Stuck on Gray Apple Screen

[ekka]

I'm in a horrible position:

Yesterday my Powerbook G4 had been running fine, and I installed a bunch of updates (had been without internet for a while, so there were many and I'm not sure what, although a OS X update wouldn't install), and restarted with no problem, although oddly I couldn't copy/paste any text. So i restarted, hoping to fix that minor glitch and I'm stuck on this gray apple screen. There is another post on the board from a guy with the exact same problem but no resolution here:
http://macosx.com/content/faq.php/q2...ey-Screen.html

I'm running OSX 10.4 (not sure which updated version) on a PBG4 12'.

This is what I've tried so far:

-running Disk Utility from install disks: repaired disk permissions (fine); then tried to repair disk. There was an error and it couldn't repair the disk, it said something about 'overreaching' (I will try this again and update post about the exact wording)

-running Hardware Test from install disks: no problems.

-starting in Safe Boot: won't go beyond same gray screen, even after holding shift for 10 minutes.

-resetting PRAM/NVRAM: it made appropriate restarting chime, but did nothing beyond that.


-logging into verbose mode: I got this error:
Failed to load extension com.apple.driver.AppleMacRiscPCI.
Couldn't alloc class "AppleMacRiscAGP"
Couldn't alloc class "AppleMacRiscPCI"
kld_load_from_memory() failed for module com.apple.driver.AppleMacRiscPCI.

etc, and then eventually "waiting for root device" and then nothing.


My Applecare expired less than a month ago, and I have 2 huge problems- 1, I'm in the Czech Republic and REALLY want to avoid going to an Apple store here, and 2, there are several files I need to get intact (my fault for not backing up, I know)

Please, any suggestions?? I had some startup problems before, and traced them back to a VLC media player which I stupidly did reinstall, so I have a feeling this may be a factor, or some other startup preferences/login items, which I could deal with if I could at least start up in Safe Boot.

Please help.

[Soph]

Hi; I'm in the same position as ekka, my mac was bugging, so I restarted it, and since then, it dosn't go past the grey apple screen with the loading circle...
I tryed rebooting it, and rebooting it in secure mode too...
Could anyone help, please??
Thanks a lot

[Doctor X]

What happens when you reboot on your Installation Disk?

--J.D.

[Alibastr]

Did you guys managed to solve this problem?
I've got 10.4.10 installation disk Tiger for PowerBook G4, and after updating to 10.4.11 got these exact error messages with no booting at all.

[jja]

I'm running 10.4.9 and tried to update to Tiger .11 and the same thing happened... how do you go back?

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by Alibastr

Did you guys managed to solve this problem?
I've got 10.4.10 installation disk Tiger for PowerBook G4, and after updating to 10.4.11 got these exact error messages with no booting at all.

As you may have noticed, the original poster never replied with further information. We have no idea what happened to him.

For many, the problem seems to be updating over the internet--something I always did until I washed up HERE. A few Gurus recommended downloading the ComboUpdates rather than relying on updates over Al Gore's Interwebs.

"Bah!" thinks I, "I've done this before! And I am magNIfIcent!"

Fortunately, I have repair programs and back things up. One of the updates resulted in a volume corruption like you describe. It seems that on a few of the bigger ones, if there is a glitch in the transmission, you essentially frell up your volume/System.

I had to basically redo from my clone . . . download the ComboUpdate and there you go.

So . . . what you need to do, if you have not backed up your data . . . is use your Installation Disks and/or a repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTools and see if you can repair your volume. Be prepared to do an Archive Install to fix the problem and get your data.

THEN download the ComboUpdate and update that way.

--J.D.

[Randy Singer]

Apple has a tech note about this:

Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

Unfortunately, there are bunch of things that can cause this problem, but Apple's tech note covers most of them in a methodical way.