iBook g3 stuck on starting mac os x

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forHim247

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My Mom recently purchased an ibook g3 (700mhz 256mb of ram) running Mac os x 10.4.11 off ebay as a Christmas present for my sister and I checked for updates the first chance I got. It showed two updates, quicktime 7.6.4 and some security update labelled 2009-005. While these updates were downloading/installing I noticed iTunes was version 8 and so I told it to install 9.02 but nothing seemed to happen, so I decided I would just do that when the other updates were done. Well the updates finished installing and it said I needed to reboot. So I did and when it got to the "starting mac os x" screen it stopped once the blue bar filled. After about 10 minutes of waiting I held down the power button so I could reboot. When I rebooted the same thing happened again. I do not have the install disk as it did not come with the computer.
 
You can try to safe boot by holding the shift until it comes to the progress bar or a log in screen and see if it runs normally safe booted. Sometimes after a safe boot you will be able to start up normally because the safe boot will correct some issues with extensions or caches. But unfortunately without the install disks you are limited because there are some very useful utilities that come with the installers.
 
I have tried safe boot and it doesn't seem to work. I held down the shift key the whole time and it still just stopped when the progress bar filled. Since there is only one user on this computer and there is no password it couldn't be the login window right?
 
It sounds like perhaps a it just needs an archive & install or it may have a bad HD. Without having an install disk the only other thing you can do is swap out RAM to make sure its not a flaky RAM chip, but without spare RAM lying around that's hard to do as well.
 
Yeah if I had the disk I would just reinstall for sure. I actually ordered a 512mb stick of ram for it but it hasn't come yet but when it does I will try it just in case. Do you think trying to install iTunes 9.02 had anything to do with it? It didn't show up when I checked for updates but when I checked in iTunes it said 9.02 was available.
 
I would say it was unlikely the iTunes update bricked the machine, but it wouldn't be unheard of, especially if there were looming issues already with the machine and the update was enough to put it over the edge.
 
I thnk I will try booting ubuntu 6.10 from a usb drive and see if I can remove iTunes. Do you think this is a good idea?
 
Really don't think its going to help. Even if iTunes is completely fouled up, the machine should essentially still boot because iTunes is not embedded in the system startup files. Sorry to say again but you are essentially SOL without installers to go further, and not just to possibly install the OS but also to check the integrity of the drive and file system.
 
Ok, we emailed the company who sent it to us and they could not help over the phone. They told us to ship it back and they would fix it. Thanks for your help!
 
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