Beep and blank Screen after 10.4.11 Update

Question

I have a PowerBook G4 that I use for odds and ends; it is not my primary computer. Last night I did some work on it, and when I quit, software update came on with a security update, 10.4.11, and some others (Safari as I recall). I told it to go ahead, and things seemed fine through the entire process until the reboot at the end. When the computer came back on, it gave three beeps and stayed with a black screen and the power light at the base of the screen blinking. This evening I put my 10.4 DVD in the drive and tried to boot from that. No luck (i.e., same behavior), and now the DVD is stuck in the drive.
Ideas? The computer was working fine prior to this.

Answer 1

Hi Charles, and welcome to the forum!
Your HD got hosed pretty bad, you may even have to pull it to get to boot off the Install Disk.
Have you done a PRAM reset...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
Try to restart your computer, hold down Command-s and type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -fy
Enter
(Space before -fy important)
If you can boot from the Install Disk eventually...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates.
May even need to do an Archive and Install if you have room on the HD...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120