towerpower
Registered
Hi all,
My family (as used by the rest of my family except me, I say this as I am unfamiliar with this machine) iMac has frozen. It’s an Intel (gag) machine and running 10.5.8 (I think cos can’t access details now) Disk is about 250gb with about 50gb remaining.
My son had complained of shut down not occurring properly the previous evening and having to use the start button to quit. Then he restarted and the mostly frozen iMac made it’s first appearance. This occurred again the following morning with my wife, after checking her email and quitting Thunderbird.
Enter me, Mr fix-it! I have managed, for the last 25 years to manage my macs with a little interplay from forums such as this, so I have a reasonable knowledge but this one worries me. Just to mention nothing is backed up so my family are screaming at me for not having done this, lots of important info etc etc.
The following day I started it up and all seemed ok but not quite right, slow response etc. I ran disk utilities off the start-up disc. During verification there was a few problems, which after repair was ok. I then did the same with permissions. So all ok. After restart I ran Onyx, which I find a nice piece of software, to assure a fresh start.
After re-start, frozen with one or two exceptions as follows: No software will open although icons on dock do react when rolled over. Occasionally selected software will give the message,
you are opening this application for the first time, (standard after a re-build), with a cancel or open option, open does nothing, close sometimes closes the window, other occasions it is frozen on screen. Finder menu is completely frozen and has also disappeared after a while of being on. I can open the hard disc by clicking on the desktop icon and browse, and have managed to move a few items to the trash through the action drop down. I have been trying to trash the start-up items but I need to key in the password which can’t be done due to the freeze. I can access the public folder through my networked machine, but am worried about a virus if I connect and start trying to do stuff, which would be limited anyway. I have zapped the pram a few times also.
No external device shows up on desktop, usb stick or cd, although I can eject a cd from the keyboard.
Before retiring last night I unplugged network and mains plug. This morning, after starting, very briefly the finder menu reacted but immediately retired to its frozen state.
The only thing I can think of, is that I adjusted prefs recently for font book, I have had loads of problems with fonts in the distant past and did just wonder?
Anyway, any ideas on a) how to fix or b) how to get everything off and do a clean install?
thanks in anticipation
My family (as used by the rest of my family except me, I say this as I am unfamiliar with this machine) iMac has frozen. It’s an Intel (gag) machine and running 10.5.8 (I think cos can’t access details now) Disk is about 250gb with about 50gb remaining.
My son had complained of shut down not occurring properly the previous evening and having to use the start button to quit. Then he restarted and the mostly frozen iMac made it’s first appearance. This occurred again the following morning with my wife, after checking her email and quitting Thunderbird.
Enter me, Mr fix-it! I have managed, for the last 25 years to manage my macs with a little interplay from forums such as this, so I have a reasonable knowledge but this one worries me. Just to mention nothing is backed up so my family are screaming at me for not having done this, lots of important info etc etc.
The following day I started it up and all seemed ok but not quite right, slow response etc. I ran disk utilities off the start-up disc. During verification there was a few problems, which after repair was ok. I then did the same with permissions. So all ok. After restart I ran Onyx, which I find a nice piece of software, to assure a fresh start.
After re-start, frozen with one or two exceptions as follows: No software will open although icons on dock do react when rolled over. Occasionally selected software will give the message,
you are opening this application for the first time, (standard after a re-build), with a cancel or open option, open does nothing, close sometimes closes the window, other occasions it is frozen on screen. Finder menu is completely frozen and has also disappeared after a while of being on. I can open the hard disc by clicking on the desktop icon and browse, and have managed to move a few items to the trash through the action drop down. I have been trying to trash the start-up items but I need to key in the password which can’t be done due to the freeze. I can access the public folder through my networked machine, but am worried about a virus if I connect and start trying to do stuff, which would be limited anyway. I have zapped the pram a few times also.
No external device shows up on desktop, usb stick or cd, although I can eject a cd from the keyboard.
Before retiring last night I unplugged network and mains plug. This morning, after starting, very briefly the finder menu reacted but immediately retired to its frozen state.
The only thing I can think of, is that I adjusted prefs recently for font book, I have had loads of problems with fonts in the distant past and did just wonder?
Anyway, any ideas on a) how to fix or b) how to get everything off and do a clean install?
thanks in anticipation
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