Mac OS won´t boot in normal mode (stuck in "Starting Mac OS X...")

[jquadros]

Hello

I am absolutely new to Mac OS, however I am a FreeBSD sysadmin. A friend of mine send me her iBook G4 which won´t boot in normal mode (stuck in "Starting Mac OS X..."). I asked her what happened and the answer was:
I did iTunes and MAC OS update and when the update finished, the Mac restarted and problem started.

I booted in single mode (Command-key + S) and when I got the prompt, I did "sh /etc/rc". At this stage, the output of "uname -a" is:
Darwin 14.1.59.10.in-addr.arpa 8.11.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed .....

Well, the wireless interface started and it got IP 10.59.1.14 and I can ping DHCP server 10.59.1.1

Now, what do you suggest I do ? I am completely ignorant as far as Mac OS is concerned as you may have realized by now

Thanks for your help

Julio

[jquadros]

Oh, one mre thing:

sw_vers produces:

ProductVersion: 10.4.11
BuildVerions: 8S165

[PBear]

A Safe Boot might fix it up.

[jquadros]

Safe boot didn´t work either !

Anyway, I sorted the problem out doing an "Archive and install" !

Everything works ok now

Thanks

Julio