OS X completely screwed up..

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jaywong87


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I was online and than Adium didnt want to open, s o i decided to restart. Once I did, Finder wont start up. I have nothing o n my desktop (where it was fille dwith items), and NOTHING is normal. The menu bar comes on and o ff, and the clock has been reset to teh AM (right now, its PM). I cant turn on anything, I cant open any programs except for firefox, which brings back the menu bar.

Can someone help me?
 
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jaywong87


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Is there anyway to reach the "master" control? On Windows, you have to press F5 or something to reach teh BIOS. Is there a nything I can do here? I dont know where my OSX CDS are...
 
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MacHeadCase

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First of all, you need those restore disks so find them, pronto.

Second this is a Mac, not a Windoze machine so BIOS means nothing: PowerPC Macs have Firmware while Intel-based Macs have EFI Boot ROM.

Third, we need more info from you to help you out. Which computer model do you have? What is the OS X version? (not Tiger but 10.4.8, for example)

When did this weird behaviour started happening? Was it after a software update? A software install? A new peripheral you added? A change in your user account?

What troubleshooting steps did you try on your own so far?

Is your Mac still under warranty?
 
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I'm having the same thing but on a larger scale. God knows my Macs have always given me problems, but now they are all going crazy one by one. No icons on desktop, no text in bar at top of screen, no response when choosing shut down or restart, eject buttons stop working (actually they've been doing that for years but now they're going faster), can't connect to a server. Each day a couple more of them succumb. They're 10.3 and I've tried the ususal stuff like repair disc permissions and Onyx, which gets them going again although I suspect it's the restarting that's fixing it. This is insane.
 
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jaywong87


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MacHeadCase said:
First of all, you need those restore disks so find them, pronto.

Second this is a Mac, not a Windoze machine so BIOS means nothing: PowerPC Macs have Firmware while Intel-based Macs have EFI Boot ROM.

Third, we need more info from you to help you out. Which computer model do you have? What is the OS X version? (not Tiger but 10.4.8, for example)
When did this weird behaviour started happening? Was it after a software update? A software install? A new peripheral you added? A change in your user account?
What troubleshooting steps did you try on your own so far?

Is your Mac still under warranty?
Click to expand...

1. Yea, Im on it. I hope my roommate didnt take it with him when he moved.

But theres one problem, Finder's completely busted, nothing is popping up in th edesktop, and the disks taht are supposed to start on their own, wont. The Disk Drive just isnt "reading" the disks. Wait, scratch that, Im sure it is, but without Finder its hard to use it.

2. Not trying to say "Oh, yea, at least on Windows you can do this," I simply did not know the Mac equivalent to it. Ctrl+Alt+Dlt was what I knew on Windows, is there something similar on the OSX?

3. I have a Powerbook, 1.67ghz, its on the latest update, the trouble happened last night when i started Adium. I made no major changes to the settings at all. No, its no longer on warranty, sadly.

Thanks for taking time and helping out, by the way.
 
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theonegod


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On a windows machine bios, F5, and ctrl-alt-del have nothing to do with each other. Yet you are using those terms interchangably. Be carefull with the terminology you use or you will get yourself in far more trouble then you are already in. You have be having some hardware issues but if your system is not under warrenty then there isn't much you can do. You may have some software corruption somehow but if that is the case without your restore CDs there is not much you can do either. Can I assume you also do not have a bootable backup on an external drive?
 
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MacHeadCase

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If you had your restore disk, you could boot from it and then try stuff.

The alternative would be if you can find someone that has a Mac with a FireWire port and cable and use it in Target Disk mode to access your PowerBook, then run Disk Utility on the hard drive: see if that wouldn't help.

Or find a full install disk of Tiger, boot from it by holding down the C key and repair the disk with Disk Utility.

Another would be to run DiskWarrior on your PowerBook.

A few things to try:

- starting up in Safe Mode, by holding down the Shift key then restart normally

- reset the NVRAM/PRAM

- booting into Open Firmware by holding down the Command + Option + O + F. This will boot your PB with a Terminal-like white window where you need to type at the prompt:
reset-nvram
hit the Return key then at the prompt type:
reset-all
then hit the Return key to restart normally.

Let us know how these go.
 
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jaywong87


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theonegod said:
On a windows machine bios, F5, and ctrl-alt-del have nothing to do with each other. Yet you are using those terms interchangably. Be carefull with the terminology you use or you will get yourself in far more trouble then you are already in. You have be having some hardware issues but if your system is not under warrenty then there isn't much you can do. You may have some software corruption somehow but if that is the case without your restore CDs there is not much you can do either. Can I assume you also do not have a bootable backup on an external drive?
Click to expand...

I know the difference, but I guess I wasn't clear enough. In Windows, if something went wrong, I could restart and hold F5, or Ctrl+Alt+Del to see whats wrong, and which software is effecting the system.

No bootable backup on an external drive because I never found any of my data to be that important.
 
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jaywong87


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MacHeadCase said:
If you had your restore disk, you could boot from it and then try stuff.

The alternative would be if you can find someone that has a Mac with a FireWire port and cable and use it in Target Disk mode to access your PowerBook, then run Disk Utility on the hard drive: see if that wouldn't help.

Or find a full install disk of Tiger, boot from it by holding down the C key and repair the disk with Disk Utility.

Another would be to run DiskWarrior on your PowerBook.

A few things to try:

- starting up in Safe Mode, by holding down the Shift key then restart normally

- reset the NVRAM/PRAM

- booting into Open Firmware by holding down the Command + Option + O + F. This will boot your PB with a Terminal-like white window where you need to type at the prompt:
reset-nvram
hit the Return key then at the prompt type:
reset-all
then hit the Return key to restart normally.

Let us know how these go.
Click to expand...

Once again, I want to thank you for your amazingly helpful posts, peopel liek you are definitely why so many people run to forums first, search second, and customer service last.

I cannot open any programs, even i fi downloaded a program, it will shut down automatically. So diskwarrior is out of the question, the restore disks..turns out my friends did take them.

I'll try your steps, right now. I'll get back to you.

EDIT:

I tried restarting in Safe Mode, does it usually take a long time? Because it looked like it completely froze.

Resetting the nv-ram worked, but it didnt fix the problem.
 
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MacHeadCase

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DiskWarrior is not a downloadable app, it comes on CD.

Safe mode does take a while longer than usual but then the Mac normally settles down and goes on booting.

Did you reset the PRAM and also did you try then the Open Firmware thingy? That's two different things.

Well if these don't work, I see no solution to your problem. Demand your restore disk, they are essential and then you can wipe the hard drive and reinstall.
 
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jaywong87


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I have tried the Pram (looked it up myself), and it took a while to boot. ill do it again when i get home from work. do i have t o keep holding the keys?
 
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jaywong87


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hmmm, there werent any rings. could you perhaps estimate how long you would hold it?
 
goobimama

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The control +alt + del equivalent of the mac is Command + Shift + Esc. There isn't any BIOS for the mac so that's out of the question.
 
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MacHeadCase

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jaywong87 said:
hmmm, there werent any rings. could you perhaps estimate how long you would hold it?
Click to expand...

No chime/ring (or Apple startup sound)??? Is it because you have the sound in the System Preferences turned off or is it that the Mac is so messed up it doesn't have the startup chime anymore? :Oops:
 
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goobimama said:
The control +alt + del equivalent of the mac is Command + Shift + Esc. There isn't any BIOS for the mac so that's out of the question.
Click to expand...
i think you mean Command + Option +Esc but that's only to end apps. from what i think he was referring too, you would use the activity monitor which (if you can get too) is located in apps>utilities or by pressing Command+Shift+U with the finder selected.
 

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