Help with Finder or the desktop just waiting

M

mykelee

Registered
My iMac has a problem where it the mouse pointer is just waiting (round rainbow disk). This only happens if I place the mouse on the desktop and I have no icons like the harddisk.

I am not too sure what to do here as I am new to Macs. The only way to access the Apple drop down menu to shut it down is if I select another application. But if I click the desktop and the top menu changes to Finder, nothing responds.

Any ideas what I should do.

Many Thanks

Michael
 
When does this happen? Do you have any network or are you mounting any network drives? When this happenes you can restart the Finder. This is no problem since the Finder is just an application like all the others. Right click the Finder icon in the Dock and press restart OR press apple+option(alt)+esc click on Finder and chose restart. You should add what OS and hardware you are using, if you need further help.
 
Right, if you right/command/control-click the Finder Dock icon, look for "Force Quit."

If the Finder's giving you a lot of problems, try Path Finder. It has a lot more features, and it's more OS 9-like in several ways. It lets you start PF at startup and quit the Finder once it's launched, so you don't have two Finders running simultaneously.
 
I think for a new mac user the current Finder should be fine. Just post some details and we'll find out what is causing your Finder to be busy
 
You mention that there are no icons on the Desktop, which leads me to believe that the Finder is trying to launch/relaunch but can't for some reason.

Try restarting from the OS X install CD and running Disk Utility by selecting it from the menus in the menubar when the install screen pops up. One Disk Utility is running, click on your hard drive in the left-hand window and then click the "repair volume" button which should be in the lower-right-hand corner of the Disk Utility window. Let it run and see if it fixes anything -- if it does, run it again, and keep repeating this procedure until no errors are reported. After that, restart and see if that helps.
 
OK sorry I left out some details.

iMac G4, OSX (latest version as downloaded last month).
I have only had my Mac a few months.

So last night I checked and saw the following.
1) I can login as another user, and the FInder,desktop, network connection is fine. I can shutdown the Mac that way.
2) My desktop however has no icons on the dekstop (i.e. the hard disk is gone). If I put the mouse pointer there I get the round rainbow disk (like its waiting)
3) The task bar works and the Apps seem to run fine. THis is another way I can access the Apple menu to shutdown and restart.
4) Not sure if I tried to find the finder icon in the task bar. I will try this tonight.

Can anyone tell me what is happening?
So are you suggesting to startup with a special Apple boot CD in the drive? Does this mean I lose my dekstop settings or even any apps I installed.


Many Thanks
Michael
 
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