# Stuck on iMac's white screen?



## Ian10101 (Oct 10, 2008)

I have a Mac 10.4 (I would check but I can't get on my computer) had been running slow As I can see, many other Mac users have encountered the same problem that I now have: the dreaded blue screen of death. About a week ago, any internet browser that I tried to open (Safari, Camino) would freeze after loading its home page, and tell me that the application was not responding. After force quitting and restarting each program a couple of times, with no positive response, I decided to restart my computer to see if that would do the trick. Upon booting up, it then started the same sequence that it is still doing now: first a grey screen will briefly show, then a white screen with the apple logo and a turning dial beneath it. 

Then my computer would go to a blue screen with a turning dial under it, where it would freeze and just keep showing the turning dial. So I looked everywhere to try to find a solution. I came up with this

"OK, restart your computer, hold down Command-s and type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -fy Enter
/sbin/mount -uaw Enter
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone Enter

1. The rm command is the remove command which deletes the file.
2. Robert: I'd rename the file via: mv /var/db/.applesetupdone /var/db/.applesetupdone.old

reboot Enter

Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!"

So I did that and re started me computer. After I had used reboot the computer restarted itself and came up with a white screen with the apple logo blinking 

So I turned off my computer restarted it and now it just freezes on the white screen with the apple logo and the turning dial instead of the blue screen

So I basically got no where........

Any idea what I could do? Help would be very appreciated


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## VirtualTracy (Oct 10, 2008)

You could try booting up in Safe Mode ... hold Shift down when you hear the startup chime.  It'll take a while to boot, if it boots at all that is.  Also, do you have the installation disc?  You could boot from that _(holding "C" at startup chime)_ and go through a few windows until there is a Utility in the menu bar.  In that you'll be able to find Disc Utility.  Launch it, then Verify Disc in the First Aid section.


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## Ian10101 (Oct 10, 2008)

VirtualTracy said:


> Launch it, then Verify Disc in the First Aid section.



Ummm where is that? lol


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## Giaguara (Oct 11, 2008)

When booted from Mac OS X install disc, Disk Uility can be opened from under Tools menu if I remember correct. 

How much empty space is in your system? It can't load the system to boot to it. If your Mac got slower over time, and then really slow, could it have filled its hard drive to simply be too full to even boot up now? 
Or something else has changed in the system preventing it from seeing the system or booting to it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1892?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1411?viewlocale=en_US


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## Ian10101 (Oct 11, 2008)

No I doubt that's the case since my computer hasn't used much of it's memory like I said I would check if I could.

Also, I found the first aid section and picked verify disc for Macintosh HD, but an error comes up saying that it couldn't un mount the disc.


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## Giaguara (Oct 11, 2008)

It can't mount the disk?
Do you have anything like Disk Warrior? That error message is not good news when it refers to your hard drive...


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## Ian10101 (Oct 12, 2008)

It says "The Disk Macintosh HD could not be unmounted......Make sure that all applications and files are closed on this disk."

And no I don't have Disk Warrior


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## Giaguara (Oct 12, 2008)

The internal disk can't be _un_mounted


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## nixgeek (Oct 12, 2008)

You can't unmount a disk that you're booted with.  You would need to boot from the installation CD/DVD and not from the hard drive if you want to repair the hard drive using Disk Utility.


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