need help !!

i have a friends macbook that has crashed and when the apple on startup appears it blinks in and out with an image of a circle with a line through the middle, i guess it can't recognize the operating system or software... i need to do a system restore, and saving previous material is irrelevant, just want it to start working. is there a way to do the system restore or erase without the startup disk at all????? and if i want to do the system restore or anything will i need the install cd for that particular computer or can i use for instance, an install cd from another macbook ???

thnks for the aid.

It's a lovely kernel panic. Most of the time it's bad RAM but on some occasions it can be hardware problems or software conflicts too. Can he/she boot off from his install disks?

You have to have an Installation CD to do an installation! And yes the grey installation CDs are OEM specific. The circle with a line through it is explained here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article....ocs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106805
Your System is busted and you do need the correct Install CD.
Good luck!

so with the correct install cd i should be to do a simple installation process and erase all previous material and that should sufficient??

i think the software conflict originated from a formatting of a external harddrive..

Yes, the correct System Install CD will take care of this, providing your internal hard drive isn't dead...
Depending on how you feel about it, I would do an Archive and Install. That would keep your personal settings, information, etc. But if you want a clean start, then format and install new. I don't think that formatting an external drive would cause this problem though!

she said that applications had been quitting on their own routinely throughout the week, and the computer asked her to software update, which she did. The last thing she did on the computer aside from the update was the format of the harddrive, but maybe it was something else a virus?? or contaminated file?? what do you think, obviously a very broad question though, but what would you think it was ???

thanks-

I guarantee that it was not a virus! What ever happened is going to be very difficult to determine, and unless you want to get really geeky, probably not very informative. Most of these problems are not the result of our usage. And even if it had been you deleting an essential file, a repair program won't see that as an error, only reinstalling will fix it, and the reinstall process wont tell you what it did.

hey im new to this so if im writing in the wrong place, im sorry. i have a powermac G4. its kind old, but it( up until 2 days ago) works for me. it started starting up slow, like it used to be fully booted in about 32- 40 sec. thenit started taking 4- 5 min. not it just turns on with an Apple for a second, then goes to the circle with a slash( prohibit) sign. i have 320MB Ram, 400mhz processor, umm.. 160GB HD running OS X 10.4.9.. i am spending a few months with my family so i DO NOT have my OSX install disc. is there any way to fix this with out the disc?


PLEASE ANYONE who could help, PLEASE let me know. thank you so much for your time.


-Macintosh X Ninja

Stupid post removed...

Without the disks your options are a little tougher. Here is where to start:
Boot in Safe Mode (Shift key held down at startup) that will delete a bunch of cache files that can get flaky. Once you have a desktop, it takes a while, run Disk Utility, Repair Disk Permissions. When that comes back clean, click Verify Disk. If you have directory errors, DU won't be able to repair them. We need to know about them, but we will have to go to plan B.

MacintoshXNinja said:

. . . so i DO NOT have my OSX install disc. is there any way to fix this with out the disc?

Click to expand...

Follow the fsck -fy instructions in this post and let us know what happens.

Edit: Just saw Sherman Homan's reply. After running through his suggestions, including the permissions repairs, if the machine isn't fixed, run the fsck -fy thing.http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/member.php?u=22094

yeah, i'd say at this point fsck would be the best option. FSCK means filesystem check, not a thing about the other word