Blue Screen of Inactivity

I'm not sure if this thread should go here, or in one of the software boards. Hopefully this is the right place.

When I turned on my computer this morning, I waited for it to finish loading up (the period when the Apple logo is on the screen). Once it did, the screen went blue and just got stuck there. I waited for as long as ten minutes, but nothing seemed to happen. I tried restarting, turning it off and back on again, all without any result.

I can still use the Windows side of my computer via Boot Camp, but the Mac side is inaccessible. Any ideas what might be causing this, or how to fix it? I don't remember exactly what level of OS I had, though I know it's 10.5.something. Thanks.

Try popping the original install disk in and hold c during startup. Then exit out of the installation and find/start up disk utility. Then verify/repair permissions and see if that fixes it.

I tried holding down C (while having the install disc loaded), but I just ended up with the same problem. When that didn't work, I rebooted the computer while holding down shift. I saw my desktop background appear, followed by a login window. I entered my password and waited.

Unfortunately, my login window just popped up again, like it's stuck in a loop or something. Any ideas on how to solve this problem?

Are you holding it down as soon as you heard the start-up chime? Because that will boot from the cd drive rather than the hard drive. Shift boots is safe mode, but that wont do any good if the OS is having problems.

Do you have access to another Mac? If so download this onto the other Mac - connect it to yours by firewire and start yours in Target mode by holding T key after powering it on, then install Combo on your Mac HD. While it is doing that decide what back up system you will use in the future to give you some protection when your HD fails.