash that.

 

[Creative]

It leaves her old files where they were. It takes the old operating system and puts it in a folder (marked "previous systems," I think). It installs the new system. Sometimes there are preference files or other such things you might want to borrow from the old system, but in your case, you can probably trash that.

thanks.
doing and ar/and install now. hope this works. there's 13gig of files all over the place on there!! its messy as hell. will let you know when im finished!

peace.

 

[ajampam]

So how did it go?...it would be educationally interesting to know how it went...learning from experience.....good luck!!!

 

[Creative]

learn for my mistakes...or foolishness!

well,

here's an update!

i archive an installed and it booted up fine! then i had a dumb spell....

i managed to get another copy of panther. being a smart ass i thought i'd install it pronto....not to realise i'd put the ORIGINAL SCRATCHED DISK IN!!!
i should of not rushed but hey i deserve the the final result!

i installed the osx and it had an error on install. i realised my retarded-ness and pushed restart when prompted. now ALL i get is a flashing broken folder thing. it wont let me archive and install this time! just says = "install osx" or "erase and install". archive and install is just grayed out.

it is still saying that there is 16gig of stuff on there. i did a verify disk and it repaired it. it said, in red, = Overlapped extent allocation (file 686438d).

so now im getting another mac and hopefully dragging all files across in firwire mode, then gunna do a clean install of the emac and then transfer the files back. i'm 99% sure its to do with the os installation after doing lots of research on google. im sure the scratched or damaged disk is the cause of this. i also did another hardware test and all passed. i also zapped the ram again on startup three times in con-cesion (spelling!!? lol.)

im just waiting for the other mac to arrive. do i need a firewire cable with the firewire BOTH ends? or can i use firewire to usb - plugging the firewire end into the firewire mode emac?

you all helped me so much then i stupidly messed it all up. i feel like you all deserve an apology.

weird how now i cant archive and install. can you only do it once or is it something to do with the fact that this time it not even reading the os? im sure if i "could" archive and install it would be fine cuase i have "hidden" the osx disk that is damaged so no more boo - boo's! if i installed the osx with the cd will it the files? or does it wipe them. just would save on the transfer malarky.

even all this has been hell, i've found that it has helped me increase my knowledge of the mac vastly since having this little escapade. (word context probably wrong but hey, im retarded! i messed the mac up "twice!!"

(to anyone who knows....how would i make a "donation" to macrumors sometime in the near future? the site and forums have been a lifesaver AND the site purely pee's in the face of others for any kind of mac related info.)

thanks guys.

Creative.

 

[XIII]

You can become a contributer to MR, and pay 25$. You also get access to a private forum.

Just to say, EXACTLY the same thing happened to my uncles iMac when he was installing Tiger, only the disc was brand new.. However, after turning it off overnight, and turning it on in the morning.. everything was perfect and it booted into Tiger..

 

[XNine]

The Mac is looking for the correct system folder.

What you need to do is throw the NEW disc into the CD drive, upon hearing the CHIME of start up, hold down the C KEY on the heyboard UNTIL you get to the main screen. Select English, and go from there.

Use the built in Disk Utility. Also, look to see if you can change/apply the startup volume.

Either that, or just reboot and do an archive/install with the new panther disc and make sur eyou archive/install and then get all of the Panther updats (10.3.9 was the last).

And please, don't ever touch her emac again.

 

[Creative]

i wanted to touch her Emac so i can hopefully in the future touch her!! lol.

thanks for the info about contirbutions aswell.

creative.

 

[dops7107]

i wanted to touch her Emac so i can hopefully in the future touch her!! lol.

oh god, don't do that - you'd hate to break her and then have to ask us at MR what to do next!

 

[Creative]

oh god, don't do that - you'd hate to break her and then have to ask us at MR what to do next!

rofl!!!

 

[telecomm]

Also, it might be a good idea to break the scratched Panther disc into little pieces so you can't stick it in another machine.