MAJOR major system problems

M

markwm

Registered
OK, I'm panicing a bit. In almost 2 years of use my Powerbook G4 has been pretty solid, no problems. I have the latest Tiger installed btw.

Todat I'm browsing with Safari, one of the bookmark menus when clicked gives me the spinnin circle, it won't go away and eventually I power down(hold power button) and reboot...

After a reboot I notice that my machine is slower, apps take ALOT longer to launch and I've getting the spinning circle all over the place. Activity monitor looks OK.

I reboot again, gets worse. Reboot again, worse still. Now I'm at the stage where the apple screen takes about 10 minutes to get through. The login screen is giving my spinning circles. OS X if it does load is un-usable clicking ANYTHING will result in the spinning circle for minutes on end.

I need expert help. I have a business trip tomorrow and REALLY REALLY need my powerbook.
 
Another update: It appears while the apple screen is just sitting there. If I plug my powerbook into the adaptor it will get past it.
 
Try booting up from the install disk, then run Disk Utility. Run Permissions and Disk repairs.
 
I tried that, and even disk utility began to hang when running off the DVD. I did repair permissions fine though, but when I came to repair disk it had problems.
 
Try booting in safe mode: restart/hold command + s till you see black screen with white text/type fsck -f to force a system check/type reboot when system check progress is complete. Should be able to reboot then.

If you can reboot successfully, you might go to Utilities/Activity Monitor to see if there's some malicious process working in the background on your comp. Disconnect from the internet and turn off your wireless for your repair steps to eliminate internet/network activity from your list of issues.
 
I'm trying that now. Before though I haven't been able to get past the white apple screen again...

I booted from the CD and tried to verify/repair disk and got the following message: "Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk"
 
Natobasso said:
Try booting in safe mode: restart/hold command + s till you see black screen with white text/type fsck -f to force a system check/type reboot when system check progress is complete. Should be able to reboot then.

If you can reboot successfully, you might go to Utilities/Activity Monitor to see if there's some malicious process working in the background on your comp. Disconnect from the internet and turn off your wireless for your repair steps to eliminate internet/network activity from your list of issues.
Click to expand...

ok, I cant get into safe mode, after typing fsck -f it hangs on this:

"I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus"

Is my hard drive screwed?
 
If you have another computer available, I'd recommend trying to start up your bad comp in Target mode (make it a firewire harddrive, basically) and hook it up to a good computer and back up all your data. Sounds like your hard drive needs some serious work.

Target Mode = restart bad comp while holding the T key till you see the firewire symbol. Then plug that comp into another computer using a firewire cable and copy data.

I'd recommend taking your comp to an apple authorized reseller after that and have them check out your comp. Also, there's a good app called Tech Tool Pro that's pretty marvellous when it comes to diagnosing and fixing hard drive issues.

After saving all your personal data to another drive, you could run your Hardware Test cd (do you have it?) and see if it's your Hard Drive or RAM causing your issues.
 
I'd definitely recommend taking your mac to a shop. Have you already backed up your data from the comp? Have the shop do this before they work just in case they have to reinstall OS X.
 
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