Imac shutsdown during startup

I just tried to install Snow Leaopard on my Imac G5. It faild as the "contents of the hard disk could not be changed" so I quit the installer and went to restart the mac from the hard disk. Now it starts, but shuts down after a few seconds of starting up. Any ideas on what I could do?

casey, how full is this HD of yours? Some of your symptoms sound like the sort of thng that can occur when you are down to the last few Gigavytes and are suffering from free space corruption etc. It is possible though that your drive is failing. If you haven't already then you should back up everything that is important to you to DVD's or an external drive, in case it fails.
You mentioned replacing the drive in your earlier post. This would make sense if it is either too small for your current needs or is failing.
As far as buying new HD's go, you need a "SATA" 3.5" drive from a good manufacturer. I like Maxtor DiamondPlus SATA drives myself, but other people swear by other brands..You should be able to buy one at any good computer parts dealer (doesn't need to be from an Apple dealer). The instructions for replacing a drive can be found at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300205
Get as big a drive as you can afford. If you currently have an 80 Gig drive, then look at the 250 or 300 gig models. If you already have a 250 Gig drive but is close to full then think about a 400 gig drive. The bigger the better really. If you shop around you will find that some very good deals can be had. Google is your friend for this! Post back if you want to check whether one that you have found is right for your computer.
Cheers
Rod

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Imac freezes during startup stops @ blue screen & have tried everything

My imac freezes during startup, it gets to blue screen and just sits. I have tried to boot from the Leopard 10.5 install disk, and just sits, can't get to log in screen. Have run the disk utility and it says disk appears to be ok, Won't startup up in safe boot, blue screen just sit. Have tried 'fsck' fix, just sits at blue screen. Have reset PRAM, I don't know want else to try. Disk utility & "fsck" says 'disk appears to be ok'. When exiting fsck, it will start the process then stops. Does anyone have any suggestions, I have not tried to reinstall 10.5 yet.
Thanks in advance
Paula

After reading resolutions TS1541 & other threads, I decided to try to archive & reinstall 10.5 from install disc. Well that made things worse, sometime during reinstall, system locked up, I looked at the log during install & it had been locked up about 3 hours and now I have nothing. no systems files, using Target( firewire cable) disc with my macbook, I can see I have previous system folder & a folder that say system. but Install disc does not see OS.
Do I need to take it to an apple store for repair or what. It's only 3 years old.
please help
Paula

IMac freezing during startup

So I was working on my iMac the other day and all of a sudden the screen went blank (grey screen). Turned it off using the power button and restarted it. I get the chime and the apple logo coming up with the scrolling wheel below but then the screen goes blank and I can't get any further than that.
Have tried booting up in safe mode (Shift), verbose (Cmd+V), starting in Recovery System (Cmd+R), Single User Mode (Cmd+S) and resetting the NVRAM/PRAM (Option + Cmd + P + R). Nothing has worked. Always get to the apple logo and scrolling wheel only to freeze on a gray screen after that.
Can't find my Install Disc but have tracked one down that I'm going to try tomorrow.
Besides the Install Disc does anyone have any suggestions that could help me out? Only have a portion of my HD backed up (stupid I know) so really hoping this issue is solveable and that I can salvage what I have on that computer.
Thanks!!

Try booting while holding down the Option key.
Theoretically that should launch the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk then click Restart.
The original install disc cannot repair the startup disk on a Mac running v10.7 Lion. Only OS X Recovery

IMac freezes during startup

Hey all, my iMac has been at my house alone for 3-4 months while I was away. It was working perfectly fine before I left. When I returned home recently and tried to start it up it took much longer to get to the sign in screen then usual. When I logged in to my account it would show my desktop wallpaper but nothing else. The screen would flash now and then random bits of things and that's all. I could move the mouse on a blank flashing desktop.
Everything I had on the HDD was already copied over to a backup before I left, so I decided I was just going to try and reinstall the OSX and see if that would do anything. When I try to boot from the CD it just gets to the apple logo screen with the loading symbol beneath it and will stay like that for pretty much forever.
Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks a lot ^_^

See KB 106464, Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X.

Imac freezes during start-up. Seems to be caused by Airport issue.

My Imac freezes during startup. I have tried starting it in safe mode without any luck. After the initial start sequence when it gets to this point: Airport linkup en1, the computer starts writing the same line endlessly: com.apple.launch [1] (com.apple.mDNSRsponder [2710]): posix_spawnp (“/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder”,...): No such file or directory
I am not a technician and new to Macs too. I have tried almost everything in the supportfile about freeze issues. I am not able to start the Mac in safe mode. I have repaired the disk. I have tried reinstalling the software, but this fails too.
Did a couple of changes on the timecapsule before it happened (creating a network and new security settings and backup settings) and installed Photoshop Elements 9 and did a lot of file restructuring. Left the computer open and came back to a blue screen. Since then I have been unable to start.
My macbook works fine with the changes. I am stuck - what to try now?
I need my files and they are luckily on the timecapsule, but i am not able to open the imac-bundle file on the macbook, why?
Thanks for helping.

did a lot of file restructuring.
In Finder>Go>enter /usr/sbin do you see mDNSResponder listed there?
Try Repairing Permissions for the Volume in Disk Utility (Note: may take a long time in 10.5.8)

IMac keeps shutting down during startup loading bar under apple sign

My electricity went out and came back on a minute later. When my computer started up again the font was back to original factory setting. I then restarted my computer and every time it would load up it would shutdown. The computer chimes and then reaches a grey screen with an apple sign. Below it is a loading bar. This bar loads about 10% then goes back down and loads from 0%. A couple minutes later it shuts down after staying at 0%. It keeps doing this routine every time I start the computer. I then did a command s and rebooted the computer to factory reset it. The computer still shuts down and has the old habit of reaching 10% and 0% with the loading bar but now after the loading bar is at 0% it then disappears to the Apple sign and a loading circle. It then shuts down again. This iMac was originally 10.6.8. but i believe i updated it to 10.9.4 and was purchased new around 2008. I also tried to put in a CD with Firmware Restoration CD 1.7. but that didnt work. Can anyone help? or has anyone had similar issues?

Hello canwary
Good job on troubleshooting your issue so far. For most issues that deal with your Mac not starting up, consult the article below to see what the issue could be.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS2570
Let me know if this helps,
-Norm G.

Hello, My Imac is freezing during startup.

It chimes and bigins loading. The spinning circle freezes after a few moments. It is able to boot in safe mode. Using command v during startup this is the last line displayed "GFX8: family specific matching fails". Also, this Imac has the infamous overheating graphics card problem.

Have you attempted Disk Repair in Utilities? Are you still using 10.5.8 as your profile suggests?
As old as your iMac is, have you cleaned out the dust? Dust buildup can lead to over heating issues. Remove any and all things plugged into it including the power cord, Remove the RAM access grille. Vacuum all openings starting with the RAM access area (air intake). Vacuum all ports and plugs, DVD slot and the opening across the top of the rear of the body. Blow compressed air through all your openings and vacuum again to remove any dust you loosend. Reinstall the RAM grille. Plug in the keyboard and mouse if not blue tooth. Insert power cord...
You are now in a perfect position to do a
SMC RESET
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
It is the 5 second timing that initiates the reset.
Here is a link to a Widget to monitor your temps and other operations:
http://islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

IMac gray screen (with frozen "spinning gear") during startup

Hello all - my first post to the community, so be gentle....
I'm having a boot issue with my early 2008 Intel based iMac. After a recent power outage, I can't get the machine to boot to OSX - the spinning gear spins for about a minute then freezes. When I boot to Snow Leopard install CD, it gets to the same point then displays a Kernel Crash screen. I can boot to Windows using the option key on startup, but Windows runds a little weird...mostly graphic display errors (dragging windows and scrolling in web browser is slow and jumpy, games crash with strange graphics displayed). I suspect a graphics card malfunction (the machine has an NVidia GeForce 8800GS), but I'm not convinced and I can't figure out how to test it. Here's more info:
- I'm running OSX version 10.6 with a Boot Camp XP partition.
- I've disconnected all peripherals except keyboard and mouse (including Ethernet)
- I've reset NVRAM/PRAM
- Safe boot, Single-user mode won't boot
- I haven't pulled and reset any RAM modules yet.
Any thoughts would be appreciated - I'm three hours from the nearest Genius Bar, so I'd like to try as much at-home troubleshooting as possible.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
When I boot to Snow Leopard install CD, it gets to the same point then displays a Kernel Crash screen.
OS X: About kernel panics
User Tip: Kernel Panics? Don't panic too!
How to troubleshoot a kernel panic
I'm running OSX version 10.6
Use Software Update or the OS 10.6.8 combo update to update your OS. Also, update everything SU has to offer for your computer. When done, repair permissions and restart your computer.
I'm three hours from the nearest Genius Bar
Apple Stores are not the only places that repair Macs. There may be an AASP that is closer.
International AASP’s & Other Services
AASP's Outside of the USA
so be gentle....
As opposed to....

CS6 CONSTANTLY Crashing During Startup

I'm running the most current version of Premiere Pro CS6 on a iMac 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB and running OS X 10.9.4. The last few days I've been experiencing at least 5 crashes during startup -"Sorry :-( a serious error has occurred and Premiere needs to be shutdown yadda yadda..." As I have a massive project with a deadline around the corner I thought, screw it, as long as I can eventually get in, I'll just deal with the problem when I have time... fine. Well, now I can't even get the software launched. I've had to hit OK on that harbinger of death warning box and then Force Quit as it will just give me the pin wheel for days otherwise. It's always when it's loading media that it crashes but never on a specific file, or even drive. There are a few dynamic links but nothing that hasn't been there for weeks, if not months. I've read through as many other forums as I can take and it seems most of them are still unanswered or at least extremely vague to a tech dunce such as myself. I've always sent the crash reports and would be happy to forward another along if provided a specific address...

At one time there was a notice (now removed) that discussed no updates for newer operating systems... and that was about 2 years ago
CS6 and Mac 10.9.4 (or even 10.9.3) is a problem... some links that MAY (or may not) help
-next link says After Effects, but check YOUR permissions !!!
-http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2014/06/permissions-mac-os-start-adobe-applications.ht ml
-Mac 10.9.4 and OpenCL issue https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1514717
-Mac 10.9.3 workaround https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1489922
-more Mac 10.9.3 https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1491469
-and https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1507936

Photoshop CC gives beach ball for a full minute during startup.

CC 2014 works fine on my iMac. However when trying to start key CC 2014 apps on my Macbook Pro Retina (current version of Mavericks), they hang during startup.
I uninstalled, ran CC cleaner tool, reinstalled, tried removing plugins, font files... I logged out of Creative Cloud and back in... I'm at wit's end, and have wasted way too much time trying to troubleshoot. Illustrator, InDesign load fine. Photoshop and Premiere Pro do not. Photoshop will eventually load, but after the interface shows up it will give me a beach ball for at least a minute or more.
I logged in as a Guest user and it started right up.
Has anyone else experienced this? Just wasted a night trying to get this too work.

I have the exact same issue... but haven't found a solution for it yet :-(

Aluminium keyboard sending repeat keystrokes/not recognised during startup

hi everyone, my first post here,
i recent purchased an additional slimline alu-keyboard for my imac to customise as an editing keyboard for logic pro. only problem is i appear to be having issues with it. recently it has been sending repeat keystrokes in os x. it's not one of the letter keys because no text is typed onscreen. the other issue is that during startup none of the boot-up keys are recognised (ie. reset pram combination/bootup menu) with leads me to belive something is very wrong.
i have already tried reseting the pram - although i had to use my other keyboard to do this as the new one isn't recognised. i also tried reseting the smc but it seems certain that there is an issue with the keyboard itself
the keyboard is still well within warranty and i have my receipt but i'm concerned about the fact that it has been customised with a editing layout set and might not be replaced
hope someone can suggest something!
thanks
j

ps. i just did a little further googling and it seems to be suggest that this is a 10.5.6 usb related issue

Weird 'Static' During Startup

Hi all,
I'm writing because for the past few days my iMac G5 has been doing this weird thing during startup. It kinda looks like the screen's shaking and a lot of static/snow comes up on the screen.
Once it logs in the folders on the desktop look distorted and the shaking occasionally happens when starting up programs such as iTunes etc.
Has anyone else experienced this, or even better knows how to resolve it? I don't have any 3rd party hardware attached to the computer except for a Digidesign M-Box connected via USB.
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere.

Henry,
If there was no change to your hardware or software just prior to this starting to happen, you should make contact with Apple immediately, while your iMac is still under warranty.
Best of luck.

Gray bar under Apple logo during startup with 10.7.2

Hi everyone,
first-time iMac owner since May 2011, I'm experiencing exactky the same problem described in the article Mac OS X v10.6: Gray progress bar appears under Apple logo during startup, but with two important differences:
it never happened with the original the 10.6 factory-installed, and started to appear after upgrading to 10.7 at the beginning of August
my iMac, included in the HD replacement program announed by Apple in July 2011, had the HD replaced with a new one in October 2011
In addition to the behavious described in the KB article, it's worth noting that, when one finally manages to log in (and the gray bar may take one good minute to disappear, which happens after filling up to approx. 60-70% of its length), the iMac is barely unusable, as the graphic interface is suddenly **** slow and there's a lot of flickering.
Since seeing is believing, please have allok at the YouTube video I made on this "false start", as I named it: see iMac_falsa_partenza / iMac_false_start.
I had already reported the problem to the local assistance, and they had told me it was an evidence of the HD problem indicated by Apple. Then they replaced the HD (...did they, actually? Probably yes, as the HD now installed is far noisier than the old one), but the very same day I brought it back from the assistance, at the second start... bam, here's the nasty gray bar again.
I didn't further report the problem to the assistance because my faith in their capability has cracked and because the simple replacement of the HD took them three full weeks. But this "false start" issue really, really bothers me a lot, as it happens every other day.
How can I have some good Apple expert technicians take this problem seriously and help me solving it?
As a first-time owner of a Mac, I have onestly to say I'm much, much disappointed by this story... Thanks anyone for any help.

If you can't eject a CD or DVD or open the drive tray
How do I eject a defective DVD?: Apple Support Communities
http://www.faqforge.com/macosx/how-to-eject-a-cd-in-a-mac-mini-with-pc-keyboard- and-mouse/

Can't update Norton after upgrading to Lion...holding 3 and 2 during startup didn't correct issue (Lion is 64 bit)

how do i get my older mac to allow norton to update virus definitions...error says i need to startup with 32 bit kernel but i tried it and still can't do it (i held 3 and 2 down during startup per Apple.com instructions)

I meant to include this info from the System Profile:
Maybe easier to read:
Canon MF4400 Series:
Status:          Idle
Print Server:          Local
Driver Version:          1.1.0
Default:          Yes
Shared:          Yes
URI:          usb://Canon/MF4400%20Series?serial=0122F5200302
PPD:          Canon MF4400 Series
PPD File Version:          1.1.0
PostScript Version:          (3010.000) 550
(3010.000) 651
CUPS Version:          1.6svn (cups-327)
Scanning support:          Yes
Scanning app (bundleID path):          -
Scanning app version:          -
Scanner UUID:          00000000-3031-3232-4635-323030333032
Printer Commands:          none
CUPS filters:
capdftopdl:
Path:          /Library/Printers/Canon/CUPS_MF_Printer/Bins/capdftopdl
Permissions:          rwxr-xr-x
Fax support:          No
PDEs:
BasicSettingsPDE.plugin:
Sandbox compliant:          Yes

Error during startup of portal service after SPS11

Hi Guys,
After installation of SPS11 to our 2004s portal system we have problem with startup of our Portal service.
Before SPS11 we had SPS9 system and everything was working correctly.
Our service is connecting to Database during its initialization.
This is part of our code:
Properties p = new Properties();
p.put("java.naming.factory.initial", "com.sap.engine.services.jndi.InitialContextFactoryImpl");
try
     Context ctx = new InitialContext(p);
     _ds = (DataSource)ctx.lookup(POOLNAME);
     Connection conn = _ds.getConnection();
     conn.close();
     LogWriter.traceInfo(LogWrapper.trace,"Connection established.");
} catch (NamingException ex)
The error is:
#1.5#000802A2BF4A00580000038200003E3000042C1F016BDC9A#1174411586934#System.err#sap.com/irj#System.err#Guest#2####a813ff20d70611dbbcd7000802a2bf4a#SAPEngine_Application_Thread[impl:3]_27##0#0#Error##Plain###com.sap.engine.services.jndi.persistent.exceptions.NameNotFoundException: Object not found in lookup of SABMILLER.
     at com.sap.engine.services.jndi.implserver.ServerContextImpl.lookup(ServerContextImpl.java:649)
     at com.sap.engine.services.jndi.implclient.ClientContext.lookup(ClientContext.java:344)
     at com.sap.engine.services.jndi.implclient.OffsetClientContext.lookup(OffsetClientContext.java:254)
     at com.sap.engine.services.jndi.implclient.OffsetClientContext.lookup(OffsetClientContext.java:271)
     at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:347)
     at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:347)
     at cz.sap.statemanagement.StateLogRetriever.<init>(StateLogRetriever.java:73)
The probleam appears only during startup of portal!
If you deploy service on running portal it is started without any problems.
We tried to apply note (Note 960199 - 2-Phase Init Mechanism for Portal Services is Deprecated) but without success.
This is modification of our portalapps.xml as described in Note.
    <service name="StatemanagementLogService">
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        <property name="startup" value="true"/>
        <property name="twophaseinit" value="always"/>
      </service-config>
Please could you help us with this problem?
Anyone has an idea what is wrong?
Thanks a lot
Ondrej

Hi Nirmal,
thanks you for your quick response. This is what the installer returns when I use your suggested command:
Mar 7, 2012 2:35:56 PM [Error]: The parameter jce_policy_zip in externally supplied configuration is invalid.
I looked up the parameters for the STARTUP:
rootdir [guiport] [httpport] [guistart] [guimode] [config] [sid] [instanceNr]
Thus the jce_policy_zip is not a valid parameter.
However, after deleting the file specified I could just run STARTUP again and this worked.
Thanks
Marcel
Edited by: M. Rabe on Mar 7, 2012 2:57 PM

Imac shutsdown during startup

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