mac computer help!?

Question

my ibook started Doing everything REALLY SLOW last nite, and even when i restarted, it took forever to restart, and when i removed the battery at the back, and replaced it, my ibooks stuck in the booting up mode. help!?

Answer 1

little b,
Don't know which, old-new, iBook you got. Don't know what version of operating system you got. Could be OS 9, could be OS 10.1-10.4??? Without this info, we will all guess it is some version of OS 10.2 or later.

It never takes forever for anything but I am sure it was slow. Did it take about 5 or 6 minutes to startup? If you had to force a restart, that triggered the Disk Utility test automatically. The test can add 2 to 5 minutes to the time of a normal startup. Put the iBook CD in the drawer and startup while holding the C key. If it boots to the CD, don't reinstall anything. No, don't.

From the Installer menu, choose to open Disk Utility. Don't choose to repair disk permissions. No, don't. Instead, choose to repair the disk (hard drive). See if it shows any problems as it runs through the list of tests. Write down the problems exactly. Now, at the end, no matter if it said it repaired or couldn't repair, run the disk repair again. If it still finds some problem, uh-oh. Hard drive needs a high-dollar repair utility or needs to be erased and all data will be lost. Oh, I hope it ain't so.

If it says "Drive appears to be OK", quit the Disk Utility, quit the Installer and choose to restart. Then hold the Shift key during the startup. Hold it good and long, until it is fully started. Now don't do anything, don't try to read email or anything. Just choose to restart and hold Shift key again all during the startup. Did it startup at the normal speed? If so, restart and don't hold Shift. Did it startup at normal speed or much slower than normal? If it is fast when holding Shift but slow when not holding Shift, maybe you installed something that slows it down. Or maybe you got something by accident from the Internet that slows it down.

If it is still slow no matter holding Shift or not, open the System Preferences, go to "Accounts" and create a new admin user, give it any name you like, such as "test" but change its "shortname" to something that fits you, such as "little-b" or whatever. The shortname can't be the same as that of your original user but it can be close, such as "lb-2" or whatever. Give it a password that you can easily remember. Be sure you check "Allow user to administer the computer". When you quit the System Preferences, it may ask you if you want to turn off "Auto login". Choose to turn it off. Restart and choose the "test" user, login with the correct password. Now you can set this "test" user to login automatically (back to System Preferences / Accounts, look for "Set auto login"). That's for purpose of timing the startup. Restart and see if the test user will startup at normal speed. If it does, there is something wacked out about your original account. You can go back to the System Preferences / Accounts and delete your original user. That's right, delete it. The computer will save all of your account files in a disk image inside "Deleted Users" folder. Now you can rename the test user to your real name or whatever.

Answer 2

Press option button and choose the startup file manually and do a run i disk utility on permissions and a hardware check. Restore if necessary

Answer 3

in Darwin try typing -v to see the problem(the line when it stops) and consult apple about the problem(they should be able to give you a software patch for the Mac).

Answer 4

Try these troubleshooting guides and if they don't work then an Archive an Install might be it.
http://thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2004011205473937
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=13846&highlight=troubleshooting+steps

Answer 5

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300552

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh350.html

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

In the third link, you will find information on how to use the Disk Utility to repair your startup disk, which you may need to do. Good luck!