Spinning rainbow Ball

[iron-lung]

I'm sorry if this seems a little repetative, I have searched for similar threads which may contain an answer, but nothing I can see is exactly the issue.

I have had an ongoing issue with my MAC G4 OSX 10.3.9.. to the point where I have reinstalled OSX and run updates. Before this I did run disk utility Repair and verify which came back clean, no faults.

Mac is temperamental... Sometimes it won't even boot into OSX but boots up in OS9.2 via another HD (I know should be on same drive, but didn't want to put 9 back on fully until OSX was stable, so just took back up of OS9 system folder etc) Now, when it does boot into 9 it doesn't recognise my main HD nor a 2nd HD both are 40GB IDE drives which came with the MAC and have always been stable.

Normally at this stage I power down and Zap PRAM on re-boot, hoping to either boot into OSX or OS9 with the Main 2 HD's available, if not I repeat these last steps. If I do get into OSX as soon as I try and do ANYTHING, open app, copy folder to new location, open folder I get the infamous spinning rainbow circle and the Mac freezes until I power it down.

I have recently installed a PANTHER screen saver allowing tiger widgets to work, I had the problem prior but would this have given me more problems??

I am stuck at the moment, after reinstalling OSX I don't know what to do apart from swap out the HD or maybe invest in some new RAM as when it is working it does seem very slow (at present 512mb DDR).

In additional, the only new hardware attached is a 1913 TFT Samsung monitor.


Please help

[SubaruWRC]

You need to verify that your HDD's are jumpered correctly. Mac's are very particular about how the HDD's are jumpered and cabled and Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X do not access the hardware in the same way. Fortunately, I just got rid of OS 9 for good so I no longer have these kinds of problems. But, to answer your question directly, make sure each HDD is jumpered in order of Master-->Slave with the Slave being at the terminating end of the cable. Also, with my setup using multiple HDD's, I have OS 9 booting from within the first 9GB on HDD #1 (Master IDE Bus 1) and OS X 10.4.2 booting on HDD #2 (Slave IDE Bus 1). I also have a CD/DVD (Master IDE Bus 2) and a 40GB HDD (Slave IDE Bus 2). I never had a problem with that setup.

[iron-lung]

Thanks for the response, but I don't know how the jumpers would have altertered as I haven't opened my G4 since the problems occured!!! I will check tonight. Any other ideas why the spinning ball would occur when you click on ANYTHING and then freeze the Finder even without any applications running...

PLEASE HELP

[LovesMacs]

One suggestion regarding: <<Any other ideas why the spinning ball would occur when you click on ANYTHING and then freeze the Finder even without any applications running>>

Have you tried dragging the "com.apple.finder.plist" to the Trash, emptying the Trash, then open a new Finder window and see if you experience another crash??? Also, Repairing Permissions can help with that problem also.

Carolyn :-)

[dreric1kansas]

Where is the "com.apple.finder.plist"? I've been experiencing this rainbow beach ball with the internet . Some say it is the internet, too many cords or usb firewire or other things. >>>
Dr. Eric Flescher

[dreric1kansas]

Where is the "com.apple.finder.plist"? I've been experiencing this rainbow beach ball with the internet . Some say it is the internet, too many cords or usb firewire or other things. >>>
Dr. Eric Flescher

[ra3ndy]

com.apple.finder.plist is located in
Users/[your name]/Library/Preferences/

but you say this happens mainly on the internet? or are you saying it happens everywhere, using the internet as an example?