os x wont start (help)

A

alanhoggard

Registered
i am using a 400 mhz slot loading imac. os 9.2 works great, but when i try to start os x it will begin to start, then it will freeze and i will get a prompt asking form a password failure or something, kind of like a dos prompt. Please help!
Alan
 
Not sure if you have any valued info on you OS X partion? If possible can you boot off an external drive running X and see if you can access the OSX partition that way. You can also try booting from CD, start up with your OS X disc in the CD drive and hold down the letter C, but I think that will only let you re-install the OS...
 
the problem is that i bought the comp used and it didnt come with any system disks. I would love to know if their is a trick such as starting up with extensions off in os 9
 
Welcome, Alan!

Holding down the shift key during boot starts OS X in "safe mode".

Doug

(I'm not a big Open Firmware expert, but it kind of sounds like someone set password protection in the computer's firmware. Can you get the password from the previous owner?)
 
In OS 9, search for the folder "etc". Try adding a text file called "master.password" and put your desired password in it. (I don't know if this will work, I haven't run across this problem (even though I have the same machine), but it just occurred to me. Who knows, it could work.)
 
Yeah, but not the password. Just create a file named master.passwd, and place it in the etc folder of the OS X drive.

Put this in the master.passwd file:

##
# User Database
#
# Note that this file is consulted when the system is running in single-user
# mode. At other times this information is handled by lookupd. By default,
# lookupd gets information from NetInfo, so this file will not be consulted
# unless you have changed lookupd's configuration.
##
nobody:*:-2:-2::0:0:Unprivileged User:/dev/null:/dev/null
root:*:0:0::0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/tcsh
daemon:*:1:1::0:0:System Services:/var/root:/dev/null
unknown:*:99:99::0:0:Unknown User:/dev/null:/dev/null
smmsp:*:25:25::0:0:Sendmail User:/private/etc/mail:/dev/null
www:*:70:70::0:0:World Wide Web Server:/Library/WebServer:/dev/null
mysql:*:74:74::0:0:MySQL Server:/dev/null:/dev/null
sshd:*:75:75::0:0:sshd Privilege separation:/var/empty:/dev/null

(That's an exact copy of the master.passwd file I have - not changed by me at all).

I'd suggest saving this with BBEdit, if you have it, and make sure that it's using UNIX line breaks. I have no idea if the file will be accepted if it's saved with the standard Mac line breaks.

Note that you will need to edit the privileges of the file once you get OS X working. Probably a repair permissions from Disk Utility will fix it.
 
Thanks guys I will try this as soon as i get a chance, does the etc folder go in the library folder, and can the text file be a simple text file?
 
The "etc" folder should already be there on the main drive (OS X one). Just put the file in there.

No, it can't be a Simple Text file, but only because it saves files in a format OS X can't natively read.
 
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