Tiger Update Problem - Computer Freezes on OS X Load Screen

[hinotoxin]

Last night I tried installing iTunes and the laest Tiger update through Software Update. When the Tiger update started, the computer seemed to freeze and I got the rainbow spinning ball cursor. Well, being the impatient idiot that I am, I force quit Software Update and planned to do it again later before I turned the computer off.

Well.... being the forgetful idiot that I am, I completely forgot, and the next day when I tried turning it on, it froze on the blue screen with the white OS X loading window. This happens every time I turn it on. The blue aqua bar does not load at all, and the rainbow cursor just appears.


It seems that the latest update begun to install but because I forgot to go back and install the whole thing, something has gone wrong.

I know that there is a way to manually eject the disk tray with keyboard commands, but I can't remember how, And none of my searches on this forum are turning up any results. I also know there's a way to boot from my Tiger installer CD but again I can't remember the keyboard commands.


If anyone could please tell me how to do these things, or if you know of another way that I can install the latest update or boot from software update, it would be greatly appreciated. I lost everything on my hard drive last year due to an invalid node structure problem, and if it happens again... well I#m sure you can imagine how much of an inconvenience it would be.


Thanks a lot to anyone who can help, I'm on a friend's computer right now and I'll keep checking back.

[hinotoxin]

Okay so I had a little more time to google the keyboard commands, and managed to get the disk tray ejected, and reinstalled the system from the cd. The only trouble being that I couldn't find the Tiger cd at first, so I had to use the 10.2.3 cd I got when I first bought my computer.

It installed fine and all my files are there. I have found the Tiger install cd, but when I try opening it, it takes a while to open, and then crashes Finder. If I try clicking on the icon again, I can see the files available on the cd but it just freezes and crashes Finder again. I thought it was due to not having much memory left as the Apple site says you need at least 3gb of memory, so I deleted until there was over 4gb left. It still doesn't work.

I tried booting from the Tiger CD but I get this message on a white screen:

Invalid Memory Access at %SRR0: 0000000 %SSR1: 0000000
Apple PowerMac 6, 1 4.5.8fl BootRom built on 01/13/03


Also I've recently bought a new external hard drive, which will not appear on the desktop, but it does appear in disk utility and system profiler. I'm just completely lost here.... someone please help?

[DeltaMac]

Sounds like you have a damaged Tiger installer disk....
Try installing with nothing attached to your iMac, except for your keyboard and mouse, (and power, of course). No external drives, or other external devices - especially no external USB hub, if you have one...
Just have your Tiger disk in the drive, and Shutdown from the Apple menu. Start as normal, while holding the letter C, so your iMac boots from the installer disk. After booting to the beginning installer screen, go to the Utilities menu at the top of the screen, and choose Disk Utility. Try Repairing your hard drive from there. Then Quit back to the installer, and try to continue with the install of Tiger.

[hinotoxin]

I'm going to ask a friend if they'll send me a copy of the disk and hopefully it will work.

I got my external hd working, the booklet claimed it needed no etting up or installing but didn't mention having to partition the hard drive to be able to actually mount it.

[DeltaMac]

Your external hard drive does not need any software installed just to use it.

It may be formatted as a fat32 volume (a windows format than can be read/write from your Mac), or a large drive might be in an NTFS format, which can't be modified from the Mac OS until you remove the partition, and re-format as a Mac readable volume. If you are _only_ using that on a Mac, then formatting as a MacOS Extended volume would be your best choice.
Of course, most external drives would be used on a Windows PC, and nothing needs to be changed then

Anyway, leave that drive disconnected completely from your Mac when you try to install the Tiger update. That will prevent any effect from that device. You _can_ choose to install Tiger on that external drive, and, of course, you would have it attached to your Mac (and turned on). Just choose that drive when the installer asks you to choose the drive to install....