Stuck in console mode on Panther

M

maddox

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I bought a Mac on Ebay and I wanted to upgrade it to Tiger. But the person who owned it before me doesn't know the master password for it. So I tried it when I reset and I don't know what exactly went wrong but the install never worked it always says to reset.. Ugh.. And now everything is ion console mode (which I am very bad at). I would like to get visual back but I don't know how. This is my first mac and I am discouraged I feel so lost it is quite differnt from Windows(which I hate) Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Maddox
 
With the install disk in the drive, restart the computer and press and hold down the option key when it is starting back up - a GUI should appear that will allow you to choose the startup volume.

Choose the install disk as the startup volume.

Also - what model mac is it and does it have a cd-only drive or is it a combo drive
(cd burner/ dvd player) or a super drive (reads and burns both cd and dvd)
 
I have tried that method and still no luck(it still says restart). It is a PowerMac G4 sawtooth(i think its sawtooth).
 
If you successfully boot to the Install disk, use Disk Utility
from the drop-down menu and zero out the entire drive.
Choose Mac OS Extended (journaled) as the format.

To zero out the drive, you will need to click on
Security Options and choose Zero Out Data.

This will map out any bad sectors on the hard drive.
 
ok thank you i will try this. Would a new hard drive fix this? Or better yet how do I remormat a HD without the disk..This thing seems really weird..
 
With the install disk in the drive, restart the computer and press and
hold down the d key when it is starting back up.


maddox said:
I have tried that method and still no luck(it still says restart). It is a PowerMac G4 sawtooth(i think its sawtooth).
Click to expand...
 
Is the computer still booting up in console mode?
If so, type reboot and press the return key.


maddox said:
ok thank you i will try this. Would a new hard drive fix this? Or better yet how do I remormat a HD without the disk..This thing seems really weird..
Click to expand...
 
It is possible that the drive is a cd-only drive and will not read the Tiger DVD, or the master password being set is keeping the disk from mounting.

Open the computer case - if there is more than one stick of RAM, carefully remove one of them and close the case back and reboot the computer.
 
ok I did the pull out one ram thing and then there was no visual at all. My monmitor went into power save mode. I don't know what to do with this thing..
 
Restart the computer -
I should have specified to turn the computer off before removing the RAM.


*how many Ram modules does the computer have?
 
Is the computer still booting up in console mode?
If so, type reboot and press the return key.
 
I did turn off the computer :). Restarted and it was a blank screen.(like i said powersave came on.) it had 2 = 256 memory
 
So you put the RAM back, and now you are back up in
console mode?

Type ps and press the return key - what does it list?
 
The first thing you told me to do said
PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND
286 ?? S 0:0.03 -bash

The fsck -yf does nothing
 
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