Can't get past the Blue Screen!

I have a Mac ibook G4 and it was just working fine last night. Then the screen frooze, I restarted it, and now it will not go past the blue screen.
It is capable of safe booting though when I hold the shift button down during start up. Since I've always relied on Genius bar, I have no clue what to do from here. Can anyone tell me what it is I need to check for or do while in the safe mode?
Thanks!

Ive also done fsck and it says that the HD is okay...

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Help! I can't get past the blue screen

I was having problems with my iMac last week with it freezing while doing my normal stuff. I force quit everything and restarted. This went on 3 or 4 times in one night. I shut it down for the night. The next morning, I started it up and it wouldn't get past the blue screen. It first got to the screen with the progression bar on the blue screen. So i did the troubleshooting in the manual. I had to go buy the USB mouse because I couldn't do it with my bluetooth mouse. Then I got so frustrated I did an archive and install. But it still would hang on the blue screen. So being more frustrated I erased my 160 gig hard drive since most of it is on my iBook G4, music, pix etc. Plus i have most of the stuff on my iDisk too and jump drives. I need to know what I can do before I have to drive 45 minutes to the nearest authorized Apple repair and reseller. My only days off to drive down are Wed and Fri. I would like to be able to load Leopard because all the problems started occurring the day Leopard arrived in the mail.. HAHA.

Hi there,
Have you booted off the Install Disk by holding the *d key* down at boot-up, (not the c key), and run the extended Apple HW Test? Some Install disks require holding the Option key at bootup to select the AHT. Some Macs came with separate AHT CDs.
It sounds like either HDD problems, or Logic Board naybe.
Before you try another Install, Erase the HDD with the Zero Data Option...
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 Erase 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, then chose MacOS Extended Journalled.
6. Click Erase & look for Options. choose Zero 1 pass.

Can't get past the Blue Screen during startup

I decided to upgrade the 4/8/08 firmware on my aluminum bluetooth keyboard this afternoon using my mac mini. Shortly after the procedure started, something happened to the keyboard and it could not complete the install. I tried a second time, but again no luck. I then decided to replace the keyboard batteries and try again, but I was no longer able to connect the keyboard to the mini.
I decided to restart the computer and try the whole procedure again. But after the grey screen comes up with the Apple logo, the mini went to the blue screen with the spinning gear, then the mouse appeared in the upper left hand corner, then a little later the gear, then nothing, then the mouse, then the gear... I could never get past this blue screen.
I plugged in a wired keyboard and was able to startup 10.5 using the install DVD, which allowed me to check and repair the permissions and the disk. After a restart, still stuck on the blue screen.
I tried zapping the pram. Still couldn't get past the blue screen.
I was not able to start up in safe mode (is the timing critical for when to hold down the shift key?)
I started up in single user mode and attempted to move the preference files as described here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp1
but got an error that I did not have the correct permissions. I assume that is because I was trying to save the preference1.old (and preference2.old, etc) files to the root part of my hard drive.
Any suggestions? Does it make sense that upgrading the firmware on a bluetooth keyboard could take down the whole computer???

Disconnect all peripherals from your computer.
Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select Disk Utility.
Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
Click Repair Disk.
Restart your computer when done.
Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963 and restart your computer.

Can't get past the blue screen with "starting Mac OS X"

I am having problems with starting my iMac. It gets to the blue screen with "starting Mac OS X" but won't go beyond that point. I was able to get the disc drive open with the help of other posts, holding down the mouse while turning on the computer, but the drive won't stay closed with the install disc in it. I have even tried holding down the "c" key while restarting the computer and it wouldn't work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. So much info that I could really use. Also, please keep in mind that I am not too computer savy. Simple language please.
Thanks

If the steps I provided in my earlier post are not helping, then I see your options at this point as follows:
1. Run the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) that came the affected computer. See my "Apple Hardware Test" FAQ for comprehensive advice on using the AHT in troubleshooting.
2. Performing an Archive and Install. For important tips on this, see my "General advice on performing an Archive and Install" FAQ. Perform the steps therein in the specified order.
3. Take the computer in for service. If there is an Apple Retail Store in your area, I'd recommend taking it there. You may wish to call ahead to make an appointment at the Genius Bar.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

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.

HELP! Can't get past the blue screen when booting up...

Hi,
Please can anyone help. I've searched the web and found possible causes of the fault but not a solution....
I upgraded my hardrive, used SuperDuper! to clone my drive, make it bootable etc then transferred the new drive to my Macbook Pro.
Now, every time a boot it up with my account set to auto login, it freezes on the blue screen. It doesn't go any further.
I've entered in Safemode, added a second 'Admin' account and set the login preferences to show the login window. Which allows me to log in as the second account holder. This works in normal mode, and then once logged in, i can switch accounts to my normal account.
This is the only way i can use my account.
I've looked at the fonts and used 'Font Doctor' to fix them. I can't seem to be able to fix my preferences (com.apple.programename.com), Onyx doesn't seem to fix it and i've no way of finding out if a preference file is causing this myself.
I've also done an OSX reinstall then software update. No good!
I've tried so many things as advised by various people online but it's clear to me that it's a) Account issue, b)Startup issue once logged in.
Please can anyone advise? I'm assuming that it's only related to my account, and that it's to do with the startup of the account...
I have OS X 10.6.8 on a macbook pro unibodied (1st gen, Aug 2008).

Thanks. However, i found a lot of errors so i chose not to act on what i didn't know.
This is how i managed to work it:
Activate ROOT user
Login as ROOT
Update to latest OSX 10.6 (was just released)
Restarted
Logged in as main user... worked fine. Not sure what i did but it worked.
I had tried all other methods but non worked...

IMac G5 running OS 10.4.11. Started playing with a bluetooth speaker (may or may not be related). Now I cannot get past the blue screen on startup. I can get into safe mode. Tried install disc for disc utility and reloaded OS. Still get blue screen.

I have an older iMac G5 running OS 10.4.11. The other day I started playing with a bluetooth speaker (may or may not be related). Now I cannot get past the blue screen on startup.
I can get into safe mode. But no regular startup.
I tried disabling bluetooth, thinking that might be related. It didn't help.
I even tried using the install disc to run disc utility. That didn't work so I reloaded the OS.
But I still get hung on the blue screen when trying a normal startup.
All help would be appreciated.

Try resetting the PMU/SMU and PRAM/NVRAM. You'd need to identify the mode of resetting depending on the model of your G5 iMac. The Apple support sites that would help you for this are –
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1436
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1939
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1767
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
I hope this solves your problem.

Imac frozen at blue screen after i went into disk utilities and cleaned my free space. I tried holding down T key as it reboots and i get a message. Start up disk full empty it how can one emptie it if you cant get past the blue screen

Imac frozen at blue screen after i went into disk utilities and cleaned free space.
I tried holding down T key as it reboots
and i get a message. Start up disk full empty it how can one emptie it if you cant get past the blue screen?
to make matters worse we bought the IMAC of amazon uk on the 4/07/011 so what can we do?
please remember how frustrating it is when asking for help when the helper telling you to type something on the screen when its frozen
Tell us when you can type some instuctions to the software how do you get to the doss prompt so to speak to do this
Thanks

i tried all this thanks
i can not get past blue screen and message Your disk is full it needs to be emptied Please not I cant proceed past this message.
no matter what you tell me
Am i right ok in thinking that
when i went into disk utilities and chose to clean my free space i left it over one hour to do its stuff
i came back and there was no progress bar just the box so i quit the program and when i opened mac mail the system just froze i forced quit mail rebooted and blue screen death
Now when free space is being cleaned is it the same as windows dose the utility write lots of 0 on the hard drive then rebbot its self to free the space
basicly is my hard drive full of 00000 is this why im getting this message because the process was interupted
I need to know if i need outside help i bought the computer on line on amazon uk what dose one do next

I have a MacBook Pro, it recently started freezing upon startup. It would get to a blue screen and just sit there. I've tried booting in safemode to run disk repair and still doesnt help. If I do manage to get past the blue screen, it still freezes

My mac keeps freezing upon startup. It will get to the blue screen and promptly freeze. If I manage to get past the blue screen, and open up youtube on google chrome, it will freeze before it loads youtube. I've tried safeboot and disk repair, nothing seems to work. I even tried to factory reset it but it wont connect to my internet when I reboot with power + option.. any ideas?

This can be used to boot the machine and delelte enough files to get it to boot normally.
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Read about storage drive so you can store your extra stuff.
Most commonly used backup methods
Also here to see how a full boot drive slows the machine down
Why is my computer slow?

HELP... after 10.4.11 update I can't boot past the blue screen

HELP... after 10.4.11 update I can't boot past the blue screen, and it is pretty frustrating, to say the least. Here's what happened last night:
I installed elgato's eyetv 250, and at the end it asked to update the software. I did so, and when I tried to run it again it said I had to be running 10.4.11. I quickly went over and downloaded the 10.4.11 combo updater to my desktop and proceeded to repair permissions on my disk so I could run the updater.
I repaired permissions and started the updater. It got halfway through updating and said something like it could not finish and stopped. No reason why - it just stopped. I tried it again, and it did the same thing after going about 25 to 30 percent through the updating process. I thought that was very odd, so I checked, and I was running 10.4.9.
I thought I needed to get the 10.4.10 update, so I downloaded the combo updater several times. It would not run, giving me some error message that it would not even open, so I thought I needed to restart my computer to get it to run. I did so.
That's when my computer would not boot. It gets through the initial white screen with the logo in the middle and the revolving circle, and while it stays there for a long time the fans run increasingly faster. They tame down, and then the blue screen with "Mac OS" on it and the blue progress bar comes up. There is no blue progress bar, though... that's where it stops and will not go any further.
Can ANYBODY help me get this thing booted back up? It was so late last night that before I started I didn't back the Mac up, and of course I have a project on there that I need to finish Saturday afternoon for a company.
ANY HELP WILL BE SO GLADLY APPRECIATED. If you can give me step by step instructions on what to do, you will surely be blessed! Thanks for any help,
Barry
Jeremiah 29:11

Hi mrstang, and a warm welcome to the forums!
It sounds like Disk Directory problems.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"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 , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, or things don't load/run, 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 again, or even do an A&I if you have enough free disk space.
The combo update for PowerPC-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html
The combo update for Intel-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateintel.html
Repair Permissions before & after re-install, then reboot again each time.
If all the above do not resolve the problem, then it's time for an Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Be sure to use Preserve Users & Settings.

Upon start up I get a start up disk full message and to delete files, now I only get a a blue screen on start up. How to I get past the blue screen and how do I delete files?

Upon start up I get a "start up disk full message, delete files". Now on startup I only get a blue screen. How do I get past the blue screen and how do I delete files.

That;s really not enough free space... you can use a tools such as OmniDiskSweeper to find out where your large files reside and begin pruning (or copying to an external if they're files that you want to keep).
One thing is certain - if you're going to continue your current usage you're certainly going to need to install a larger boot drive.
Clinton

Ipad screen is white. Restored it on iTunes. Press home and on switch goes black then back to white with no logo at all. Can't get past the white screen. This happened after running app updates. 16GB OS 7.1.1

The ipad screen is white. Holding buttons didn't work so I restored it on iTunes. When I press home and on switch, the screen is white, goes black then back to white with no logo at all. Can't get past the white screen. This happened after running app updates. Is there any fix besides going to Apple store? In iTunes on computer can see what is on there. 16GB OS 7.1.1

FORCE IPAD INTO RECOVERY MODE
1. Turn off iPad
2. Turn on computer and launch iTunes (make sure you have the latest version of iTune)
3. Plug USB cable into computer's USB port
4. Hold Home button down and plug the other end of cable into docking port.
DO NOT RELEASE BUTTON until you see picture of iTunes and plug
5. Release Home button.
ON COMPUTER
6. iTunes has detected iPad in recovery mode. You must restore this iPad before it can be used with iTunes.
7. Select "Restore iPad"...
Note:
1. Data will be lost if you do not have backup
2. You must follow step 1 to step 4 VERY CLOSELY.
3. Repeat the process if necessary.

I installed Lion OS, after restart it gives the startup screen with my user id but no window for password entry, no matter what I do I can't get past the opening screen.

I installed Lion OS, after restart it gives the startup screen with my user id but no window for password entry, no matter what I do I can't get past the opening screen.

MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro Apple Support
Apple Support Lion
Lion Mac OS X Communities

Computer won't get past the blue screen...

During class today I decide to install new updates to my computer, but class ended before everything had downloaded so I just closed the screen thinking nothing of it. Now my computer won't get past the blue screen and it just keeps reloading and reloading. Help?

You must have damaged your OS installation by putting the machine to sleep at the wrong moment. To fix that, you need to reinstall, but first you need to back up your data, if you haven't already done so. Have you?

Can't get past the white screen at start up

I can not get past the white screen when it starts up. It will chime and then stay at the white screen. I have replaced the hard drive, memory, battery. I have reset the PRAM and the SMC.

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

Can't get past the Blue Screen!

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