I have a PowerMac G4 that is almost dead. It locks on normal startup and it wont start up off a CD. It will start up in single-user mode. fsck shows no problems. I have tried everything I can think of (PRAM, PMU, swapping batteries, etc.) and nothing works. If I let it continue booting from single-user mode it seems to get to different places. It first gave me a video card error so I took out one of the video cards. Now it seems to stop at either Starting SecurityServer, Initializing Network or checking disk. I've swapped the hard drive though and it's the same error. Although on one drive there seems to be some stuff between Security Server and Initializing Network (maybe they have different versions of the OS?). It does give some messages in the startup stuff like a ROM is too old and something about serial being incorrect, not sure if those mean anything or not. Once it gave me a DNS error and starting timed execution services after the initializing network, which wasn't normally there. I tried doing the systemstartup manually and it gives me an error about the bootstrap_ (etc) not being there, even though it is there, so I can't get any farther than that.
So is that too much information or what? It's not a big deal, but I'm sort of taking this as an opportunity to see what I can learn about diagnosing serious problems. Is there anything else I can do from the command line to give me any clues at all?
-Jeff
So is that too much information or what? It's not a big deal, but I'm sort of taking this as an opportunity to see what I can learn about diagnosing serious problems. Is there anything else I can do from the command line to give me any clues at all?
-Jeff