Start up help.

[punk646]

I have a powerbook with os x 10.4 in it. I have had it for 4 or 5 years now and this is the first problem I have had.

When I start up I get passed the gray screen and to the blue one while the bar will fill all the way up and say " starting mac os " but never loads it. I am deployed right now and don't have my disk so I am looking for help with not using the disk if I can.

1. I have tried to start in safe mode/boot but if something is to open when I do this it never does and will get to the blue bar like I said.

2. I have tried to restart the nvram and the pram but I don't see this doing anything.

3. I have tried going into single user mode and I get so far till it tells me my ROOT USER is a read only and they can't get it, so it goes into sleep. In this I tried to see my profiles and they are there. I tried to force a login but it will not take my password.

4. In single user mode I did the fyv or whatever test and it said my hard drive looked fine.

Now sometimes my laptop will not even turn on at all because of all of this. Not sure what is going on and need anyone who knows what is going on. I am out of ideas, I am not a tech head guy and I only know a little about computers so any help please walk me into it slow. I only care about keeping the data on my hard drive so I am looking to just login one time so I can back it up and if there is a problem that can't be fixed no bid deal. I have wanted a new mac but had no reason to get one, this could be one.

[stilbite]

Could be your hard drive is too full. If there is not enough space for your OS to function it won't get there. Rule of thumb is always leave 10% free. Also if you have failed to run disk permission repairs etc for a while anything could be corrupt.
At this stage I suggest.. get hold of another Mac..any will do, a friend or the like, buy / borrow a Fire Wire cable and link it to both Macs, yours being OFF.
Start and hold hold down the 'T' key on yours and keep holding till the target mode symbol appears and hopefully the HD will appear on the other Mac desktop. This way you can get to your files and save them or even do a clean install, repair etc if possible.

[punk646]

What if when I try to turn on my mac now it will not even start. Like I don't even hear the tone, would doing this still work? I will give it a shot.