New powerbook, can't exit unix!

[neutrino]

Hi - I just got a powerbook, and I've rebooted it fine about three times. The last time I restarted it, because the screensaver would not turn off, it booted to the commandline and asked me for my name and password. I gave it those, then when I type exit it flashes the blue booting screen for about a second, then goes right back to the command line and askes me for my name & pw again. I've rebooted a few times, same thing happens. Other commands work fine, but "exit" does not. Does anyone have any ideas?

[neutrino]

Ok, I was in kind of a flurry when I posted that - now I've gotten a bit more used to the commandline and realize that some details are probably necessary.

Here we are:


Ok, I got the pb yesterday and it started up fine a couple of times. I passworded the hard drive and changed the permissions on it so that the owner is my username and no one else has access to it. Shortly after doing that (related?) the screensaver turned on and would not turn off. So I rebooted and it now boots almost directly to darwin and has me log in.

I see the grey apple screen and the "starting" screen with the blue bar, then right to the command line. So I enter my username and password then:

When I type "exit," it flashes a blue booting screen for about a second, then right back to the command line, asking for my un & pw again.

When I type "reboot" it says "command not allowed"

And I tried to run a fsck, but it does nothing. I type "/sbin/fsck -y" and hit enter and get another command prompt - no feedback of any kind.

So I went back and logged in as root, which now allows me to reboot, but it still won't run a fsck.

I rebooted holding "x" I also rebooted with the osx cd in the drive, neither changed anything.

And that's about everything that I've tried.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions?

[HateEternal]

You changed your permissions for the whole hard drive?

There are system users that the OS needs to have access to... I could see that causing a lot of your troubles.

Boot from the install cd (holding c), go into disk utility and run a permission repair (Its in the utilities menu)

[DeltaMac]

That's right! You should not have ownership on your entire hard drive. The only major folder that you own is your own user folder.
And, repairing permissions now may not help much.
You can try changing the ownership of your hard drive to the correct owner, which is system, not you. If that doesn't help, and unless you have really good instructions to set this right again, you may end up erasing and reinstalling everything...

[neutrino]

Ok - here's an update if anyone is curious as to what happened.

I just reinstalled the os, since all I had done before I broke the computer was install firefox, it was essentially brand new.

I wish there had been some kind of pop up warning or something before I did that - why is it even an option to shut yourself out of the harddrive?

The reason I was doing this in the first place is that my last PB got stolen, so I am trying to take as many security measures as possible - I guess I went a little overboard.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[MisterMe]

You can protect your computer Open Firmware password. You can also encrypt your home directory with File Vault, though I personally don't trust it. However, the greatest protection that you can give a PowerBook is diligence.