Grey screen with apple and endless circle at startup...never going further

Question

I am hoping someone can help me figure out why my G3 won't go to the desktop page when I try to start it up. I downloaded some updates and then when I went to restart, I could only get the grey apple screen with the little circle going around and it stays that way for hours not going further. Nothing else appears on the screen. There is no message. Someone mentioned a "safe start". Would that be something to try? What could be wrong? Is the computer too old? Did it blow a fuse or something? Help! It was working fine earlier.

Answer 1

You can try starting in safe mode (see directions below) but I am not optimistic. Should it indeed start up in Safe Mode then you might be able to re-install the package(s) safely 9again, see below) from there.
Two things seemed to be solutions for Security Update 2008-008 problems from what I have read, and may also work with 2009-01.
One is Archive and Install which will replace the corrupted system but then requires you reapply all your updates. Select the keep settings and preferences when doing A&I. Make sure you select that option when doing A&I if you want settings and preferences kept. Some third party applications may need reinstalling if they have special components.
[Mac OS X: About the Archive and Install feature|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710?viewlocale=en_US]
[X-Lab Archive and install|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/archiveinstall.html]
[Kappy's A&I instructions|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1823034&tstart=0 ]
[How to get files from a previous home directory after Archive and Install|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107297]
The other is to try to re-install the security update on the main drive while booted from a secondary drive or in Single User Mode. This could be from another Mac computer while your first one is in Target Disk Mode, perhaps a bootable backup drive, or possibly from your installer disc. Here's references for those methods:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8728797#8728797
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8733921#8733921
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8634535#8634535
A version of this is to use Single User Mode and Terminal to re-install the update as in:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8991074#8991074
Updating
Certain steps appear to minimize the risk of an update producing problems.
Number one is to make sure you have a clone backup of your computer in case you do need to back out of it again. This is the only guaranteed way of not having to worry about the results of an update.
Some like to boot from their installer discs or an external backup and verify (and if necessary repair) their internal drives as well as drive permissions. This is done with Disk Utility. You can verify a drive while booted from the same drive but sometimes this produces spurious errors. Repairing a drive (if necessary) has to be done while booted from another disk. Permissions repair can, and is probably best, done when booted from your internal drive.
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
[Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]
You can also go to the step of booting into safe mode to do the install.
[Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393]
[What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392]
[Safe Boot takes longer than normal startup|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107394]
I like to download the update onto my computer and install it from there rather than let Software Update do it. I know a few people who had problems with doing the update via software updater found a manual install to work.
Repair permissions again afterward.
It also helps to only install one update at a time and to run the computer for a while to make sure it is behaving well.
The more cautious even like to unplug third party peripherals (see [comment by BDaqua|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9040746#9040746]).
Almost all of the above steps (except backup) have been questioned as to necessity because probably many people have done successful updates without doing them. I say they can't hurt, they can very likely do good (especially if your computer isn't regularly maintained), so why not do them to be safe.
[BDaqua's comments on updating problems|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8948595#8948595]
[Baby Boomer's comments on updating problems|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9025760#9025760]