Gray screen of death?

dual_mon

dual_mon

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I just installed Palm Desktop 4.1. I did some other stuff for a while (email, other inert things) before restarting. When I restart, the gray apple comes up, the disk sounds like it is working, and then the apple turns into a crossed out circle. I can't boot verbose, SAFE or single user. I was able to zap pram (four times in a row). HELP! :eek:

Other clues. Recently installed 10.2.8 update (maybe two days ago?) Just this morning installed Little Snitch. This pref pane flags outbound network traffic according to configurable rules. It comes pre-configured to allow normal default behavior. The only rules I added were to allow a couple of my normal normal network access. Reboot after that install was normal. For what it is worth, yesterday and today I noticed that I was unable to print from Entourage. Yesterday I force quit Entourage after about 5 minutes of beach balling. Today I walked away and let it spin for more like an hour. When I came back, Entourage was still completely locked in beach ball mode. I force quit without being able to print. That was never a problem before the 10.2.8 update.

FYI it is a 500 Mhz single G4, 1.5 GB ram, pci video card for second monitor, pci scsi card (not in use), pci ata 133 card for third hard drive. OS X is on 25GB physical volume, OS 9 is on 120GB physical volume, second 120 GB physical volume is for nightly databackup using Tri-backup. It is possible that a backup job was running when I rebooted, but I didn't cancel or force quit anything. Also the backup job doesn't touch the OSX boot volume. It just replicates the data directory from the OS 9 disk to the backup disk.
 
Well, have you tried booting into single user mode and fsck -y it. Besides that, maybe you should boot with the OS Install disk and run Disk utility on it. If neither of those suggestions work, maybe you should run DiskWarrior. IMHO this is the best disk utility for the Mac.
 
Originally posted by Satcomer
Well, have you tried booting into single user mode and fsck -y it.
Click to expand...


I did attempt single user mode, but I don't think I get far enough into booting. It should also be noted that I have a Macally keyboard, not a Mac one. Could this be a reason why I am not able get this machine to accept cmd-v or cmd-s or shift during boot?

Regarding Disk Utility. I don't have Disk Warrior boot disk. I do have Jaguar boot disk from when it first came out, but this would be version 10.2(.0?) in a two disk set. Would I be advised to use disk one of this and see what happens?
 
Verification of privileges on boot volume turned up this:
Permissions differ on ./System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util, should be -rwsr-xr-x , they are -rwxr-xr-x
User differs on ./private/var/db/locate.database, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -r--r--r--
Permissions differ on ./private/var/db/netinfo/local.nidb/Index, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-------
Group differs on ./private/var/run/utmp, should be 0, group is 1

I assume I should repair?

Upon repairing permissions on boot volume using Disk Utility off install CD, I restarted and same problem.:(

Next I will try verifying the disk.
 
Disk Utility First Aid found the following problem:

...
Checking Catalog file.
Overlapped extent allocation (file 1012302d)
Overlapped extent allocation (file 1012303d)
...
The volume <name> needs to be repaired.


I am now initiating a repair...

Repair completed...

Restart computer and...

:mad:

I must say, I thought that was going to do it. What the F*@k is going on here? :confused:
 
Thanks Hulk. Very informative site you have.

In the end I recovered without having to totally re-configure.

Here's what I did. After Disk Utility failed to revive the machine. First I removed the scsi card and pci video card, as well as un-plugging all usb and firewire devices. This had no new effect.

Next I went out and purchased a bootable Disk Warrior CD. I ran it through and it was able to find and fix a few things that Disk Util did not. This did not, however, fix the problem. Next, on the adivice of a guru, I got out the Jag install CDs again and ran an install.

IMPORTANT GURU TIP: There is a fairly obvious Options button that takes you to a screen that allows you to do an Archive Install and preserve user accounts. I selected both. I proceded with the installation. When it got done with Disk 2, I was greeted with a normal login screen. I logged in with my old account and found my system remarkabley as it was before the crash. :p

I ran through software update several times while it collected all the patches and updates. I quit before letting it install iSync. It is suggested that you have Palm desktop installed first in order for this to work right.

Every time I re-booted I was getting an error at login indicating that the Hotsync manager for Palm was not able to load due to a conflict of some sort. I used the 4.1 installer which contains an un-installer. I uninstalled Palm desktop and manager. When I reinstalled, I was able to sync with the palm straight away, and all my settings were intact.

I then installed iSync 1.1

So far so good.

By the way, it seems that the overlapping files were the big problem... see earlier post for partial transcript of Disk Utility report. I am told that if you have this problem in core system files, there is no repairing it. You have to re-install. Luckily, however, Apple's archive install has a light touch.
 
Freaky, good thing if a Mac ever does break it's easy to repair or fix...and we can do it without waiting on a 6 hour help line where they tell you "did you try restarting"?

:)
 
Okay,

I am posting here rather than a new thread, because chances are, there is a connection. If you review posts above, you will see that I hav just reinstalled Jag.

I now find that I can't browse with Safari or IE. I can't connect to POP with Entourage. Weirdly, the email was working fine earlier this morning and it was only the browsers that were broken. I rebooted and lost email connectivity. I can still connect via ftp using Interarchy, and the machine I am on right now shares the same hub on the LAN.

Possibley related, and mentioned above as one of the first signs of trouble, I have not been able to print from Entourage for several days. It just perpetually beach balls and has to be force-quit.

I have read that there were network issues related with the 10.2.8 update, but I was told they were with an earlier build. I have 6R73 installed.

...we interrupt this post to bring you breaking news...
I just completed a safe boot (which under 10.2 performs an fsck -y silently) and now browsers and mail client have access again. It did not fix the next issue.
...we now return you to your post already in progress...

Okay, and here is the bizarre thing. All third party pref panes are still there, but none work. They all show up, but none of them will open. Dave Login, Dave Network, Dave Sharing, MS Mouse, MS Keyboard, Little Snitch, and More Internet. They all come up with this message,

Preferences Error

Could not load [pref name here]

Is this most likely due to the re-install, and if so, do I need to un-install all the panes or can I just drag them from the previous system folder?

If uninstall, is there a generic way to do that, and if drag, where do they live?
 
Are you normally connecting to the net through another net connection which you get through a hub or something? If yes, maybe you need to reconfigure your settings in your Network icon inside System Preferences... Also, is the 10.2.8 update the build 6R73? This build is the latest...

About Entourage: Did you download the latest updates from here?
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx

Anyways, try the following before downloading anything for Entourage... Open the Preferences folder that you locate inside your home folder:
~/Library/Preferences/
There locate a folder called Microsoft and Trash it. Empty the Trash. Launch Entourage and see what gives...
 
Try to drag them from the old install. For some this may work just fine. However, I think it is wise to reinstall them... Also, try searching the net for newer versions, if any!
 
If I try to drag them I get a message:

One or more items have special permissions and cannot be copied. Do you want to skip them?

How do I give myself permission to copy them to Library? I am logged in as local admin.
 
To try to get my pref panes working againg, I was able to replace what I think amount to all the right files from the archived system folder. This never succeeded in making them work properly. If you are trying to replicate my restore process, I suggest you find the installers for your add on pref panes. Hopefully your software has uninstallers otherwise, just try installing over the top of the old one.
 
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