10.4.8 not booting

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federicog


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The system suddenly froze and since then it gives me this error when trying to boot:
Code: 
getty repeating too quickly on port /dev/console, sleeping

Any ideas?
 
novicew

novicew


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Try to reset PRAM. If it doesn't work, boot from your installation disk and repair disk permisions.
 
rman

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Did you change anything before you started getting the error?
 
M

MacHeadCase

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I've googled for this message error and saw that some advise to launch the Hardware Test (in the Mac OS X Tiger Install DVD) in extended mode as in some cases, it seems to be the hard drive that is dying.

Others experienced this after installing an update. Some tried to re-apply the update in the hope that it would fix this.

I even saw a guy in a German Mac forum who thought he had found a solution by deactivating Enable Firewall Logging in the System Preferences ---> Sharing ---> Firewall tab ---> Advanced.

So, as you can see it's really not clear what could have caused this or what the real solution is.

Since you can't access your Mac right now, I would try to run the Hardware Test and running fsck -f in Terminal if you can get there.
 
M

MacHeadCase

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Found this at OSXFAQ, getty man page:

Description

The getty program is called by init(8) to open and initialize the tty line, read a login name, and invoke login(1).

The argument tty is the special device file in /dev to open for the ter-
minal (for example, ``ttyh0''). If there is no argument or the argument
is `-', the tty line is assumed to be open as file descriptor 0.

The type argument can be used to make getty treat the terminal line specially. This argument is used as an index into the gettytab 5 database,
to determine the characteristics of the line. If there is no argument,
or there is no such table, the default table is used. If there is no
/etc/gettytab a set of system defaults is used. If indicated by the
table located, getty will clear the terminal screen, print a banner head-
ing, and prompt for a login name. Usually either the banner or the login prompt will include the system hostname.

Most of the default actions of getty can be circumvented, or modified, by a suitable gettytab table.

The getty program can be set to timeout after some interval, which will
cause dial up lines to hang up if the login name is not entered reason-
ably quickly.
Click to expand...

And from the init man page:

Diagnostics

getty repeating too quickly on port %s, sleeping A process being started to service a line is exiting quickly each time it is started. This is
often caused by a ringing or noisy terminal line. Init will sleep for 10
seconds, then continue trying to start the process.

Files

/dev/console System console device.
Click to expand...

Don't know if this helps or not, but it does adds some info, IMO.

What I would do for sure is run DiskWarrior after trying out the other stuff I mentioned in the above post.
 
cazabam

cazabam


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Getty respawning is a unix system's way of telling you that every process it's trying to launch is crashing immediately. This can be caused by hard drive corruption, bad RAM, busted logic board ... the list goes on. Check the hard drive with the installation disk, and run the hardware tests to see if anything falls over. If that fails, try an archive&install.
 
rman

rman


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My experience with getty problems is that something was changed in the operating system.
 
OP
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federicog


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Ok, I tried several things and I think the problem is the hard disk, since nothing worked. I will try reformatting and see what happens.

BUT... do you know where can I find my calendar events and contact list?
 
M

MacHeadCase

Guest
I really don't know if you can access your computer now, but here goes... From inside the iCal and Address Book programs there is a backup database command and you can choose where to put the info.

In Address Book, this would be in the menubar under File ---> Back up Address Book... For iCal, that would be the same, I think.

If you can make the Mac run, locate a place where you would like the files to go and be easily accessible, like for instance the desktop then try copying them over either an external hard drive or (if the files are small enough) a USB flash drive.

Hope this works, man.
 
cazabam

cazabam


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If you back up the your entire Users directory (/Users/yourusername/) you will get everything. Most things are in the Library folder in your user directory, though.

It might be worth doing an archive&install first, just to see if it works. This will leave all your apps and user stuff intact and just replace the underlying OS.
 
P

paulmalenke


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An archive install is where You reinstall the opertating system without a full format, basically it takes all of your old files and puts them into a folder. Then, Mac OS X is installed and then once it is installed, all of your personal files are moved back into there spots they were in before. I am not sure if I am exactly right, but this is pretty much what it does

I have had to do this once... so it is not like I am just pulling this out of my, umm ear.

You should be able to do this by just inserting the install disc at startup that came with your mac.
 
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federicog


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I tried reinstalling from the dvd once but it told me something like "you cannot install on this partition because there is a newer version installed." Which is weird since I never got the chance to update anything besides QuickTime and iTunes :S
 

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