Wait, wait, wait, crash...on boot.

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Hi All,

My co-worker has a 2008ish MacBook (probably with Tiger; with no upgrades). She lets her son (about 18mos old) "play" on it....

This up-and-coming hacker, who knows just enought to make it stop working, has in fact, made it stop working.

I booted, while holding Shift+Command+V, and attached is a pic of where things appear to go wrong. I know that I can get a copy of Snow Leopard, but would like to try to correct this w/o a clean instal.

Any help (with the computer, not the kid or co-worker) is greatly appreceiated.

Dustin

6513155939_5392d9491d_b.jpg
 

vansmith

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If I'm reading that correctly, it would seem that mDNSResponder is missing. mDNSResponder is responsible for some networking configuration but I can't see why this is preventing a proper boot. I would have imagined that if networking failed, the boot process would simply continue past it.

I can't tell which file is missing (com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist or /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder) but either way, you'll need to get it back. Let's try booting into safe mode first (instructions here). Does that work?
 
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Hi vansmith,

I believe that it's the /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder that isn't loading.

She tried before and I just tried to boot in safe mode; we get stuck on the grey apple and the circling (rotating) marks (thinking mark). I'm not sure what happens after more than ten minutes, but up-till then is remains on this screen.

I can only imagine that the same thing that I see (seen in the picture) is happening in the back ground, hidden by the grey apple.

I'm new to apple (a little over a year). I wish I knew as much about backdoor and command (terminal) commands as I do with PCs.

Thank you,
Dustin
 

chscag

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I'm not Van, but I think it's time for a reinstall of OS X. Does she have the original install media that came with the machine? If it's a 2008 MacBook it came with Leopard not Tiger.
 

vansmith

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What amazes me is that to delete /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder, you'd need elevated privileges. Therefore, our "hacker in training" would have had to enter a password. Given that, I have no idea what this little guy did.

If this was caused by her son, he didn't delete mDNSResponder (unless he's precocious with respect to computer and linguistic knowledge). That said, something is odd here so let's see if you can repair permissions as an attempt at fixing this. As chscag asked, do you have the install discs?
 
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She's not sure. We are on a Marine base in Japan and she said that the discs could be in storage here, or back home (U.S.). She is going to check in storage here over this weekend; but if not, she is planning on buying Snow Leopard from the exchange (base store: $29.99) to install.

I used my MacBook Pro to get (hopefully) all her pics, movies, and files off her drive; but, we had hoped to get it up w/o slicking the drive. She won't be able to get her programs that came with the computer (iLife), but she'll have the computer up.

I'll post more Monday (Japan time), when I know if she found her install discs.

Thank you both,
Dustin
 
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Reinstalling doesn't require erasing the drive - but your current problem May!
I suspect you didn't allow the Safe Boot to complete its hard drive repair (takes more than 10 mins on my Mac).
 

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