macbook won't boot - reset loop

fergienz

Registered
Hey all.
Merry Xmas!

Not the best xmas start for me.
I have a Macbook - 2ghz, 2gb ram, 13" black. Out of warranty, can't remeber how old. But i upgraded to 10.5 a month or two ago - no probs.
Anyway, i added an extra user account last night, and set disk permisions to read & write to all for both users. Everything was fine until i tried to open garageband under one user, while itunes was open and playing as the other user account - it came up with an error - something about a midi sound error. I couldn't restart it (garageband was stopping it from doing so) so i forced a shutdown - held down the power button.

Anyway, i turn it on and it goes to the apple logo and the pinwheel spinning for a few mins... then it just resets and does it all again - keeps doing this in a loop.

I've tried:
- Starting in safe mode (holding shift) but it doesn't go into safe mode - it just stays on the apple logo/spin wheel for a few mins longer
- tried leaving it off for few hrs, no change.
- took out the battery, tried with just the ac power etc etc nothing
- reset those pvram (can't remeber what exactly they were called!) but no luck. - taking out the battery, pressing the on button for 5 sec etc
- I've booted into that menu where you do the fdsk-yf scan, and i done this scan - came out as the HDD was OK
- and i've booted into that menu that displays all the console info (holding down option, apple, and p and f i think??? can't remeber now but read it on the apple help site) and it ends on a line saying this:
E:[AppleUSBBluetoothHCI Controller][FindInterfaces] mIntOInterruptMaxPacketSize=16.

Then it resets (it says something about killing disk in a second or 2 before it restarts) and the cylce of resets begins again.

SO yea, i'm stuck for ideas.
As i'm away for xmas, i don't have my OSX cd, so can't boot from that - is there any way i can download and burn a cd with some boot drivers and programs (like disk util etc) on it?
or any other menus i can access.

If not, what else could i do?

Thanks heaps!
 
AFAIK, if iTunes is open in another account then no other user can launch it. This is good for both Macs/PCs.

You will need the original System Software Restore Disc that shipped with your MacBook. You can try giving Apple a call and see if they can sort something out for you, or look for the Full Retail Version of Tiger on eBay or some similar website.

Other than that I think you've done a really great troubleshooting job yourself! The System discs are indispensable though when it comes to troubleshooting.
 
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