my powermac g4 is having boot problems it comes up with the apple logo then opens a black box and then just sits there... does that mean theres no OS? bought of ebay says it had 10.4 tiger....new to the apple world.
2007-03-01 09:45:35 · 5 answers · asked by tyler s 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
Well, let's find out....
Restart the computer. As soon as the screen goes black, hold down the Apple Key and the S button at the same time. If there is an OS installed it should take you to a self-boot screen that will be all black and will have lines of white text scrolling on it. When the text stops scrolling, follow the instructions on the screen to make the computer perform a "File Systems Check".
OS X is supposed to be a self-healing operating system. There is a chance that you have OS X installed and there is some kind of issue with it. Running the FSCK will most likely fix it well enough that you can continue startup. If it comes up entirely, go to the hard drive icon and double-click, double-click on the utitlities folder and double click on Disk Utility. If Disk Utility launches, click on your Hard drive and tell it to "Repair Permissions".
This should pretty much fix it. If nothing ever happens and you can't get to any of this - go to the nearest apple store and buy a copy of OS X. Then install it.
2007-03-01 09:53:49 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is very interesting. What does the black box look like? How big is this box? What color screen background is around the box? Do you see anything else on the screen after the Apple logo but before the black box? If not, the OS is not loading. Hard to know what you need to do if we don't really know what you see on the screen.
There is nothing much self healing about OS X or any other operating system. Computers don't fix themselves. The most it can do is activate the UNIX file system check (fsck) after a failed boot but it is rather limited compared to the Disk Utility program of OS X. I am not guessing this is a disk corruption issue.
Is this computer new to you? Why don't you just boot to the system CD/ DVD and erase the drive and install OS X? Did you buy a computer without any system CD? Uh-oh. Big mistake. Now you need to buy a system CD. That's another 150 bucks, give or take.
If you are not seeing anything much after the Apple logo, the operating system has serious problems. It seems likely you will need either to erase and install or archive and install if you want to save any documents or applications for later.
This is a lesson to anyone who is considering buying a computer based on what is installed on the hard drive. All that stuff is fragile and could disappear in a flash. You can only depend on the install CDs.
2007-03-04 01:45:06 · answer #2 · answered by SilverTonguedDevil 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In reference to the answer just above mine:
The "repair disk" function in Disk Utility is a pretty GUI for fsck. In other words, they do the exact same thing.
It is unclear what is meant by "opens a black box," so I would also like to see answers to the above questions to find out more.
2007-03-05 05:44:18 · answer #3 · answered by L S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sounds like a kernel panic,possible ram malfunction. Try to boot from the cd if you have it or try booting in safe mode by holding shift key down while starting up.The seller may offer some help here in the form of cd's or suitable ram.
2007-03-01 10:23:45 · answer #4 · answered by johndeereman 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i'd not make the decision on my own. you should pass to the Mac save or the Mac area on the dep. save, and they could tournament it up for you proper once you're there. you in effortless words favor to ask them. they're going to easily be positive you get the right shade.
2016-12-05 03:00:58 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋