Powerbook G4 10.5.5 not starting up

[Loz62]

My laptop crashed and refuses to reboot. Ive tried all the keyboard shortcuts without success. I get as far as the white screen with apple logo and the spinning wheel but nothing else happens. When i booted up whilst holding Control V I got a black screen with writing but I did not really understand what it meant. Any ideas a) what is wrong b) how to fix it>
Any advice much appreciated.
Cheers
Loz

[Satcomer]

See OS X Keyboard shorts at the Apple article Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Plus read the article Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption to see if any the tips help. Good Luck.

[tgaudmx5]

Has anybody figured out a solution to this?

I'm trying to solve a similar problem and am stumped thus far.

-Ty

[Doctor X]

First: post your machine specifics--model, processor, RAM, OS, religion, et cetera.

Second: Try booting on your installation disks and repairing the volumes/permissions per Disk Utility. See the linkypoos Satcomer posted.

--J.D.

[tgaudmx5]

Thanks!

Powerbook G4, 128mb RAM, Leopard 10.5.5 (I think), agnostic, etc.

My machine is hanging at the gray/white apple logo and spinning gear screen.

I've tried every solution I've been able to find.

- resetting pram and nvram (multiple times)

- booting from Leopard install disc -->repair disk (repair permissions just hangs and the disc drive goes crazy)

- Repair disk does tell me that the "Volume appears to be OK", so I don't think it's anything terribly wrong.

I can't do an 'archive and install' because I don't have enough space (it requires 11+gb, I have 6.xx).

Thanks!!

[Doctor X]

Okay . . . two problems--WHICH G4--processor speed.

Reason: 128 RAM is really small for OS 10.5. I am not saying that is your problem, but it could be contributing.

Next is your HD size--how big is it? Nearly filled HD can be a problem.

--J.D.

[tgaudmx5]

Ah ha.

G4 1.33 Ghz.

60gb hard drive. Is there any way to remove files and free up space if I can't get to the desktop?

I don't have another Mac or know anyone who does...

[DeltaMac]

Not likely 128MB of RAM. Leopard will refuse to install with that small amount of memory. The system can run with that small memory, but not usably. 128MB (I'm guessing) is VRAM installed.

You SHOULD be able to Archive & install, if you choose to do a Custom install, and turn off ALL options, except the basic system. Once you get your system working again, you can do what you need to do to get enough space to add back the other items (if needed)