Calling all computer nerds!!

Pale_blue_eyes is going bananas because he seems to have royally fucked up his beloved Powerbook.

This is what it looks like.






Anyone know how to get back to osx? Ideally, he'd like to avoid having to do a clean install.
Using the normal 'SystemStartup' script fails.

[Edited on Nov 10, 2004 by _Julie_]

What was he doing when this happened?

Well, first thing would be to try doing what it suggests... Try typing "fsck -y" into the command prompt. Wait (it may take a while). Then type "reboot" and hopefully everything will be OK.

Have you tried power cycling it or does it do this consistently every time it starts up?

Nick

He was using Cocktail to repair permissions. He clicked on Single User Boot & then browsed the internet regularly. Then, on restart he got that screen.
He tried 'fsck -y' but it wouldn't check so he used '-f' to force check. Now it says 'Volume hard disk appears to be okay' and goes back to '/ root#'.
It does this everytime he starts up. I guess it says 'singleuser boot -- fsck not done'

Any ideas?

(Please, he is so annoying when his precious comp doesn't work)

Start drinking.

[Edited on Nov 10, 2004 by TedKoppel]

Ooh, my computer just took a crap a couple days ago. Something about "dumping physical memory" and now it won't start windows anymore.

This helps you none, I know, but atleast your friend isn't alone.

Yeah, if he was alone he wouldn't be driving me mad with his bitching.

If you have an OS X cd, pop that bitch in, and use Disk Utility to repair permissions. If that doesn't work, reset the PRAM, and try again.

OK, well then probably nothing is trashed...

That prompt he's getting, that IS single user mode on OSX, so it sounds like the computer's just doing exactly what was asked of it, even if it wasn't quite what he expected... That's good news, because the other reasons OSX may have for booting into single-user mode are bad, like disk failures.

When he runs fsck what output does he get? Does it tell say the drive is OK? If it says files were modified keep running it until it says the disk is OK.

BTW, are you rebooting it by typing the "reboot" command into the prompt? I'm not exactly sure how to kick X back into multiuser boot mode, but I think that should do it.

Nick

I'm not a Mac person per se, but I can't even read the screen shots in their entirety.

It would help to know whether this is something caused by the user, i.e. did the user do something to cause this to happen?

I do not know the consequences of an OS reinstall in this case. On some computers, OS reinstalls can wipe the hard-drive clean, on others only damaged system files are replaced. Does the user have a data backup?

BTW: I thought that this only happened to PCs. . .

P.S. You might try the Mac Users Group here.

One more thing. Try typing "exit" at the prompt... maybe that will work.


Nick

Thank you!
I have no idea what it means but he says it was really helpful.

My slegde hammer wasn't helpful?

AH-HA! That worked. You rule. Thank you.

(P.S. He literally just hugged his computer. DORK!)

I would have tried that before typing exit!

That seemed like an easy fix. Maybe I will replace my now useless computer with that i-book I always wanted. Hmmm.....

Ok, but tell him to try restarting it and see if it goes back to single-user mode.

I'm actually not familiar with Cocktail but he may need to reconfigure it for multi-user boot or use the Disk Tools (or whatever, I forget what that stuff was called on X) to convince the system to boot normally every time.

Nick

Everything is fixed. Thanks again.


And, I just bought an iBook a couple weeks ago. You really should buy one. They are amazing machines.

Groovy

No problem, I'm glad it's working again. The new Macs are scary when they leave the safe confines of their GUIs for UNIXland.

I actually had an iBook, which is why I kinda know this stuff, but mine had a rough year with me in Japan... a little too much beer and chu-hai in the keyboard and a few too many trips in the luggage spelled it's doom. It still would kinda work with an external keyboard, but now the power connector doesn't seem to work so it can't recharge. Oh well, 500Mhz is painfully slow now, I'll be in the market for something new as soon as I get back to work (hopefully next week).

Nick

Resistance is futile.

Resistance is character building.

Resistance is also expensive by the sounds of things

Frankly as far as I'm concerned, you all can fuck off. I like that we only have 5% of the market and I'm not willing to see that change any time soon.

It gives you a nice warm feeling inside, doesn't it?