Ibook will not boot into OS or off disc

I have a G3/500 ibook, it turns on and the display seems fine, but it won't boot into the OS on the HD or off a disc. I replaced the HD with one which i know works, still nothing, so i booted with volume select from a firewire dvd drive (the cd drive on the ibook is dead) it shows the HD and its name as well as the OSX disc or tech tool pro disc thats in the drive, but when i click on any of them, it restarts the volume select screen. Anyone know what my problem is or how to fix it? Thanks!

You need to select the startup volume you want and then click on the straight arrow button (not the circular one). Clicking on the circular button searches for startup volumes again, and it sounds like that is what is happening.

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I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard.

Good Morning,
I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
I also rebooted holding down the shift key and still no Snow Leopard
Could you please tell me what I can do, what keys do I press on restart any advice to get Snow leopard back.
thank you.

Have you restarted holding down the Opt key? That procedure should give you a gray screen with all of the partitions that exist. Then select the SL partition for boot. Also go to System Preferences and Startup Disk, unlock the lock and select the SL partition as the default boot partition, then relock.

My iMac will not boot into the Apple Hard Ware test. Why is this?

I have a late 2012 27 inch iMac. It will not boot into the Apple Hard Ware test. I do have File Vault turned on. Will this stop it from booting in to the test?

See Using Apple Hardware Test. For some Apple computers that shipped with OS X Lion, if Apple Hardware Test cannot be found on the hard drive, an Internet-based version starts up instead. An Internet-enabled connection via ethernet or Wi-Fi is required to use this feature. Some computers that shipped with Lion require a software update to use this feature. See Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery for more information.
Note: your machine cannot be running Mac OS X (10.6.7).
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

G5 will not boot into OSX - stays at a command-line prompt

My G5 will not boot into OS X. I would appreciate and and all advice. Thanks.
What happened:
I had the G5 running one morning, with the Isight camera on, plugged into the front-console firewire port. I was running EvoCam software.
At about 2 hours into running, the cam stopped broadcasting – I got home to check it out three hours later, and the screen was black, and the fan was louder than I had ever, ever heard it on this box.
I did a hard shut-down with the powerbutton on the Cinema Display monitor.
At reboot, I see a grey screen for approx 5 seconds, with a dark grey apple logo, and then the screen goes to black, with a command-line prompt.
It’s been like that ever since.
I ran the Apple Hardware test, from the internal CD drive, and it shows no errors.
I cannot boot from an OSX installer DVD. It won’t recognize it. It goes straight to the black screen and Command line prompt.
I have re-seated the RAM, as well as the Airport Card. The only other card – which I have not re-seated, it the video card.
I am able to use the machine in Target Mode, so I can extract data from the drives, which is great. Oddly enough, I’m able to use the front-console firewire port to connect to my other Mac in Target mode – with no problems. Also – in Target mode, the fan never goes above the usual quiet self.
I would appreciate any advice one can provide. Thanks!
The machine:
Mac G5 dual 2.0 – First Generation (purchased December 2003)
It’s on it’s 3rd Motherboard – and now it’s fully out of Applecare warrantee.
OSX 10.4.9
4GB Ram
2 internal drives: 160GB + 300GB
Airport Extreme
20” Cinema Display (first generation)
Mac G5 dual 2.0 – First Generation Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Well, Apple Support does have articles on:
Isolating Issues in Mac OS X
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25392
won't boot or login
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp1
And if those don't work, call.
With G4 there is/was
"Fix for a Mac that won't power up
Mirrored Doors G4. When you pressed the power button, the button would light up, but the computer would not turn on. The fans on the power supply wouldn't turn on.
FIX: unplug the machine, pull the clock battery, hit the power button to discharge. Then plug it in without the clock battery. The machine should boot perfectly. Shut down, reinstall the clock battery, and now the system is fully functional. Macosxhints
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300552
Reseat video? try another video card?
My Step #1 is to always boot into Open Firmware (and do reset-nvram, reset-all, if you can't do that, you are sunk).
Oh, and What do you see in verbose mode on startup?
Mac Pro 2GHz 4GB 10K Raptor 23" Cinema Mac OS X (10.4.9) WD RE RAID Aaxeon FW800 PCIe MDD-G4 APC RS1500 Vista

Installed Leopard 10.5.1, Will not boot into Win XP

I installed Leopard recently on my work laptop.
Before it had 10.4.11 and Win XP properly working on it.
Now after Leopard was installed, It will not boot into Win XP,
just gives a Black Screen and never progresses past that,
I hard reboot, and it boots fine back into Leopard.
All software updates up until 10.5.2 have been applied,
will applying 10.5.2 fix this issue?

All my financial records are on the Windows side of the iMac. I've used BootCamp for more than a year, I have MacOS 10.5 (very recently updated from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2), and there has been no problem with starting Windows until today. When I restart and hold down the option key, it always boots up into the MacOS. How do I get Windows?

Ibook will not boot

My ibook G4 will not boot up it satops at a blank white screen... I've tried resetting the PMU by using the shift-ctrl-option-power and restarting but no luck. Any ideas??
Thanks

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
If the iBook is on, shut it off.
Push the power button, and as the startup chime is ending, hold down the x key. This should allow you to boot into OS X.
If this doesn't work, check out these links to articles on recovering from the flashing question mark:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/openfirmware.html

Machine will not boot into Windows!!

I formatted a 32 GB partition in NTFS, then successfully installed Windows XP Pro along with Leopard Bootcamp drivers. All was well. And then I tried to restart.
I held the "Option" key until the Mac OS and Windows drives showed. Selected the Windows drive and clicked on the arrow. Nothing happened except for the cursor freezing in position and the drive eventually spinning down. A light touch on the power button shut the machine down.
I have tried selecting the Windows drive as the default startup disc in System Preferences, no dice.
What have I done wrong? What can be done to repair the issue? I need help, wife about to start throwing stuff
All the best,
Chumpy

Odd thing I noticed. When installing the Windows XP Pro, new full installation disc, not repair disc, I had to shut down before installing the Leopard disc and loading Bootcamp and Leopard drivers because I ran out of time. The machine booted right into Windows the next time I tried. Then, after loading Bootcamp and drivers off Leopard disc the machine will not restart into Windows.
I have tried to do it by selecting it as the default drive and by pressing "Option" and selecting the Windows drive. Neither approach does anything. Literally. The optical drive and the harddrive eventually spin down and the machines white screen is frozen.
So, I have redone the partition in Bootcamp Assistant. When I try to boot to the installation disc now, it won't go. For some reason this is just not working at all.
Frustrated,
Chumpy

Ibook will not boot PLEASE HELP!!!!

Hi,
First the ibook booted then would come up with the kernel error: square box with "you need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button......
I then booted to single user mode and ran fsck -y which eventually came up with the all clear "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK"
I then restarted the system which booted to the blue screen with some quirky graphics towards the top. It will now not boot into single user mode, just black screen or multi-coloured stripy screen. When booting from the CD drive the sceen is just blue or black.
Okay, I have connected the ibook via fire wire to a powerbook, and re-booted the ibook in terminal mode which brings up the fire wire connect symbol on screen.
After a while the system stalls showing part of the symbol and the connection is frozen. I have tried to re-install tiger using the powerbook to initiate as the ibook will not. However, it freezes at 50% of install.
I changed the ram to iliminate a ram failure, however... still the same.
While I was in terminal mode I erased the disk using the disk utility from the PB and then ran the install again... still froze.
This looks more serious than I thought. I'm now thinking that it could be the hard drive or worse. I have tried to use the apple support phone # and it does not seem to work, 1800 275 2273.
I'm having some real bad luck here. Any ideas?

I ran the apple hard ware test disc. The quick test found no errors. The extended test freezes up completely. Now I'm really stumed. The logic board came up with know errors.
When the system froze on the extended test. I falsed a re-boot. However the screen went black so I could not run the test again. It seems like a time thing... the ibook can only run for a short period before it freezes. Then it has to shut down for a while before it can run again

IMac will not boot into OSX after startup disk switch in control panel.!

I am having trouble with my son's iMac DV SE (graphite) running Classic and OSX (10.3.9). Typically, the computer runs in OS9 as the startup system because most of the kids' software we run is old and uses Classic. Over the weekend, I changed the startup disk to OSX in the control panels and restarted the computer so I could install some new software. The computer will not boot past the gray apple and progress indicator. I have tried resetting the PRAM, booting from the CD and restarting with the options key depressed to no avail. (Can't do a Safeboot either.) I was able to put the iMac into target mode and access the control panels via my laptop and restart in OS9. I thought I had resolved the issue causing the startup problem, but I was wrong. Now I can't get past the gray apple or access the hard disk through target mode (the iMac hard disk does not appear on the laptop's desktop). Is there a way to force the computer back into OS9 other than holding down the option key at startup? When I try this, I get the hard disk icon, but I can't move it off of OSX. Thanks in advance for any help.

Is there a way to force the computer back into OS9 other than holding down the option key at startup?
Holding down the OPTION key will only work if OS 9 is on a different partition than the OS X installation. If they are on the same partition, it won't work.
One way to get it back to OS 9 is to boot from the OS 9 or OS X installation disc. Then set the control panel, or preference pane, to boot from the OS 9 installed on the hard drive.
Another way is to boot from the OS 9 install disc and perform a clean install of OS 9. This will create a new OS 9 System folder and it will NOT touch any other files on the drive. KB 58176, Mac OS 8.5, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

IBook will not boot from CD

Disk utility has found problems. Specifically it returned this info:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
I have tried to restart the iBook using the original restore CD, the original install CD, the Leopard CD, the Tiger CD and Norton Utilities CD. The computer will read the discs but will not boot from them so I can't find a way to repair the effected volume.
Tried Parameter Ram but feel there are deeper problems; just don't know how to get to them.

knateb, Welcome to the discussion area!
Just for the record, your iBook shipped with a version of OS X somewhere between OS 10.4.2 and OS 10.4.4. Therefore it will never boot from a retail Tiger (10.4) disc.
Have you tried resetting the PRAM?
Have you tried resetting the open firmware? The procedure is
Start up into Open Firmware by pressing and holding the Command-Option-O-F key combination during startup.
At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-nvram
Press Return.
At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-all
Press Return.

Ibook will not boot HELP!!!!

Hi,
First the ibook booted then would come up with the kernel error: square box with "you need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button......
I then booted to single user mode and ran fsck -y which eventually came up with the all clear "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK"
I then restarted the system which booted to the blue screen with some quirky graphics towards the top. It will now not boot into single user mode, just black screen or multi-coloured stripy screen. When booting from the CD drive the sceen is just blue or black.
Has anyone any ideas what this could be

You are having kernel panics as shown in this Apple doc.#106227.
Do everything, in order, in Dr.Smokes Resolving Kernel Panics and don't leave out any steps.
Quote from Dr.Smoke "My FAQ is a roadmap: start at the beginning and work through to the end, following the instruction in the order specified, including the "If all else fails..." section if a cause or resolution is not found in an earlier troubleshooting step therein"
Here's more at a brody's KP site.
To get things going, try things in Apple doc.#106464.
Cheers!
DALE

Ibook will not Boot - goes to DOS, error message inside

Hi folks,
The old ibook (late 2004 model) is slowing down more and more, and yesterday refused to boot after crashing.
I left it booting on its blue screen for a while and it eventually went to a black dos screen with the following message:
SystemStarter[47]: The following StartUpItems failed to properly start:
/System/Library/StartUpItems/PrintingServices
- execution of Startup script failed
Now i'm assuming the problem is with the start up script, so I've looked around and done a few things suggested.
For example:
1. Reset the PMU ~ Shift - Control - Option - Power, waited for 5 secs, then rebooted, same problem.
2. Ran single user commands as detailed here http://missionitgroup.com/blog/?p=1490
Tried this twice to make sure, same thing happened. When checking the disk for errors (/sbin/fsck -fy) it would not find any volumes.
Also it would not run repairPermissions, it just kept giving me the options under diskutil, but not running the repair (Im assuming this may be due to it not being able to find any volumes)
3. Someone has suggested running the Mac from its original startup OS X DVD.
The problem is that there is a DVD (movie) already in the drive and pressing eject does not eject it.
4. I put the ibook into Firewire mode with it attached to my iMac. The iMac could see the DVD that was in the ibook drive but could not see the ibooks harddrive.
sooooo!!!!! a bit lost as where to go from here, any help would be greatly appreciated!?

Drewdrops,
That is a link for a SATA (Serial ATA) drive) which will not work. You need a PATA or Parallel ATA drive, also called ATA, Ultra ATA or IDE drive. The drive in the link you sent is also a 3.5" drive. You will need a 2.5" notebook drive for your iBook.
After you get the new HD installed, you will have to boot from your Leopard install DVD, go to Disk Utilities again, select the drive in the list of volumes and click on the 'partition' button. select 1 partition (unless you would like more than one volume), make sure that "Mac OS Extended (Journelled)" is the format selected and then click 'partition'. You can then quit Disk Utility, and continue the installation. If you click on the 'options' button in the first install pane, you will see the button, pre-selected, that says 'installs OS X for the first time'. That is the correct choice.
After the install is complete, you'll get the welcome window, set up your account, and get going on your iBook. Immediately go to software update in System Preferences and begin installing the myriad of updates. After each install and restart, return to software update again and again untill it finally says that "you are up to date". This entire process can take hours, but stick with it. One more thing that is very important.... After you are finished with updates, open Disc Utility in the Utilities folder that is within your Applications folder and drag that icon down to the dock. Open it, select your HD volume to the left (the upper one with numbers, not the sub-volume) and then click "Repair Disk Permissions". Apple recommends doing this after each time you install updates and generally at least once a month after that. The instructor in an OS X class that I once took, said that you should repair disk permissions every week.
To me, all of you symptoms would point to a failed hard drive and a replacement would most likely take care of the problem. Are there ever any guarantees, though?
Is there an Apple Store close to your location? You could make an appointment at their "Genius Bar" for a free check-up. They will look at your iBook, tell you what is wrong and how much it will cost to repair it at their facility. You are not required to have it repaired there. It's just s service they offer. Look at the bottom of the Apple Store or Support page. I believe there is information about making an appointment.
Let me know how it goes.
Randy

Blue & White will not Boot into OS 9

My son has a 400Mhz Rev. 2 Blue & White. Recently the Power Supply died, which I replaced, but when it died it also took one of the hard drives with it, before that it was working flawlessly. He had two ATA drives, both Maxtor, one the original 6 gig, with OS 9.2.2, and a 40 gig with OS X 10.4.11 on it. It was the 40 gig that died. Like I said I replaced the the dead power supply, pulled the faulty hard drive and replaced it with another one with 10.4.11 on it. The computer would start up, sometimes it would chime, sometimes not, but it would always go to a white screen, with the mouse courser in the top left hand corner and just sit there. I tried zapping the PRAM, resetting the logic board, pressing the CUDA Switch, starting up from original 8.6 CD, a retail OS 9.1 CD, a retail Tiger CD, and even a SCSI hard drive with OS 9.2.2 it. The only thing that worked was the Tiger CD, which would allow me to boot to the OS X drive. But for some reason I cannot boot to any device with OS 9.2.2 or lower. I can boot into classic from OS X, but I cannot boot directly to any drive with OS 9.
So my question is, how can this machine recognize and boot to OS X, but not to OS 9? I can take all the disks and boot to their respective OS's on my Daughter's Blue & White with no problems, but my son's will only boot to OS X, and it just hangs if I try to boot to OS 9.
Any help will be much appreciated.
By the way, I googled this problem, and it seems awhile back someone had the same problem with a G4 Cube, but was unable to get any help. So while it may be rare, it has happened before.
Ken

Ken,
A couple more things you should try: First I would try removing the PRAM battery from the computer with it powered off and unplugged for at least 10 minutes. This will completely kill the clock and the PRAM, but the PRAM settings may still hold. Then put the battery in and power it back on. I just replaced RAM in a G4Cube and that was the only way to get the system to accept the new RAM. Of course this resets your system clock to January 1st 1907, which will cause all sorts of complaints until you reset the clock, but it could fix the disparate drive problem.
Another thing to know is that certain PATA drives do not play well together Western Digital and Maxtor for instance. WD Masters expect WD slaves on their chain, so if you are mixing brands, you should try placing both drives in Cable Select Mode. Place the blue end of the ribbon cable on the motherboard, the master drive on the black cable end and the slave on the gray connector in the middle and give that a whirl.
Then you should hold down CommandOption+OF for Open Firmware when you press the power button, that will bring up your Open Firmware interface and enable you to view the startup settings. From there you can specify which hard drive you want it to boot from. If you know the drive and slice you can specify it in the boot-device entry. To view all the entries type "printenv" and press enter it should show a full page of options and then give you the option to press space for the last 7 or so entries. See what boot-device has next to it. It should read something like hd:0:2,\\:tbxi If you don't know what your boot slice is you can wipe out the entry one of two ways: You can edit the entry directly, in which case you would type "setenv boot-device hd:\\:tbxi" Return Then do a "printenv" again. That should show the blank entry--what you're doing is removing the specific boot drive assignment. You might also wish to change the boot mode so that you can see the device messages instead of the gray screen as the system boots. You can do that temporarily by pressing Command+V on boot. To store your new settings and start the Mac type "mac-boot" and Return. To choose which drive you want to boot from hold Option down as it powers up and you should be shown a list of the volumes with a bootable MacOS on them, as the OS Finds the bootable folders. Then you should be able to get Mac OS 9 or X to boot.
Let us know how you make out...
Tom

Macbook pro will not boot into Mac OSX

When i got my MacBook Pro it would boot into Mac OSX fine. Now it wont even give me the option and will only let me boot into Windows which i have running through bootcamp. I have tried reinstalling MacOSX but my OSX installion DVD will not get recognised and i cannot boot off it either. I have tried using 2 other discs still with the same issue. The confusing thing is that the CD/DVD drive works fine and the MacOSx discs work fine in other macs as i have tried it in my brothers machine.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks

I don't think that the laptop even has Mac installed anymore becuase in an attempt to reinstall Mac the partition was formatted. And I can't boot of the disc becuase it just ejects by itself after a few seconds in the drive.

Ibook will not boot..blank blue screenl

That pretty much says it all. I've consulted the Apple Support doc on this, and I'm unable to boot in Safe mode, Single-User mode or Verbose mode. It simply will not go beyond the blank blue screen. (Needless to say, I'm posting from my husband's iBook.)
This started tonight when I booted up, signed in and had Safari launched. I launched iTunes, clicked on the podcast section of my library, selected a file and clicked the "i" for Info on the episode. Next I got the spinning beach ball. Unable to use Safari or iTunes and unable to even Force quit either of them thru Finder, I pushed and held the power button to Restart. And after that, it's been nothing.
Any other suggestions? Other than an Archive and Install? That is if I can find the install disks, which seem to be misplaced at the moment....

An update...
I'm not sure why I couldn't target my drive from husband's iBook, but it did work on Mac at the office. I selected my "bad" drive in Disk Utility on the work Mac and selected Repair Disk. When finished, it informed me that no repairs were necessary. I was able to copy off my files from the drive to rescue some items that were not backed up.
What does this mean, if no repairs were needed? Does that indicate that the drive is OK and the motherboard is bad? Or do I need to repair directory with something like Disk Warrior or perhaps reinstall the OS.
Thanks again for any assistance.

Ibook will not boot into OS or off disc

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