Error messages on start-up

JanP · #1 July 12th, 2008, 05:16 PM

I am sure this is not good news but I had to force quit my computer because it had frozen and was making a funny noise. The Mac side now displays the message Darwin/BSD (Janice-blacks-computer.local) (Console) and the PC side says Read Disk Error occured Ctrl-alt-del to restart. Have I lost everything on my computer?

g/re/p · #2 July 12th, 2008, 06:36 PM

First off - you left out specifics that may be required to help you with your problem:

1)Which model apple computer do you have? (example:Macbook Pro)
2)Which OS are you running? (example: OS X 10.5.3 Leopard)
3)What application are you using to run windows on your computer?

Have you restarted the computer? Does it still start up in console mode?
If you are still in console mode, type exit at the prompt - it should then
boot into GUI mode.

JanP · #3 July 13th, 2008, 03:52 AM

I am using a Macbook with Tiger and have boot camp (I think - I need to exit OSX to log in to Windows and vice versa).

It is a work computer so I am wondering if it would be better to just wait until tomorrow to phone my companies IT Dept and see if they are able to fix it but am panicking a bit because typically I have not backed everything up.

I assume that you are talking about the Mac side when you say console mode. It doesn't give me the option to exit. It asks for my login and then password but when I type my password and hit return it flashes, very quickly, login incorrect and then goes back to a blue screen.

g/re/p · #4 July 13th, 2008, 08:56 AM

Did you try restarting the computer yet? If you have not, then restart the computer and type exit
at the prompt.

Another option worth trying is to boot into single user mode:

1. Shut down the computer if it is on.

2. Press the power button to start the computer.

3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and the "s" key (Command-S) - you should now see a black screen with white text.

4.at the #, type fsck -y -f and press enter - if it shows errors, then keep
entering fsck -y -f at the # until it does not show any errors.

5.type exit at the # and the computer should boot into GUI mode
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