Blue screen aftermath on AL powerbook 10.4.5

This is mostlya repost and overlaps and overlong, please forgive... Im writing this at work.
Please help, I will build a shrine in your honour (right after I clean my house). Dale suggested there might be some help if I chucked it out here - thanx dale.
break time in class and I fire up the DIII demo to show a friend - oops too loud _ hit lower volume function key to no effect - oh well, class is starting again, quit, take notes....
next break; time to play again - funny, the volume keys workin Doom now...
Huh? what, no buttons? cmd option esc - no window so I press enter. Miraculously Doom quits, my resolution resets, all seems well... until I try to click anywhere.
With nowhere else to turn to, I shut down with the power button *hey I had no choice(. Reboot, and..... blue screen. Hey they hired bill gates!
so then started much research, cd boots, etc. interesting points
at first, disk utility found no errors on my drive, and only two permissions were corrupted.
second time round, disk utility found plenty of errors. The verify step found some illegal names and then quit with an "underlying process has failed" or something like that . (the window stayed open). I ran repair and it seemed to work. I quit disk utility and go to startup disk to reboot from my newly fixed disk but.... its not there!
back to disk utility and its not there either!!!
look in system profiler; the drive is on ATA but its not mounted!
Use the power button again
now disk utility sees the drive, but it is grayed out, run all the steps and it comes with lots of bad permissions and only a few errors on the disk.
now I look in the terminal; The drive is mounted and I can root around the files, but thats not really much use.
After looking on the web, I decide to try a safeboot first, (holding shift) and miraculously again, it boots no problem!!
this is where I make an image of my book onto my wifes imac.
Okay so it all seems hunkey dorey now, but I eventually realize that my keyboard mapping (actually the keyboard type) has changed to standard US. I am in Japan using a Japanese laptop with keys printed in Japanese (brackets, @ symbol, quotes, etc are different) and there seems no way to turn it back. Apple help has a section on changing the keyboard type:
Mac Help
Index
Specifying a keyboard type
When you connect a keyboard that is not immediately recognized, the Keyboard Setup Assistant automatically opens so you can specify the keyboard type (ANSI, JIS, or ISO). There are three keyboard types that Mac OS X recognizes: ISO (Europe), JIS (Japan), and ANSI. The ANSI keyboard is a standard 101-key layout widely used in the US, North America, and many other parts of the world.
If you are having trouble with your keyboard, you may need to specify the type manually. You can use Keyboard & Mouse preferences to open the Keyboard Setup Assistant and specify the keyboard type.
To specify the keyboard type:
Open System Preferences and click Keyboard & Mouse.
Click Keyboard.
Click the "Change Keyboard Type" button.
Follow the steps when the Keyboard Setup Assistant appears.
except this button doesnt exist in the Mouse and Keyboard Control panel. Mac tech support was no help either, they just stumbled through the recipe for setting my international input settings, which are just fine, and which I've tried already. They couldnt find the magic button either, or tell me how to launch the keyboard setup assistant. They tried to tell me that my mac didnt have this assistant installed because it was a laptop with a builtin keyboard. As a sidenote, they couldnt find their <expletive... expletive> if it was <likely to be censored if I typed it> down there at Apple Support Tokyo.
Doesn't anybody know how to launch the keyboard setup assistant / edit a file / set a preference with terminal which will give me back a JIS keyboard?
To compound matters, I am living with about 15 application crashes so far today incl. the Dock, Photoshop CS2, Automator, iTunes, iPhoto, and Finder (with varying degrees of frequency). Automator scripts saved as folder action plugins also seem to have the need to run between 3 and 12 times before they feel that they are done, whereas they work fine from automator. I opened the plugin in script editor and did nothing but retype the same thing and save it, and I got it down to only launching the script twice when adding to the folder. :'-/
Its so strange I also thought it was a virus.
Good luck to us all who have seen this bluescreen - Im not totally convinced this isnt a hardware problem, like bad bits on the drive or in some ram somewhere, but I don't know much, except that I seem to know more than the Apple Japan tech support guys.
Help Please
AL 15in DL SuperDrive Mac OS X (10.4.5) I have a wacom tablet BT control panel installed which wreaked havoc on the wifes Macintel
AL 15in DL SuperDrive Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I haven't heard of that before personally but there are two troubleshooting ideas that come to mind:
1. login as a new user on your computer and see how it looks. they'll have fresh settings so it should be a rather pure look at your computer.
2. if the other user does not have the problem then look into any fonts you have installed in /~youraccount/Library/Fonts.
Without being familiar with your issue I don't know of it is a font issue or a hardware issue. Both are annoying.

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Try starting up from your latest OS installer CD or DVD. If the machine starts up from the disc, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu in the Installer application, select your internal hard drive, click the First Aid tab, and check the hard drive's SMART status near the bottom of the DU window. If it is Verified, run the Repair Disk routine, and if any repairs are needed, run that routine repeatedly until no further problems are noted and repaired. Then try starting the machine normally from its hard drive.
If the hard drive's SMART status is Failing, replace the drive. You can salvage un-backed-up files from it after you get your machine back up and running again.

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Backstory--
I've had my 12-inch Powerbook G4 for about 3.5 years already, so things are starting to get a bit out of whack. I replaced my battery about 3 months ago, which has been great, but recently my power-cord has been wonky (having to unplug it and replug it in to make sure it actually charges the computer, the light flickers on and off, etc). Today it actually started producing SPARKS at the place where the thin white wire meets the white plastic power brick, so I decided it was time to get a new one. Brought it home, plugged it in, and since it seemed like the battery indication icon on the menu bar was all out of sync with the powercord colored-light, I tried restarting it a few times, but still the same. Then, I decided to reset the PMU, which may have been a huge mistake. And now it won't boot past the blue screen... Any advice? I'm going to try restarting it in "safe" mode, but I'd be so grateful for any recommendations. Hope I haven't done something irreversibly stupid with the PMU reset.
Thanks,
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Hello all,
Thanks for all of your great suggestions and info-- here are a few responses.
1) The disk I just borrowed from my friend appears to be the full retail version-- it looks just like the links that Ali B sent, and is in a large box saying "Mac OSX Tiger, version 10.4"... will this be the proper disk to do an Erase and Install? The only other disks I have came with my Powerbook when it was originally purchased, when it came Panther (I think, 10.3?). Would I use both sets of these disks to do erase and install? Or only the Tiger OSX disks?
2) I get the sense that Disk Warrior or Tech Tool might be necessary, but does it make sense to TRY to do erase-install before buying them? Also, are there any downloadable (for pay) versions of this, or would I need to track down the actual physical disks in Hong Kong or wait for them to be shipped?
3) I haven't yet tried the S.M.A.R.T. test, should I do that first? What is the procedure? Are there any results or ways to know if the drive is too far gone (so that I might instead replace the internal hard-drive) instead of pay 100 USD first to do the disk repair?
4) Cornelius said: "An alternative would be to completely reformat and erase the entire HDD, then re-install and restore your data from backup. If your backup is in the form of a bootable clone of the entire HDD, you can just clone it back." I use Super-Duper to back-up and the most recent one copied the whole thing-- what would be the later procedure of "cloning it back"?
5) As I'm able to use my computer pretty normally right now, but does it still mean that it might crash/die at any moment? Is there any way to tell?
Thanks so much!

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For the information:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1411?viewlocale=en_US#symp1
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- I can't put my computer in Firewire target disk mode - the Fireware icon screen appears but it doesn't mount on my apple dekstop.
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Message was edited by: NGrignon

I don't know where is my old PB G4 install disk, so I can't try that.
And, there in lies the solution. Without an OS disc to repair the OS you are up the creek without an OS disc.

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- Reseted PRAM
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- Reformatted the HDD
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- Verbose Mode shows no signs of errors and it continues to blue screen n sits there.
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- Works perfectly fine with Linux
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- RAM tested OK
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- Tried removing Airport card.
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15-inch PowerBook G4s with 1.5 and 1.67Ghz processors had a serious logic board fault that caused one RAM slot to fail. Use "About this Mac" to see if all the RAM installed is recognized, or remove one RAM module at a time and see it the computer runs properly on the other module.

Powerbook g4 stuck on blue screen

I have a powerbook g4 15" 1 ghz.
It has been running slow and the hard drive makes running sounds when nothing is open so I thought I would re-load the OS which is OS 10.5. So I got the original disk that came with the computer and loaded it into the DVD drive. I opened the disk image and hit the icon for loading the OS. It re-starts and gets all the way past the chimes and the grey screen with the apple but freezes at the blue screen right before it seems it should show the desktop. There are no sounds coming from the drive it's just frozen. What should I do now? Anyone?

At this point I would run the Apple hardware test. Since you have the original OS X disks, find the first one that should say 'AHT Version x.x' in small print on the label, probably on the first disk (maybe the one in the system!). Insert and reboot while holding down the alt/option key, choose the Apple hardware test, click the arrow pointing to the right, and when prompted choose the extended test. Does it complete and does it identify any hardware issues?

PowerBook G4 won't boot past blue screen

I've read a couple of posts with similar problems. The jist is, I did a security update/restart earlier and now my laptop won't boot past the blue screen after the white screen with the gray apple. I think I'm on Mac OS 10.4.11 but I had it on auto-update so that could be incorrect.
I've booted from the install disk and run a diagnostic from the First Aid bit in the Disk Utility. It says that there are no errors found and the S.M.A.R.T. status says "verified" as well. It won't let me boot into Safe Mode (although, I could be doing that wrong as I'm not exactly clear on how to do it - pressing S doesn't seem to do anything, but if I press Command + S it takes me to a text listy thing and I've run the "fsck -f" system check (which seems like the same as the disk utility check?) from there and also gotten the "volume is ok" message. There was also a suggestion to run some kind of diagnostic after booting with the D key from the install disk, but I was never able to get the disk to boot from the D key, only the C key.
I'm sure that this is kind of the "same song, different verse," kind of post, but I've not read about volumes registering as okay. I'm a little wary of a archive-and-reinstall as I've not ever done that before (so, if that's the suggestion you have, I would really appreciate loads of specifics on how that works so I don't mess up!)
I've read in several instances suspicion of a hard drive problem but I've not had any slow downs or any crashing. I did travel to the UK for about 10 days, but I didn't even change the time zone on my laptop while there, so I don't think that's it (but I suppose it could be.)
Lastly, I did recently replace my keyboard. A few keys had become non-responsive so I replaced it and have had the new keyboard for a bit over a month.
Suggestions? Ideas? Sorry if it's a repeat post -- just felt like the circumstance was a teensy bit different. And also, thanks very much for any info you can give.

Linsey:
If you can boot your computer into Firewire Target Disk Mode and you have access to a second Mac that supports firewire, you may be able to back up items that have not been backed up previously.
If you are able to back everything up successfully, and you have tested your backup to be sure it is sound, then we can proceed with re-installation of the OS. The best option is to completely reformat and erase the HDD and then install the OS from disk. (I will post complete step by step directions). This will enable you to start with a clean slate/HDD. Your other option would be to use the Archive and Install option. Think it over and let me know how you want to proceed.
cornelius

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You should run the Apple hardware test. It's either on your original OS X disks that came with the system, or yours is old enough it might be able to run from an image on http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html . If you have either of the TechTool programs, they can do similar testing.

Desktop will not load, stuck on blue screen -- please help!

As I can see, many other Mac users have encountered the same problem that I now have: the dreaded ‘blue screen of death’. About a week ago, any internet browser that I tried to open (Safari, Firefox) would freeze after loading its home page, and tell me that the application was not responding. After force quitting and restarting each program a couple of times, with no positive response, I decided to restart my computer to see if that would do the trick. Upon booting up, it then started the same sequence that it is still doing now: first a grey screen will briefly show, then a white screen with the apple logo and a turning dial beneath it, followed by a blue screen which will show a window that says “Starting Mac OS X” with a progress bar beneath it, which will fill to various points (sometimes only 1/8 of the way, while other times it fills completely), but it always leads me to the same screen – solid blue with a black arrow that will occasionally be replaced with a turning dial, only to go back to the arrow again. I am using a PowerBook G4 with the Tiger version of OS X. No applications were running whenever I first decided to restart my computer, and to my knowledge, all software and security patches were up to date and fully installed.
I’ve researched and tried every possible option that I’ve come across, listed below with the results they yielded (if any):
 Holding the Command/Option/P/R keys upon startup (screen stays blank, and the computer continues to ‘chime’ until I release the keys. I have allowed it to chime a couple of times before I stop holding the keys, but it always leads me back to the same blue screen)
 Holding the Shift key upon startup (leads me to a screen that has an icon of my hard drive and two arrows. Clicking the left arrow does nothing, the hard drive icon does not respond to being clicked, and the right arrow starts the loading process which again ends with the blue screen)
 With the first OS X Installation disc that came with my computer inserted into the disc drive, holding the C key (nothing happens; sequence as normal)
 With the first OS X Installation disc that came with my computer inserted into the disc drive, holding the Option key (same results as holding shift key with no disc)
 With the first OS X Installation disc that came with my computer inserted into the disc drive, holding Option/Command/Shift/Delete (a grey screen appears with the icon of a folder, a question mark briefly flashes before being replaced by the two-toned blue face Mac logo. After continuing to hold the keys with this folder and face on the screen, I get no response, so release the keys and the computer continues to enter the white screen-blue screen sequence)
 Holding the Command/Option/O/F keys upon startup (a white screen appears, and following advice I have seen on other forums a type ‘reset-nvram’, then return, then ‘reset-all’, then return. The computer reboots and the sequence continues as usual. I have also tried holding the Command/Option/P/R to reset the PRAM immediately after leaving the white Open Firmware screen, allow the chime to sound a couple of times as before, but still I get no results)
 While on the blue screen, pressing the Command/Shift/Q keys (alas, I am the only user on the computer, so I cannot try to remedy my problem by signing into another account. From the screen the appears, I can either shut down, restart, or put my computer to sleep, or enter my password which leads me back to the same blue screen again)
I apologize in advance if I’ve included a lot of extraneous information, but I just wanted to cover the options I’ve already explored so as not to waste your time if you had any of these in mind. I’m going to post this on a few different forums just to make sure I have all my bases covered, but anything you have to offer in the way of suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If you could post your advice in layman’s terms that would be even more helpful; I’ll probably need exact, step-by-step instructions if required to start my computer in ‘safe mode’ or anything else an average user would not be familiar with. I know this is a lot to ask, so I thank you in advance for taking the time to read through this and offer any solutions that you may have.

Hi amnicolekidman, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Although you don't specify your Mac, it sounds like you have real HW problems, likely the HD.
Tough without a Tiger Disk, but try fsck...
To use fsck, you must run it from the command line. Unlike using your mouse to open an application to do something, you'll need to type a text command at the prompt (#) to tell fsck what to do. The Terminal application (/Applications/Utilities) and single-user mode are two examples of command-line interfaces in which you can type such commands. To use fsck:
1. Start up your computer in single-user mode to reach the command line. Hold CMD+s keys down at bootup. Note: If necessary, perform a forced restart as described in the Emergency Troubleshooting Handbook that came with your computer. On desktop computers, you can do this by pressing the reset/interrupt button (if there is one) or holding down the power button for several seconds. On portable computers, simultaneously press the Command-Control-power keys. If your portable computer doesn't restart with this method, you may need to reset the Power Manager.
2. At the command-line prompt, type /sbin/fsck -fy
3. Press Return. fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found: ** The volume (nameofvolume) appears to be OK  If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message: *** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***   Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2 until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).
4. When fsck reports that your volume is OK, type reboot at the prompt and then press Return.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), off the HD & use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, reboot once more.

OS 10.4.5 failure to startup-login window/ black screen/ blue screen-frozen

Hi there,
To anybody that can help me, I thank you very much indeed in advance.
G4 Powerbook, 1.5gHz, 2gb Ram (1gb kingston ram added since purchase date), OS 10.4.5, security update 2006-002 (v1.1 (?) recently installed).
My current problem is that i cannot log into OS X. It boots as far as the login window, which is unresponsive, and then it then flicks to a black screen with 2 or 3 lines of white text and then flicks to a totally 'mac-blue' screen with the black arrow pointer still active.
A history of my problem;
1) Yes, unfortunately I tried to get front row to work on my machine (the hack with the front row enabler etc), and subsequently removed all traces of it after it screwed up a few things (menu bar missing, failure to restart). This tidy-up involved doing something with system library, bezel services...etc.
2) I recently installed the first version of security update 2006-002. i am not saying this is the cause, but sometime after I did this, things started going wrong again. another thing i did recently which i hadnt in the past was to have itunes appear at startup and a few days later i emptied my hard drive of all my music and had this linked to a lacie 250gb via firewire 800. The problem at this was that login/startup was incredibly slow and sometimes the finder would keep relaunching itself on its own once the operating system was up and running. Also, when i tried safe boot, the login window would appear and then it would flick to a black screen. it would let me type in a username, but it would not let me input anything for the password.(I did use disk utility to repair permissions when i did manage to logon).
This whole problem seemed to go away for a day or two, but the login was still slower than usual the past few days.
I then turned on my powerbook this morning and login was extremely long and never completed fully- lots of pinwheel spins, menu bar not loading, itunes not appearing.
After a few forced shutdowns I left the computer for maybe 5-10 mins and it seemed to sort itself out after a few finder relaunches etc, and so i tried a few things;
3) I tried installing the newer version of the security update 2006-002 version 1.1 i think? At the same time i took itunes off the startup launches and also switched off auto login for my account (a silly idea it seems).
Since restarting from the security update, the operating system gets to the login window, which is unresponsive, and then it then flicks to a black screen with 2 or 3 lines of white text and then flicks to a totally 'mac-blue' screen with the black arrow pointer still active.(this is with the power adaptor connected only, no other cables etc)
I have tried Resetting PRAM, and using fsck, although I am slightly unsure as to whether or not this is useful to me anyway. I cannot reinstall the operating system until next week as my mum has my copy of tiger at home a few hundred miles away!
Any help at all would be so greatly appreciated, especially on the eve of my two year anniversary with my powerbook!
Kind regards,
Henry Harker

Hi Henry
I've just encountered this problem with one of our computers at work. Hopefully this will help.
It's a Login Window Prefs problem. It's probably corrupted so you need to remove the prefs file.
1. Startup in safe mode (hold down shift). You should get a login window for the master admin account.
2. Delete the file: userName>Library>Preferences>com.apple.loginwindow.plist
3. Restart.
Let me know how you go.
Cheers
MattD
PowerMac G5, dual 2.5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Can't get past the blue screen of death

I woke up this morning to discover my computer froze on the screensaver sometime last night. I restarted and after the grey apple screen got a blue screen which shifted to a lighter blue screen with the mouse cursor and it never moves beyond that. My Applecare expired in July. Here's everything I've tried:
-I was running Leopard, so put my Leopard disc in to startup from it and run Disc Doctor, it weirdly spits it out, while I'm holding 'C' and right about the time it should startup from it.
-I zapped the PRAM
-I reset the SMU
-I tried running tech tools from the Apple Care Disc, it spits that one out too
-I restarted in 'single user mode', ran fsck and it corrected a couple things but no change
-I put in the Tiger Install Disc that came with the computer, I'm able to startup from that and I go ahead and run disc doctor. nothin
-I run hardware test, the extended version, everything passes, calming my fears about the logicboard, video card, etc
-I restarted from the Install Disc and perform an Archive and Install of Tiger. It all goes smoothly, except now it goes from the grey apple screen and freezes at the first blue screen, not making it to the lighter one with a cursor.
-I retry using the Apple Care Disc with Tech Tools and instead of spitting it out, it takes a really long time to load and come up with 2 blue squares overlapping on a black background, a Tech Tools Glow Plugin finder window comes up in one of them and then everything freezes with weird red pixels across the top of the finder window. ODD
-NEW EVENT, it can boot in Safe Mode in Tiger. What should I do from there?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It reads the disc when I have it running in Tiger Safe Mode, but won't startup from it. It no longer spits it out, but the disc spins and spins and the fan runs hardcore for a few mins and nothing beyond the blue screen.
I do have another Mac, but its an older powerbook from work and I can't really do much on it. The powers that be control pretty much everything on it.
In theory, would a clean install (from my Tiger disc) take care of this all? I'm considering getting another external harddrive to backup everything and then just whiping the harddrive and starting over.

Blue screen aftermath on AL powerbook 10.4.5

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