Widget melted down my G4

[Slothtyper]

Sorry my first post here has to be this way, I just found your site in my time of need, thanks for your help. I'm typing from a Toshiba, a sad day indeed. Was hacking away normally on my G4 1.3 with 10.4.11 installed and saw an exclamation point on my currency converter widget. Last time I just clicked it, got an update and reinstalled, or it reinstalled itself after opening. Well, today I downloaded the update, and after clicking the icon on my desktop nothing happened. Opened dashboard and the exclamation point is still there. Since I don't know much and Apple has been so bullet-proof until now I dragged this icon on top of my dashboards in the dock and released thinking that maybe it would put it there. The system locked, and I have spent the whole day surfing an answer since now and I'm still stuck in the login screen loop and can hear the CPU working away.

Things I've tried:

Booting in safe mode: It works but only lets me log in as my guest user.

Started holding Command and ran /sbin/fsck -fy which said it repaired the disk. Ran it again and showed no errors.

Ran disk utility from my guest account in safe mode and it repaired 3 or 4 permissions.

I can't repair using the install disks because I don't have them!! Got this machine from my friend who installed 10.4 from his new Macbook pro I assume. Am going to try to access it in target mode because not everything is backed up since the power supply for my external hard drive seems to have quit this week too! Prior to that I had been cloning it.

What are my chances of installing a new copy of Leopard while preserving my files, could that fix it?

Thanks!

 

[Doctor X]

Hrrrrmmmm . . . if you are going to spend the money on Leopard you might as well consider a few other things. I am not certain that Archive and Install will work for with Leopard since you were on Tiger. A Guru may correct me on that. However, there is a chance its Disk Utility will fix what is wrong with your volume.

But hold that point.

There is a slight . . . slight chance it is your HD dying. Had that happen to me. A small program in the background crashed . . . so do what I did next: back up your data.

So priority one should be to do the target disk mode to get what data you need.

BuuuuuuT! IF you have a clone you SHOULD be able to boot off on that and try to save your data. You can then consider an Erase and transfer of your clone-with saved data and then get Leopard to update and have a "bona fide" utility disk. Of course, if you cannot get into the file that does not help you. This is similar to what I did recently when I decided to FUBAR my volume in a glorified moment of stupidity--simply cloned from my clone.

HoooooWEVER . . . if you can boot off the clone, its Disk Utility may be able to save you.

Now, consider getting a dedicated diagnostic and repair program: Disk Warrior This does one major thing: it can take a "picture" of your drive which allows you to pull data. It can also repair things. It is not a maintenance program--search this section for recommendation on free and shareware for that. IF you can boot from your clone, one of them--Cocktail or Onyx may do a better job of fixing your permissions.

Sooooo . . . if it is not your HD--and I am not saying it is--DW may in and of itself fix everything. Then you can consider updating to Leopard.

IF Leopard is going to fail as a Disk Utility for you--I do not know, never tried to do that--then you may consider getting 10.4 disk. Cheap online from reputable dealers. You may consider contacting Apple and they may--or even a dealer--consider packaging both for you. You never know. It could happen.

--J.D.

 

[Slothtyper]

Thanks for your help Doc, you have some interesting options there that I'll continue with tomorrow as if I keep going now I'm worried my eyes will start to bleed The most unfortunate thing in all of this is that my WD MyBook external won't power up right now. I cloned maybe a month ago and put it on the shelf. Two days before my G4 meltdown I dragged it out to reclone, and nothing, absolutely nil. It has a separate power cord and I'm hoping that "the brick" has gone bad and the drive is still fine. I don't know how that would happen sitting on a shelf, but I do leave the AC off when traveling.....maybe the humidity got to it. On top of that I have to track down a double ended USB tomorrow since my friends Mac is brand new and has no firewire! Simple things aren't so simple here......no Best Buy or CompUSA....not even close!

Update on my progress: It now boots fine but only in safe mode and under my guest user. So, I made that an admin, got into the users folder and changed the permissions on my main users home folder and have access to all the information The HD seems fine, and not that it matters really, but it is less than two years old, a replacement for the previous that went bad. Since the widget started the whole mess I deleted the update from the desktop, the entire thing from the library/widget file, and even the .plist entries. No improvement. Since it boots fine in safe mode, doesn't that lead to the problem being with third party software? But then the main user account doesn't log in even in safe mode so who knows. Actually it will log in, but any action beyond that yeilds either nothing or the pinwheel of death. Could some apple software only start for that user in safe mode?

Thanks again, and forgive me....pretty much everything I've just written I learned in the last 24 hours

D.

 

[Doctor X]

Update on my progress: It now boots fine but only in safe mode and under my guest user. So, I made that an admin, got into the users folder and changed the permissions on my main users home folder and have access to all the information

Well . . . awesome! Does not read like it is a HD problem. If you download the freeware Onyx, it will tell you whether or not it is "SMART." That is more for later; reads like it is not the problem.

Since it boots fine in safe mode, doesn't that lead to the problem being with third party software? But then the main user account doesn't log in even in safe mode so who knows. Actually it will log in, but any action beyond that yeilds either nothing or the pinwheel of death. Could some apple software only start for that user in safe mode?

I am not familiar with Safe Mode--I defer to a Guru on that. I would suggest backing up the data--hopefully on your clone once you have that powered up.

You may consider getting a retail disk for 10.4 or a disk specific to your Apple--beg Apple for that or a Guru can recommend something--so you can try repairing what you have. If all else fails, you can try either an Archive and Install or even Erase and Install then transfer your account from your clone.

No problem: most of the stuff I learned came from trying to fix mistakes I created!

--J.D.

 

[Slothtyper]

I won some battles today but lost the war. Ripped the WD My Book apart and put the HD in a new enclosure, works perfectly. Then I messed up the cloning operation by simply "highlighting" the items I wanted to copy in Carbon Copy Cloner instead of actually erasing the ones that I didn't. The result? I copied the defective system files to my cloned external. It's gonna take me a while to get over this one.........

.....the good news is that the user, library, and application files went over too so in the end I won't lose any data. After reading of the failures in epidemic proportions of Western Digital hard drives, I'll be getting an additional external and will keep a minimum of two from now on.

Tomorrow I'll try a friends Tiger disks and see if they'll allow me to archive and restore. My guess is they aren't retail copies. If not can you recommend where to buy a set? I'd rather not upgrade to Leopard even though it may run ok. My machine is 1.3, 768, but I'm sure it would be slower......

Here's another thing. The way I was cloning it wasn't erasing anything just adding what was new, so the files on my external are a lot bigger than on my G4. I don't think that's what i wanted, I thought everything I have was on the laptop too.......

 

[joaniemac]

Try Fastmac.com--they have Tiger in several versions both grey and the retail versions, even one with CDs, but I wouldn't call them cheap--the same price I just paid for the newer Leopard!