04-24-2009, 07:04 PM

I recently purchased a late G5 tower (2.0 dual core, 10.5.6) and set it up in my office, connected to my network with my old G4 tower. Everything was going well until I starting adjusting folder and file permissions to allow me to copy files/folders over to the G5.

The G5 froze, and upon a hard restart, won't go past the grey Apple screen with the spinning thingy.

While viewing the status during a safe boot, I can see where the machine gets hung up and repeats the same text over and over:

Apr 24 11:57:47 ROBERT-AUSTIN-Power-Mac-G5 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.mDNSResponder[45]): posix_spawnp("/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder", ...): No such file or directory

I can't get beyond this point in the safe boot, which is where I'm assuming it gets hung up in the normal startup sequence.

I've checked the hardware with Disk Utility (from the syst. disk) and it says everything is OK, but if I try to repair permissions from within Disk Utility, it gives me an error:

Disk permissions repair: "First Aid Failed. Disk Utility stopped repairing permissions on "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit."

I've also tried resetting the PRAM (didn't change anything), and used FSCK during a single user boot (it said the hardware was OK). I can't seem to get the machine to go into Target mode, where I had hoped to be able to see the files from my G4.

I'm about out of ideas. Any help from the experts here would be greatly appreciated. I'm just a graphic designer, so my technical skills only go so far...

Thank you in advance!

04-25-2009, 10:15 PM

Do you have the original disks that came with that G5 tower? Hopefully so, then you can boot from Disk 1 and run checks/repairs from it, rather than from the HD, which may have a corrupted boot sector by the look of things.

If the above doesn't work, get Disk Warrior [not cheap ]; or take the G5 to a Mac tech who has DW to use. Either way, analysis and repair appears necessary.

04-26-2009, 01:01 AM

Yes, I've booted from the orig. system disk and run disk utility. That's the only way I can run anything right now, since the hard drive won't boot at all.

I've repaired the G5's hardware with disk utility, but am still unable to get it to repair the permissions.

I'm trying to get a local technician to come look at my mess; this is a bit out of my league...

04-26-2009, 05:44 AM

If you have a back-up then do a clean install.

If you just want to copy stuff over from the G4, it is best to do a clean install anyway, hook the two together with a firewire cable, put the G4 into Target disk mode ( T on start-up) and use Migration Assistant on the G5 (in Utilities) to copy your stuff from the G4 over

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: Transferring data with Setup Assistant / Migration Assistant FAQ

04-26-2009, 10:21 AM

Yes, your advice seems like the best course.

I guess I'm too used to the way I've always been able to work on my older Macs. 24 years of relatively simple OS's does not prepare one properly for OSX. Geez, that makes me sound so old...