Mac wont start!

umemakoto · #1 June 9th, 2008, 06:36 PM

Hey!

I'm runing a Mac 10.4 Intel lap top. Its been running fine, but today when i shut it down it stayed on this blue screen. With out thinking I held down the start button and it shut off. I figured something was wrong, so I tried to start it up. It makes the start up noise and goes to the gray load up screen... then just shuts off.

Does anyone know whats going on?

And is it possible for me to get files off my hard drive? I've been in europe for 4 months and haven't backed up my photos yet, so I'm really nervous I just lost it all

supanatral · #2 June 9th, 2008, 07:28 PM

Well, try booting up in your OSX disk by pushing and holding the option key while booting then selecting the DVD rom as your booting drive. If you can't do that then it tells me that its your main board and not your hard drive. If you can, then when you have the DVD all loaded up, go to utilities at the top of the screen and go to disk utilities. If it recognizes the drive then you should be good. Let me know the outcome.

umemakoto · #3 June 9th, 2008, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supanatral

Well, try booting up in your OSX disk by pushing and holding the option key while booting then selecting the DVD rom as your booting drive. If you can't do that then it tells me that its your main board and not your hard drive. If you can, then when you have the DVD all loaded up, go to utilities at the top of the screen and go to disk utilities. If it recognizes the drive then you should be good. Let me know the outcome.

I just tried it and it didn't work.

My friend just showed me how to get into target disk mode though, and that worked. So at least I can buy a firewire cable and move my stuff onto a friends computer.

supanatral · #4 June 9th, 2008, 08:07 PM

So, it wouldn't boot up into the OSX disc but it will start into target disk mode? That doesn't sound right. Try following the steps on this page: http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/...resetpram.html

ElDiabloConCaca · #5 June 9th, 2008, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supanatral

So, it wouldn't boot up into the OSX disc but it will start into target disk mode? That doesn't sound right.

It sounds perfectly normal. FireWire Target Disk Mode doesn't depend on an operating system to operate (and is not a function of the operating system) -- it's "built in" to the ROM on the computer (actually, either in Open Firmware or the EFI).

That's why FireWire Target Disk Mode is excellent at allowing people to recover data from the hard drive of a computer that won't boot.

umemakoto · #6 June 10th, 2008, 04:34 PM

I just can't win, I need help with the fire wire now.

I tired to do the target disk mode, and the target computer would not show up on the host computer. I tried reseting the host and still nothing. I went into Disk Utility and tried to verify the disk and it says this:

Invalid index key
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

I'd do the first aid thing, but I wanted to check here first and make sure this won't delete my hard drive or mess anything up.