Stuck at "Login Window Starting"

O

OrganLeroy

Registered
My Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz, running Panther with all updates, suddenly cannot get past the "Login Window Starting" screen during startup.

Just before this happened, I had noticed the computer getting a little sluggish. I ran Disk Utility and repaired permissions, which seemed to go just fine. I then restarted.

Now the startup procedure seems to run fine, and the startup window runs through its usual messages, until it gets to "Login Window Starting", and gets no further. The mouse still responds, and I can hit the power button to get the shutdown window. But that's it.

I've tried restarting while holding down the Shift key, but the results are exactly the same (with the words "Safe Boot" added to the startup window.)

I'm on the road at the moment. Do I need to have my Panther software disks sent to me? Are there any other possible solutions? Any ideas much appreciated.
 
hmmmm, strange. Did you try to boot into the single user mode and run fsck? Otherwise the panther disc should be of help.
 
reboot and hold apple+s. You will get into some kind of terminal (fullscreen). Type fsck -f and see if that helps you out.
 
Zammy-Sam said:
reboot and hold apple+s. You will get into some kind of terminal (fullscreen). Type fsck -f and see if that helps you out.
Click to expand...

OK--I did that, got the system check messages and "volume repaired successfully"--but startup still freezes at the same place.

I'm pretty comfortable navigating around directories and using basic Unix commands--are there any files I can delete (such as preferences) that might solve this problem?

If not, and I get a hold of my Panther software disks, what should I do next? Is there something short of a full archive/reinstall that I might try?
 
unfortunately there is no user-preferences file loaded yet, when you still didn't log-in. I don't think there is anything you can do about it. If you reinstall, your previous system will be archived.
 
This sound like that you may have a Corrupt OS. This sort of thing happend to me not that long ago.

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43190


When this happend to my PowerBook I decided to perform the following steps, before calling Apple


1.) Run fsck -fy

2.) Run an extended version fsck_hfs -pr/dev/disk0s9 (now I'm not a Linux buff, so I'm not quite sure if this will work on your computer)

3.) Try Disk Utility

4.) Run Apple's Hardware test (be sure to perform the extended test)

5.) If you have some extra cash go out and pick up Disk Warrior, or Drive 10 (Be prepared to spend around $100 )

6.) Write zeros to disk, this step completely erases ALL dara on the HD

7.) Reinstall X

8.) If all else fails (and your computer is out of warranty) go to the top of a very tall building and see if your computer can fly (just kidding)


After performing all the steps, I felt ok calling apple. Since my PowerBook was still under warranty they replaced the HD. Turns out I had a bad port on the HD. Ths was caused by moving the computer to much :(
 
exactly...after installing the latest update getting that hanging "login screen starting", which never stops starting, but never actually starts.

is there any hope?
 
gadge said:
exactly...after installing the latest update getting that hanging "login screen starting", which never stops starting, but never actually starts.

is there any hope?
Click to expand...

Frustrating, isn't it? I tried all the suggestions given here, and several others I found in various threads. Nothing worked.

My PB G4 is still under warranty, so I let the Apple store deal with it. They did a system re-install that preserved all my existing data.
 
my powerbook would hang at the same spot, I had just installed a stick of ram that osx didnt like.
 
I realize this issue is old, but I've had this happen to me a few times. I have my OS set to automatically log in as a user. If a couple of reboots doesn't clear up the "login window starting" hang, I boot from my Panther Disk 1. When the installation screen comes up, I choose "reset password" from the menu above. Then, I reenter the password for the user that is supposed to be automatically logged in, reboot and all is well. I read somewhere awhile back that the password can sometimes get corrupted which causes the OS boot to hang when it tries the automatic log in. I don't know why, so I can't say how to prevent it, but at least this is a 5-minute fix that doesn't require re-installing the OS.

Hope this helps!
-AJ
 
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