Ibook G4 stuck at 'select user' menu screen

Question

hey....been reading through this forum about and realised that many have the same problem i'm currently facing with my ibook g4...
i'm able to boot up my ibook normally then it'll get stuck at the blue screen where the 'select user' menu is supposed to pop up....
tried the various method like repairing disk on disk utilities but the DU reports that my disk does not need any repairs...the thing is i'm able to boot up as per normal via safe mode and thats as far as i can get...any help? thanks in adv!

Answer 1

If you have the original boot installer disc set which accompanied the
computer when new, there is an Apple Hardware Test on there.
The computer may have some hardware failure behind this anomaly
and may require troubleshooting to get an estimate on what may be
wrong, if a hardware defect is the cause of this problem. Otherwise,
tech time and a hopeful cure may take one of several possible paths.
In some computers, the wireless won't work when in SafeBoot mode
perhaps in more than I know. I have not tried to go online in mine while
they are in SafeBoot, since that is a reduced boot set and is for testing
or checking the computer mostly.
Was there a report in Disk Utility from running the booted installer disc's
version of that utility? Sometimes, when it is repairing a disk drive, and
some report says it can't fix something, then that may indicate failure in
the hard disk drive; or some directory issue, or perhaps a low-level one
where the drive may need to be over-written with zeros using the option
in Disk Utility from the booted installer disc, & reformat to APM or HFS+
before running the Installer to put a new system on the wiped empty HD.
You may need to try different things in order to further troubleshoot this
computer, to include Disk Warrior or other third party disk utilities, or
have someone who already has the correct disks and is trained, to do it.
There may be an error in the hard disk drive, so if you haven't tried using
the options in the Disk Utility to zero the drive, that may be something. If
you have work on this computer and had not backed it up to other media,
it will certainly be lost; if not before now, very surely once it gets wiped.
A third party utility such as Disk Warrior can be used to try and fix the
issues, as best it can and only do what it was intended, at most; but may
allow you to fix the system enough to recover your data and move on...
Since the computer does boot into SafeBoot, you can recover files from
the hard disk drive. It probably will also boot into FireWire Target Disk
Mode, so using a FW cable to another Mac could occur, to move files.
The moved files could be saved to DVD or CD-R media in another Mac.
Of course, once you'd tried the reinstall (not just use the menu bar choice
of several other functions prior to launching the Installer) your old System
may be in the hard disk drive with a name 'previous' and it won't boot it.
Other ideas on hard disk drive issues, can be found in other forum posts;
some are not exactly the kinds of symptoms your machine exhibited.
One such post: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9410943
Good luck & happy computing!
edited.