To preface this, let me note that
1)I am not a regular user of Apple products
2)I have several machines running Linux and am fairly comfortable in Command Line
3)Do not have OS X system disks on hand
I realize that 3) may be a problem, and I'm willing to accept that I may just need to wait until I have them to fix the problem, however, let me delve into it a bit:
The problem started when one of my good friends turned on her Powerbook G4 this evening. The machine booted fine, and displayed the login screen. Upon attempting to select a user account, the screen dissapeared, and the machine reverted to the Darwin Console. (You know, the friendly one, with "Darwin/BSD (localhost) (console) and a login prompt at the top). Login was succesful, and as far as I can tell, attempts to fix the problem (which have been numerous and widespread) have shown that single-user mode and verbose mode work wonderfully. Safe mode does nothing to alleviate the problem. The GUI, it seems, doesn't want to start.
What I've done:
I've spent the last three hours on the Apple Support site, and I've done most of the requist first steps (I've even performed the reset of various system files such as the network settings, etc. mentioned in the Apple documentation) I have reset the PRAM. I have attempted to figure out if I need to reset the PMU and have had a hard time figuring out if the particular model has this option, so I haven't performed this step. I have run fsck, because I can't seem to get to disk utility. Fsck says the disk is journaled and doing just dandy. (Not its exact words, but hey...)
And yes, as far as I can tell, the system is up to date. The last big thing we did was make sure Quicktime was updated, as well as the system as a whole. We've been attempting to get Xvid files to play, which has been its own saga. Don't know if that could have broken anything.
In short, I'm about as frustrated with this machine as I am with my Linux boxes that don't like some of my hardware. That, and I'm at my wits end. I've been directed to this site many times by Google Searches- I must have read a good 75% of posts on this site mentioning the console or login screen- but none seem to describe my problem exactly. Many, for instance, list the problem as the machine going to console after a blue screen (Job's equivalent of the BSoD?), which is sort of what happens in my case, but not really. Morever, attempts to fix the problem using those solutions has thus far been unsuccesful.
I realize I may need to sit down and boot the machine in Target Disk mode, get useful files off of it, and use the OS X install disk to set everything straight via an OS reinstall. We have to do that to this machine anyway, as someone has purchased it from my friend, but that swap ain't happening until her new MacBook Pro comes (in about a week- I'm hella' jealous), and it would be nice to be able to use it without getting the system software, which is in another state.
In short, does anyone have any idea how to fix this without those disks, and quickly?
1)I am not a regular user of Apple products
2)I have several machines running Linux and am fairly comfortable in Command Line
3)Do not have OS X system disks on hand
I realize that 3) may be a problem, and I'm willing to accept that I may just need to wait until I have them to fix the problem, however, let me delve into it a bit:
The problem started when one of my good friends turned on her Powerbook G4 this evening. The machine booted fine, and displayed the login screen. Upon attempting to select a user account, the screen dissapeared, and the machine reverted to the Darwin Console. (You know, the friendly one, with "Darwin/BSD (localhost) (console) and a login prompt at the top). Login was succesful, and as far as I can tell, attempts to fix the problem (which have been numerous and widespread) have shown that single-user mode and verbose mode work wonderfully. Safe mode does nothing to alleviate the problem. The GUI, it seems, doesn't want to start.
What I've done:
I've spent the last three hours on the Apple Support site, and I've done most of the requist first steps (I've even performed the reset of various system files such as the network settings, etc. mentioned in the Apple documentation) I have reset the PRAM. I have attempted to figure out if I need to reset the PMU and have had a hard time figuring out if the particular model has this option, so I haven't performed this step. I have run fsck, because I can't seem to get to disk utility. Fsck says the disk is journaled and doing just dandy. (Not its exact words, but hey...)
And yes, as far as I can tell, the system is up to date. The last big thing we did was make sure Quicktime was updated, as well as the system as a whole. We've been attempting to get Xvid files to play, which has been its own saga. Don't know if that could have broken anything.
In short, I'm about as frustrated with this machine as I am with my Linux boxes that don't like some of my hardware. That, and I'm at my wits end. I've been directed to this site many times by Google Searches- I must have read a good 75% of posts on this site mentioning the console or login screen- but none seem to describe my problem exactly. Many, for instance, list the problem as the machine going to console after a blue screen (Job's equivalent of the BSoD?), which is sort of what happens in my case, but not really. Morever, attempts to fix the problem using those solutions has thus far been unsuccesful.
I realize I may need to sit down and boot the machine in Target Disk mode, get useful files off of it, and use the OS X install disk to set everything straight via an OS reinstall. We have to do that to this machine anyway, as someone has purchased it from my friend, but that swap ain't happening until her new MacBook Pro comes (in about a week- I'm hella' jealous), and it would be nice to be able to use it without getting the system software, which is in another state.
In short, does anyone have any idea how to fix this without those disks, and quickly?