boot up problems

G

guffe

Registered
hey

I own a new power book. Last night i turned it off since it was going a littl slow.
Today when i turned it on it wouldn't boot up. It gets to the screen with the grey apple and the spinning wheel and just sits there...nothing happens at all.

I've tried most normal troubleshooting techniques and nothing works

Anyone here have any suggestions on what to do with this problem

Thx

Guffe
 
By chance when you turned it off, did you select Shut Down or did you just hold down the power button? Was there anything you did before shutting down?
 
no i turned it off by selecting shut down...before i turned it off i was watching a vid on VLC and surfing with firefox and safari...and using msn...nothing out of the ordinary...
 
Boot from the OS disc by holding the C key. Choose the Language, then when you get the Installer screen, go up to the Utility Menu to Disk Utility and run Disk Repair.
 
i ran a hardware test from the start up disk earlier...and when running the extended test i got an error on the mass storage part
error code: 2STF/8/3:ATA-100 ata-6-Master

and i did what u told me...and it tells me error: the underlying task reported failure on exit (whatever that means) so the first aid failed

any suggestions?
 
2STF/8/3:ATA-100 error means your hard drive is bad.

Call Apple for warranty service
 
Good chance you'll lose everything on it, but when you call Apple, ask them to retrieve the data from the drive. They do recover what they can from damaged drives.

You should ALWAYS backup important files. Drives are just mechanical devices which can and do go bad.
 
yeah i know...I have an external harddrive...but havent updated it in awhile which sucks...do u know if there is any way to get into safe mode??
 
If you do a clean install you will. You can try an Archive&Install.

If you manage to do this, get your files off and call Apple. Don't continue to use the drive.
 
I got a similar problem myself. Its christmas eve, I came to europe with my computer to show my family here some photos and movies I made of the family members back in the states. I installed the newest and latest downloads that mac offered me. I am running a ibook g4 with the latest version of tiger. I had just finished with my software updates and my quicktime would not work, then my safari would not work so I thought it might be a problem where the computer must restart before loading the new apps. I shut it down noramally, now when it begins booting.........it goes through the normal routine, but fails at the blue screen. Nothing. No password screen, no nothing, just blue. HELP PLEASE!
 
yeah it definitley sucks...i have alot of pictures and stuff on it and now i dont know if i'll get em back...i mean its 2 months old...it can't be normal that a harddrive just crashes for no apparent reason after that short of a time...
 
No, it's not normal, but a drive is a mechanical device, and these things do fail. Usually when much older.
 
Ok follow up to my problem. Computer starts in safe mode. It will connect to the internet via ethernet on either itunes or on internet explorer, but will not run or even begin to open: safari, ichat, or a number of other programs. If the computer will start in safe mode and all I have installed is apple website software updates. HELP!!!
 
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