"C" Key startup Problem

I am needing to run Repair Disk in disk utility by starting up with the Mac OS X install disc.
I have read over forums etc. and the apparent way to do this is by inserting the install disc and holding c down when the computer boots up.
Whenever i do this the mac thinks about it for a bit before ejecting the install disc and starting up normally?
Any help appreciated
Sam

okay so i tried that and i get 2 options , the mac os x option or the cd option.
i select the cd option and it thinks about it before once again ejecting the cd and starting up normally?
is the system not recognizing the cd as a start up disc? is there anyway else to run repair disc without having to use the start up method?

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Can't use Option key startup

When I try to do Option key startup, I get a black screen. After two minutes, I let go the key, and still just balck screen.
I am trying to choose startup disk during boot.
This problem seems to have started after I installed internal SATA drive running on Sonnet card.
James

Here is the article about Startup Manager.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178
Is you "Dual 500 G4" a Power Mac with AGP Graphics? I assume it is, but if you have an processor upgrade, maybe not.
Is it possible that the Sonnet card does not work with Startup Manager? If so, you may need to start up from another disk, or a Mac OS X Installation Disk, and choose your startup disk explicitly.

Startup Problems with my iMac

I am trying to troubleshoot a startup problem on my iMac and can't seem to get it to boot at all. The problem began last night when I tried to the whole HD to a previous time point in Time Machine. I only went back to earlier the same day to correct another issue that I inadvertently created. In an attempt to keep this short, I will stick to the facts.
Last night I started the restore process by booting from the OSX dvd and then restoring the machine from a TM backup from earlier in the day. (external firewire drive) Everything seemed to be moving along fine with the estimated completion time several hours away, so I went to bed. This morning I woke up to find my machine will not start up. I get the normal chime and the white screen but then it is as if a gray curtain falls down the screen and soon after a dark gray square appears in the middle with the instructions to turn off the machine and re-start it, in several languages. This happens whether or not the OSX DVD is inserted and regardless of any keys (shift,c I've tried so far) that are held during startup. I am trying to startup from the original disc that came with the machine (OSX 10.5.6), but I get the same result if the disc is ejected and I try to startup from the HD. All peripherals have been removed.
What am I missing? What is the trick to getting the machine to boot from the DVD?

Success! Not sure what happened, but this time I started up from the 10.6 dvd (SL) (instead of the 10.5 that the machine shipped with) and did the restore from Time Machine (same as previous attempts). This time it seemed to work and when I restarted the iMac, it came up like normal.
Thanks for the link Carolyn. I did do disk utility a couple of times and it consistently came back OK. It's now going through a very long TM backup, I guess it must be a new one even though all the previous ones are still there in the TM viewer.

Startup problems after battery change

My G4 Desktop, now getting on for 6 years old, but working perfectly until recently, needed a battery change on the mainboard as the clock was having problems. However this has led to startup problems: initially, following the startup chord, the computer wouldn't start at all. After some online digging, I found references to the CUDA button/zapping the PRAM. I can now restart by resetting CUDA, but the computer usually won't restart or even start from power off, meaning I have to go back to the CUDA button every time. The computer also fails to recognize the installed RAM, except for 128MB, corresponding to one of three RAM strips.
Apart from the battery, the only other likely contributing factors are that the computer's been shipped internationally recently (however, it was professionally packed and shipped, and made its first restart after this move without problems). The other potential factor is the switch in voltage, from 240 to 110, but that was handled normally by switching over on the back of the case.
I would really appreciate any advice that can help me get this old clunker back in action, and with all RAM recognized. Nice as an upgrade would be, it's not a strong option for me at the moment, and I'm otherwise satisfied with the G4 anyway.
Powermac G4 Desktop Mac OS X (10.4.2)
Powermac G4 Desktop Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Hi, Yukiguni!
You sure have an interesting problem...
You might review Texas Macman's tutorial at the following link:
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html
I'd check that replacement battery with a voltmeter to insure that it's good. ("New" isn't necessarily synonymous with "fresh".)
You might try completely de-energizing your Mac. In the link above, there's a Tip just above the Battery section that refers to what to do when sometimes computers lose their mind. This procedure oftentimes works to reset a PMU/CUDA that seems to refuse to reset properly and retain the correct startup parameters.
If you can get the Mac to boot from disk again, you might run the Apple Hardware Disk. Definitely run Repair Disk from the install disk if you haven't already done so and can get it to boot from disk. (You might try booting to the Startup Manager by holding down the option key at startup and trying to select the disk from there. Your best bet for success is to do so just after resetting the CUDA/PMU.)
Gary

I am having an MacBok Pro 13inch,having an Startup Problem, the time i press the power button after few seconds the apple symbol appears w/a loading sign below it

i am having an MacBook Pro 13inch , having an Startup Problem , the time i press the power button after few seconds the apple symbol appears with a loading sign below it and wont go further ahead of it . My data is all in the hard drive .. . I even tried the Internet recovery but no use !!!! but still no respons and the recovery and macintosh hd is now lock! but earlier only the recovery is lock and after both of them is lock. i can reinstall,... and i didnt try to back up any data bec i dont know how? so please help me to resolve my prroblem.?

luoie wrote:
This thing happend,, it say Disk utility stopped repairing "Macintosh HD" disk utility can't repair this disk
Sorry, possibly you need a new hard drive or try reformating. First
you can try something like http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/ it has been known to repair disk that DiskUtility could not. YMMV and they don't give it away.
If Disk Warrior can not repair then you need to Reformate the drive. Make sure you have a back-up in place no matter what.
http://www.apple.com/support/backup/
Disk Utility will tell you something about it's SMART status:

I am having a Startup problem. Someone comes on the screen with Open Firmware to Startup. How can I reset the PRAM myself to solve this problem?

I am having a Startup problem. Someone comes on the screen with Open Firmware to Startup. How can I reset the PRAM myself to solve this problem?

Read these.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330118-263.html

Dual Monitor Startup Problem on MacPro - Solved

I have a model 53135LL/A = mid 2010 MacPro with 8 cores, DUAL monitor cards and monitors, 24GB memory, running Lion 10.7.3. It is important to note that I am also using the Apple bluetooth Magic Mouse and the smaller, bluetooth keyboard (no numeric keypad). This unit was supplied with Lion in December 2011 and has had a startup problem from the beginning as follows:
1 - when starting from a cold start the dual monitor positions are reversed from the correct position
2 - additionally the USB and firewire connected devices (e.g. Wacom tablet, 2 card readers) do not function properly.
The workaround for me has been to start the system, wait for the logon screen, then click restart. Upon restart everything comes up and functions correctly.
Specifics on my setup and starting problems:
1 - My main monitor (Monitor #2) is a large gamut monitor that is located to the right. This monitor is connected to card slot 1 as that is the faster card slot (pcx16). The second monitor (Monitor #1) is an ordinary unit and connected to card slot 2 (pcx4). The monitors are set up as an extended desktop.
2. The Wacom tablet (Intuous 3 wide) is connected to USB port on rear of machine. CF card reader by Delkin is connected to Firewire on rear of machine, and an SD card reader is connected to USB on the rear of the machine.
3. My dock is positioned on the left side of the left monitor. The menu bar is along the top of the left monitor, and all desktop icons are on the left monitor. The right monitor has no items on it.
On a typical cold start, as mentioned above, the apple logo appears on the right and then the logon screen appears on the right.
If I proceed to logon at that point, all the desktop items move to the right monitor and the computer thinks the positions are reversed. In other words, it behaves as though the right monitor (#2) is on the left of the desktop and left monitor (#1) is on the right.
Additionally, the Wacom tablet using either pen or mouse does not map over the full desktop range. If I use either card reader and then eject the card, no further card insertions will be recognized.
To fix this, I simply restart the machine thru the apple menu and everything comes up correctly.
I had discovered, that instead of completing the logon on a bad cold start, I could simply restart from the logon screen and all would work correctly.
On occasion, the logon screen would come up on the left monitor (as it should do) and in that case, if I log on all works correctly.
I have worked with Apple support on the phone, clearing setup ram etc. Have had the unit in to Apple store for hardware check, all OK. Next suggestion was reload OS and start over - no thanks.
SO - Here is the latest.
If I turn off my keyboard and mouse before starting the machine, then wait for the logon screen to appear - It starts correctly, with the logon screen on the left. I can then turn on my keyboard and mouse and all works as it should.
Bottom line - there appears to be a startup issue with Bluetooth devices from a cold start. Note that once the machine has been used for a bit, I can turn it off for short periods of time (e.g. 30 minutes) and it will start correctly even with the mouse and keyboard turned on.

mkaito wrote:
That's how dwm behaves. I believe dwm's multihead support is rather lackluster out of the box. You might want to check out some of the patches they have, and ask around in the dwm hackers thread.
I currently have dwm simply draw status on all monitors, but I'm investigating separate status bars per monitor. We'll see where that takes me. Dwm is a tinker's WM!
i found the patch , thanks!

Problems with ViaVoice under Leopard, especially key mapping problems

ViaVoice's behavior has changed considerably under Leopard. First I will discuss the key mapping problem, since I'm eagerly looking for an answer to this problem. At the end of this post, I will voice some of the other problems I've experienced for those who may be interested. The key mapping problem may be specific to the fact that I use a foreign keyboard with a US version of ViaVoice.
INTRO:
I have used ViaVoice on my Mac for years, more or less without problems (ViaVoice's bugginess is notorious).
Those who know ViaVoice will know that one has two general options for dictation. One can dictate into ViaVoice's so-called SpeakPad, which allows special formatting, editing and dictation error correction within the dictated text, or one can dictate into "external" software such as Microsoft Word, in which case ViaVoice just sends a string of characters to that software. SpeakPad appears to make strong use of the operating system's built-in functionality for character formatting, document formatting, etc.
*MY PROBLEM*
I have a German keyboard on my PowerBook, yet dictate in US English. When I dictated into SpeakPad under Tiger, all characters appeared correctly. However, when I dictated into Microsoft Word using Tiger, I had to switch the keyboard mapping from German to US to get all characters (that means including the characters that are located at different positions on a German keyboard than they are on a US keyboard such as y, z, apostrophes and parentheses) to appear correctly.
Under Leopard, things have changed. Now it doesn't matter whether I dictate into SpeakPad or Word; the results are the same and many characters do not appear correctly.
If set to a German keyboard, y and z appear as expected. To name a few irregularities:
"(" appears as ")"
")" appears as "="
apostrophes appear as "#" and
";" appears as ","
If set to a US keyboard, y and z are interchanged. "(" and ")" appear as expected. Apostrophes appear as "\" and ";" appears as ","
By comparison, if typed (as opposed to dictated, as in the examples above) "correctly" (i.e. based on the letters printed on the keyboard) on a German keyboard set to imitate a US keyboard:
y and z are interchanged
apostrophes appear as "|"
"(" appears as "*"
")" appears as "(" and
";" appears as the symbol for "less than"
Since I don't have a US keyboard, I can't say how it would behave if set to imitate a German keyboard, i.e. if there's a correlation to the results I get when I dictate.
Since I was previously able to dictate correctly into SpeakPad by setting the keyboard to "German" and into Word by setting the keyboard to "US," I presume that this is a problem in Leopard, not ViaVoice.
*OTHER PROBLEMS WITH VIAVOICE UNDER LEOPARD*
In addition to the aforementioned key mapping problems (that may be specific to those of us with foreign keyboards), ViaVoice appears to have lost considerable functionality in Leopard. I cannot access SpeakPad's Preferences and the correction window. Moreover, the traffic-light like window buttons have disappeared from the VoiceCenter (although they work if you click where they should be). SetupAssistent appears to function.
I've written to Nuance about these problems, but have little hope that they will invest the time in producing a patch since they haven't released any updates since 2003.

Thrums1,
I've never had to "register" ViaVoice after updating the system. I thus suspect you haven't fully followed my above, three-step advice (particularly step 3).
1) Reinstall ViaVoice from CD.
2) Update to the latest version (using the patch downloadable from Nuance's website).
3) Replace the “temp” and “users” folders (in the "ViaVoice" folder at the upper level of your home directory) by a previous copy thereof. When I say previous copy, I mean a copy from when ViaVoice was still working properly, e.g. a copy from when it was running under Tiger.
As I said, I've gotten ViaVoice to survive several system updates by following the above steps. To my knowledge, the last step is critical since it saves you from having to reconfigure ViaVoice under the new operating system (in this case Leopard). I suspect that ViaVoice is crashing on your system because it's trying to start some module of the SetUpAssistant that is incompatible with Leopard (as many are). If you instead use old copies of the "temp" and "users" folders (from the previous system), then ViaVoice doesn't have to go through the initial "registration" process; ViaVoice doesn't need the SetUpAssistant; and all is (more or less) fine.
Good luck!
BTW, to my knowledge, Dictate only runs on Intel Macs. It thus won't run on a G4 iBook, just as it won't run on my PowerBook G4.

After a startup problem with my macbook pro i put it as slave and formatted the internal Hard drive. Now i want to install OS X Mavericks from USB

After a startup problem with my macbook pro i put it as slave and formatted the internal Hard drive. Now i want to install OS X Mavericks from USB
How can i do that?

What did you "put as slave?" What Mac model do you have, exactly?

Can anyone diagnose my startup problem from this screen pattern?

After failing to startup my Mac on about 8 consecutive attempts today, I finally got it to boot up, and now I'm afraid to turn it off for fear that I won't be able to re-boot.
Here's a photo of what kept happening:
http://www.doctorkeys.com/startup-problem-screen.html
This screen came up immediately, along with the spinning cog and the apple logo, both rather faint. But then those two disappeared, and all that was left was the gray screen with the pattern as shown in the photo. And that's as far as I got each time.
The display itself seems to be fine, because even when I couldn't use it with the Mac Pro, I was able to hook it up to my MacBook Pro and it worked fine.
Can anybody tell me what's happening?
Thanks,
Bruce Siegel
Message was edited by: Bruce Siegel

Hi-
To be honest, though, I was hoping that the pattern in the photo was so specific and common that someone would look at it and say, "Oh, of course! I've seen THAT one before. Do this and your problem is solved."
I have seen graphics cards produce that type of screen as a result of a few of situations.
One, if the card is miss seated.
One other is if a capacitor on the card has failed, while VRAM failure is another cause.
The first case is easy to fix; remove and reseat.
The second and third require replacement of the failed graphics card.
Cleaning the gold contacts with 99% isopropyl alcohol and thoroughly dusting the card while it is out is a good idea.
I have been able to replace a bad capacitor to restore a card, but luck was a big part of determining which one it was....

Startup problem with Lion OS 10.7.3

Just recently, I've been experiencing a startup problem with Lion. I don't usually have any issues running my Mac, so I'm at a loss why this is happening now.
I have an Intel Mac Pro running 10.7.3. I usually leaving my Mac running all the time and only restart when the need arises. In addition to being my main computer, this mac alsocontrols a MacMini that serves as a music server thru screen sharing.
This past weekend, I restarted my Mac and could not get past the grey screen. The mac chimes, the apple logo appears with the spinning gear, the blue screen briefly appears, but instead of progressing to the desktop it reverts to the grey screen with a repeating cycle of the spinning gear appearing (spins for a while, stops, disappears, reppears spinning, stops, disappears, over and over) - never progressing beyond that stage.
I decided to reinstall the system and things have been fine for the past few days. Today, restarting again resulting in the same problem.
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Recent changes included updating the OS to 10.7.3 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 - no recent hardware changes. No bluetooth devices connected.
Any thoughts? Thanks -

Thanks -
I've reinstalled the OS today and am back up and running.
But, since this is twice this has happened within the past week, I'm worried about might be causing this issue - besides bad luck. My Mac is usually rock solid - can't remember the last time I've had to reinstall the OS in the past few generations of OS X.

Httpd startup problem

iAS 9i on Sun Solaris
Oracle 8i (8.1.6) on W2000
http port = 7777
After installing iAS 9i on Sun Solaris, i get startup problem with Apache http:
'Syntax error on line 14 of /export/home/ias/isuites/Apache/Apache/conf/mod__ose.conf: AuroraService - directive already in effect for this server'
'httpd could not be started'
After disabling the 'AuroraService inst1_http' in mod__ose.conf file, the Apache http did startup without any problem.
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null

Thanx Mukul,
You're right, mod__ose.conf appears twice in oracle_apache.conf.
Apache http started now.
But still i can't start the page:
http://myhostname:7777/pls/portal30
The DAD for portal30 is configured with Oracle username: portal30
Oracle password: portal30
connect string: tml000 (is the same as in portal30_sso and is defined in tnsnames.ora)
error message:Internal Server Error
Instead the page http://myhostname:7777/pls/portal30_sso is starting well.
These messages are in error_log: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.load_init(JServServletManager.java:526)
at
org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.loadServlet(JServServletManager.java:488)
at
org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.loadStartupServlets(Compiled Code)
at
org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.init(Compiled Code)
at
org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.start(Compiled Code)
at
org.apache.jserv.JServServletManager.main(Compiled Code)
Please help.....
null

Startup problems--time for a new machine?

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I've repaired disk permissions, repaired h-drive, reset Pram. Still a mess. My husband wants me to just get a new one and get something that is not an Apple this time. I'm resisting that.
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Thanks for any advice,
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Cassandra, in addition to Barbara's excellent suggestion: looking to see if you qualify for the program, please make sure that you have an external FireWire drive and clone your drive, (SuperDuper is an excellent choice for backing up, cloning and making scehduled backups).
Let us know how you made out,
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My iMac is out of warranty and I'm gonna have to bring it in for repair. If it is the internal drive that is the problem, I don't want to shut it down for any reason until I'm ready to have it repaired. Thankfully, I have full backups.

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"C" Key startup Problem

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