Nothing in /boot

Hi folks. I've recently started mucking about with Arch and apart from the masses of configuration involved I quite like it. (I like 'the Arch way' but only when its not demanding any work from me )
I think I've broken it now though, as there isn't anything in /boot and I suspect that is why I can't start Arch anymore.
Arch had been running fine on its own, but I decided it needed some friends and set about triple booting with Ubuntu and Windows 7.
The disk had Grub, Arch and /home partitions. Gparted told me that I couldn't have 4 primary partitions so I deleted the Grub partition to allow me to create an extended partition to house Ubuntu and Windows partitions. I have since installed Ubuntu(and grub) but can't set up grub to see Arch because there isn't anything in /boot to point to
I haven't got any backups do you reckon I could copy the files from a install CD (or another Arch installation)?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Thanks for the advice folks. Running -Syu didn't work (can't remember the error, will retry later). I don't know much about Chrooting, but wouldn't that still break the nvidia drivers?
How would I download and install the 2.6.34 package? I'm still fairly noobish as far as the command line is concerned ( the only other distro I've used is Ubuntu so there wasn't much to be done in the terminal).

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It wont turn on - it says nothing to boot

I bought my Macbook Air in July 2013. It worked perfectly yesterday and when I turned it on today, it said low battery so I connected my charger, and restarted my laptop. When I turned it on, the Apple sound appeared but the screen was all white without the Apple logo. It stayed like that for a minute, and in the center a picture of a folder with a ? in the middle appeared. Does it mean that there is nothing to boot? Why is this happening? My laptop doesnt turn on.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Correct, or your MacBook has forgotten which the startup drive is. To check this, hold the Option (Alt) key while your Mac is starting up and you should see different options on the screen. If you see "Macintosh HD", choose it. Then, open System Preferences > Startup Disk, and select Macintosh HD, so your MacBook will start up correctly.
If you don't see the OS X volume, there's a problem, Hold Command, Option (Alt) and R keys while your Mac is starting up, open Disk Utility and see if the flash storage is detected in the Disk Utility's sidebar. If not, take the MacBook to an Apple Store or reseller and it will be repaired for free. If it's detected, reinstall Mac OS X

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen
my system:
new (month old) 24" intel imac, 2.8 ghz, 4 gb ram.
running: leopard (upgraded from tiger, which was pre-installed at purchase), installed 10.5.1 update right before this huge problem occurred.
install discs on-hand: two-disc tiget set, single leopard upgrade disc.
what led to this:
i wanted to install windows using bootcamp on a 50 gb partition.
at this point i was running leopard 10.5
i followed all bootcamp instructions, printing out the guide, as well. once i got into the windows setup, i was prompted to choose a partition to install windows. unlike the bootcamp guide, which showed three partitions, one clearly labeled "bootcamp", i saw only one partition. not wanting to risk writing over my mac partition, i quit the setup and rebooted the mac os. after some googling around, i looked for firmware updates (didn't need any), and then software updates. i decided to try updating to 10.5.1.
i then ran through boot camp again, deleting my previous windows partition, creating a new one, and moving forward as before. once again, i was only shown one partition to choose from in the windows setup. i exited the setup again to reboot through the mac os, but this time, i was only given a blank gray screen.
here's what i have tried so far:
booting from a CD, holding down the C or D keys: no response (in fact, i have to restart the computer holding down the mouse button to be able to eject the CD)
booting with option key held down: gray screen
booting with option key held down with external bootable firewire drive attached: the firewire drive appears as a boot icon, and i can click on it within a five second window, but then the screen freezes after that time period, and nothing changes
booting into target mode while attached to another mac: gray screen (no firewire icon, and drive never shows up on other mac)
resetting NVRAM: i'm able to hear the boot chimes, but no difference in performance. gray screen every time
Safe boot: nothing but a gray screen
Verbose mode: gray screen
Single user mode: gray screen
Single user mode with firewire drive attached: occasionally (not every time), i am able to get the white on black terminal to show up. from here, i'm able to run fsck, but it appears to only be checking the firewire drive. i have tried several times to boot from here, and once it took me to a blue screen with movable arrow cursor, but it never went beyond this.
is there anything else left to try before taking it to apple?
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Casey Burns
Casey Burns Illustration and Design
http://CaseyBurns.com

I'd call Apple support at this point. You'll need
to put this issue on the record.
Call U.S. iPod and Mac technical support: 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273)
The wait may be long for an agent to come on the line
so expect that and have some other stuff to do in the meantime.
If you have the applecare protection plan, I'd ask about "onsite"
service.
I like your work ! Good luck !
Slim
Message was edited by: slimpikkunz

Upgraded MBPro hard drive, can't boot from hdd or dvd

Hey all,
I got my mid-2010 15" Macbook Pro back from the Apple store a few days ago (they had replaced a faulty logic board). As the repair forced me to back up my data, I decided it was a good time to upgrade the size of my hard drive.
I slapped a blank WD 1TB in there but when I went to boot off the Snow Leopard DVD, nothing happened--my computer froze on the gray screen with the Apple logo (curiously no spinning wheel populated). It was evident the DVD would eventually spin down as well. I then tried booting off a properly formatted 10.6.3 USB--same results (mind you, my iMac booted the USB with no problem).
After resetting the PRAM (nothing), I booted my MacBook into target disk mode and then used my iMac to install Snow Leopard on the (now initialized) 1TB drive. No issues. iMac was able to boot off my MacBook's hard drive just fine. But when I try booting my MacBook, it hangs at the same grey screen with the Apple logo (even if I hold Option to select the hdd).
To be sure, I cracked my MacBook open again then tried booting with the old 320GB drive--the machine's working just fine, thankfully I didn't seem to screw it up. In fact, I'm writing this from my MacBook that's booted off of my iMac's hard drive through target disk mode.
This is an odd problem if I've ever seen one. It's as if the mere presence of a foreign hard drive has thrown my laptop into a lockdown. I've effectively ruled out a defective hdd and a defective laptop, yet I can't get the two to play nice. The conspiracist inside of me wonders if the new logic board has any "safety" mechanisms to blame...
Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks in advance for your help.
Anthony

S.U. -- Thanks for your help!
I actually got to the bottom of the problem, and it was a much simpler fix than I anticipated. The Snow Leopard DVD I was using was an older version than the one that shipped with my MacBook. As I don't know where that DVD is, I used target disk mode to install Snow Leopard on my MacBook, updated it, and am typing on it right now.
DrBurke--I hope your problem is as simple to solve as mine was.

Can't boot G5 even from OS install disk. Help?

I've trolled the message boards 25 pages deep and searched all the "Can't boot my G5" threads and still haven't found anyone describing what my machine is doing so thought I'd start a new thread in the hopes someone can help me out.
Ok I have a G5 dual processor machine. (Power PC chip, not Intel) Things went bad when I tried to do an Archive and Install of Leopard (OS 10.5) The install looked as normal until I got to one minute left on the install. At that point the install never progressed. I thought maybe it was doing some behind the scenes processing and decided to leave it over night. The next day my machine was still hung on that One minute left. So obviously it was a failure. Of course now the problem is I have an install that never completed of the OS and so that partition is, I assume, unbootable. Wiped away the Tiger OS and did a 99% install of Leopard. So I had to shut down by holding the power button.
I think to myself, "No worries I can just boot from my 2nd partition holding down the Option key to select it on the boot up screen". I always keep a partition with an OS on it for times like these. So I reboot, hold option key, select my other partition, things look OK. I get the grey screen with the Apple logo and I get the wheel animation turning. (Not beachball of death but the typical circular, almost sun ray configuration thing) At this point, usually the screen will go black for a moment before the desktop loads. However, in my case once the screen goes black after the load screen, it stays black. Now let me say the monitor does NOT turn off. There is a definite difference when I manually turn the monitor off. When off it's truly black. But this is like a power on black, not true black. (If you need me to explain this better feel free to ask me to clarify)
So the untouched, pristine Tiger partition boot is a No Go. I figured I'd then give up on trying to put Leopard on my desktop machine (I use it on my laptop) and reinstall the original OS and system software from the system disk that came with my G5. I boot machine holding down eject button, place the disk in, close the drive door and shut down again by holding power button. Reboot holding C key and the same routine happens with booting from the disk. Gray Apple logo screen, sun ray circle moving, screen goes black on the attempted transition to desktop .. but stays black. I also tried booting with my Disk Warrior disk to no avail. Same thing happens. (Also tried booting from disks by selecting them manually from booting with Option key down) At first I wondered if it was a monitor issue. That maybe my desktop was up but there was an issue with the signal being passed to the monitor on the resolution jump. Thought perhaps hitting the Eject key on the keyboard when I had attempted to boot from the partition (not from disk on this test) would tell me if it was a monitor issue. If it was a monitor issue, the disk tray should open. But alas, no.
So since I cannot boot normally from any partition or disk I decided to boot into single-user mode.
I did the fsck -fy thing and it told me everything was ok. I had also previously installed applejack and I ran that and short of correcting a few permissions and dumping some unneeded caches it came back with a system OK.
At my wits end I booted into target disk mode and ran Disk Warrior on both the original half installed OS partition and the back up emergency boot up partition from my laptop. Again, everything OK. Hoped against hope that I could actually install an OS onto my G5 from my laptop but I was only given the option of being able to do it from my laptop with the Leopard disk and it would only allow me to do it if I used Disk Utility to completely format that drive first. No, thanks.
Re-attempt to boot G5. Failure. So now I turn to hardware. Disconnected everything beside the keyboard and mouse. Try again. Fail. Pulled a couple sticks of Crucial memory out of the machine and left the stock RAM. No dice. Pressed the small power unit reset button under the RAM slots. No change. Zapped the PRAM. Still nothing. Try to boot in Safe mode holding down shift key. Doesn't work.
It seems to me if I can't even get the machine to boot from the Install disk that there is something going on that is much more major than software issues.
Bad motherboard? Any ideas? Because I'm all out of ideas.

Brother, Sound74, I thought I was the only one pulling the hair out of my chest one by one the past two days. Your situation is very similar to mine, and I'm just as clueless as you are. I started getting kernel panic screens, then nothing on boot, until finally I brought it to the local genius bar. They ran all the usual software/hardware tests, updated Tiger to 10.4.11, recommended I buy Leopard and do an erase-install. My computer, of course, was working absolutely fine by this point. I bought Leopard, came home, backed everything up, then tried to install the new OS. Like in your case, it just up and quit half-way through. Screen went black and a "No DVI Signal" message came on my display (it does this when I turn it on without first turning on the computer).
So I thought, well, maybe it takes a really long time to erase-install, and the monitor is just waiting for things to kick back in. I've always upgrade-installed before, so I couldn't tell if this was normal or not. But about half an hour later, my fans kicked in so fast I thought I had a P-51 Mustang taking off in my studio. I waited a bit more and finally force-shut-down my system. Not knowing what to expect, I nervously tried to re-boot.
Nothing. Zip. I can't safe boot, I can't boot from the installer disc, etc. The only thing I can do is the option-key thing whereby you choose the startup disc. And of course, it only gives the Leopard install disc as an option, because now the entire HD has been erased! But when I choose the Leopard disc, of course it doesn't work.
So I have a nice $3000 paperweight sitting in my studio. I guess I'll have to bring it back to the Mac store, where if it costs more than $300 to fix, I'm going to say screw it and put that dough toward a new iMac.
Sorry I couldn't provide any helpful info, but I just wanted you to know you're not alone in suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous technology.
Keep me posted on any solutions you discover, and I'll do the same.
Noochy1
PS My applecare expired a month ago! AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!! **** Murphy and his stupid laws.

Messed up bootloader, can no longer boot computer with CD in drive

I'm trying to dual boot Arch Linux and Windows 8.1, on a Lenovo Y580 that already has Windows on it. I went through the whole installation mostly following the Beginner's Guide, picked the Syslinux bootloader and tried to set it to chainload Windows, everything seemed to go smoothly. When I restarted the computer, it just skipped straight to Windows. I figured I must have messed up the bootloader so I put the live CD back in to try to fix it, but now nothing will boot while a CD is in the drive. It hangs at the Lenovo splash screen; I can't get to the boot menu, I can't get to the BIOS, I can't do anything. When I take the CD out and restart it boots into Windows.
Presumably I messed up setting the boot flag, or something? I have absolutely no idea how to diagnose this problem, I don't even know how to investigate it because I can't boot anything besides Windows. Please let me know if you need more information, I wasn't really sure what details would be relevant to this issue.

What is odd is that the system reacts to a CD being in the device (i.e. it doesn't boot Windows while it does if there is no CD in the device). This is why I think that the boot order is probably fine. Nevertheless, I don't see why it wouldn't boot the Arch CD. I could imaging some potential reasons none of which is either likely or common or easy to resolve.
(So for now, the interesting questions about that would be:
1. How did you get the Computer to boot from the Arch CD when you tried to install Arch? Did you just reboot with the CD in the drive or did you do anything specific with your Windows and/or BIOS first; if so, what?
2. If you put another CD (say, your favorite audio CD) into the drive, does it still hang at the Lenovo splash screen? Normal behavior would be that it just boots Windows.
3. Following henk's advise and checking the boot sequence in the BIOS, what exactly do you see, what is the exact boot sequence?)
burkaman wrote:Is there any other way to get to my stranded Arch installation
Sure. Just none that would be easier than from the Arch CD. You could for instance write the Arch ISO to a USB flash memory and boot from USB, like so: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/US … In_Windows
If your problems booting from CD persist, this might be worth a try. (However, you will still have to make sure that your boot order lists USB before the hard drive.)
burkaman wrote:maybe change the boot flags some other way?
Sure. But it is
(1) overwhelmingly unlikely that your problem with Arch has anything to do with boot flags and
(2) without a deeper understanding of how partition tables are designed and how disk partitioning utilities work, you are much more likely to seriously damage your other (Windows) partition(s) than to fix your Arch Linux partition(s).
If you feel compelled to try nevertheless, have a look at wikipedia's list of disk partitioning software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d … g_software
One more thought on your Arch installation and its non-working bootloader: If you by any chance set the default boot option to Windows and the timeout to 0 the behavior you describe (booting Windows instead of showing the bootloader) would be the expected one. If not, the bootloader has not been installed to the harddisk since the bootsector is obviously still occupied by Windows' own bootloader. (Otherwise, there would be no way for Windows to boot.)
Last edited by gay (2014-06-02 15:47:18)

Z68A-GD80 B3 Boot Loop and Failed BIOS LED Flashing

I've been having "boot loop" issues with my system since it was built in June. Basically, when the system is powered on the lights/fans come on for around 3 seconds then it shuts itself off for another 3 seconds and repeats the loop infinitely. Meanwhile there are no POST code beeps and nothing shows up on screen. I also noticed today that the Dual BIOS control LED is flashing during boot loops indicating that the primary BIOS has failed.
As this was my first build in quite a while I didn't initially worry about it too much, figuring that it was probably just a BIOS setting or improperly seated hardware issue. Shortly there after my son was born and needless to say there wasn't a whole lot of time to trouble shoot a PC for a couple of months. Fast forward four months later to today and the boot looping is driving me nuts. It seems to occur when the system has been powered down overnight and more frequently if the reset button is used. I've read a lot of stuff saying that the Gigabyte boards are prone to this issue, but can't find anyone else with the same issue on a MSI z68 board. I've check/done the following to try and trouble shoot the issue.
1. Flash to BIOS 17.3 (twice)
2. Installed system speaker to hear post codes. Got a whole lot of nothing.
3. Installed one stick of RAM in slot one. Tried all four sticks. Nothing works.
4. Set BIOS values to default.
5. Tried disabling and enabling XMP profiles for the RAM.
6. Upped the voltage on the RAM to 1.5V, since the board reports an under-volt around 1.48 on auto. No effect.
7. Disabled PLL overvolt.
8. Enabled VDroop (still not clear on what this is).
9. Removed both video cards and used the on chip video. No effect.
10. Unplugged all USB devices.
11. Tried XMP enabled and disabled for the memory.
12. Hard drive plugged in and removed makes no difference.
13. Bare system with only one stick of RAM installed, no difference.
11. Lots of other crap that I can't think of right now.
Any help would be great as I'm at a loss here.
System specs are as follows;
Intel 2600K
Corsair H50 Cooler
MSI z68a-gd80 B3 with BIOS v 17.3
PNY Geforce GTX 560 Ti (2x in SLI)
Linksys Wireless G PCI card
Crucial Ballistix Sport RAM (4x2GB at 1600 MHz XMP enabled)
Segate Barracuda 7200 RPM Drive 500GB (2x in RAID0)
OCZ Vertex2 64 GB SSD as system cache
Corsair TX750 Power Supply
Corsair 600t case

More wierd stuff.
I couldn't get the board to boot without looping last night, tried the usual unplugging and clearing the CMOS nothing. Boot loops at every turn.
I wonder if maybe I've got some bad pins or a poor connection on my RAM slots. I removed the RAM and began testing one by one. First stick gave a boot loop. Second stick worked. On restart the BIOS LED wasn't flashing anymore, which is odd since I hadn't yet set the BIOS fix feature to enabled. I powered down again and put my RAM back in, set my BIOS settings as suggested, and then clocked the RAM to 1333MHz. Seemed stable last night through a number of restarts.
As for the backup BIOS reporting v 17.3. Yeah, that is odd. The manual says it can't be flashed either. Maybe BIOS just reports what the primary version number is no matter which chip (primary or secondary) is actually active and being booted from?
I'd like to think this is over, but I'm sure when I go home and power up I'll get another boot loop. I'd rather not be without a PC for a couple weeks, but I may just have to RMA so I don't have to deal with this anymore. It's quite frustrating to have fiddle around for 10+ minutes to get your PC up and running, plus with a RAID0 setup and SSD cache I'm just asking for a system failure with all these power on/off cycles.

G5 will not boot from system disk or from Tech Tool Pro 5

Hi everyone - Having a bit of trouble and hoped I might find some answers here.
I suspect my system drive was having some issues as it sounded like it was being taxed and strained as I would open up applications from it. Upon verifying the disk using Disk Utilities, the test would stop short with the following message:
First Aid Failed
Disk Utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered
Filesystem verify or repair failed
In addition, an error message came up (in red) on the disk utility screen as well saying:
Volume header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed
Normally from here, I'd start up the computer from the Tech Tool Pro 5 disk (holding down C key upon restart). But when I did this, the computer never responded. Instead, the power was on but the screens went black and the computer went into a very quiet "idle" mode.
After about a minute, the fans began ramping up pretty high (and loud). This went on until I finally had to manually shut down the computer by holding the power switch down for a few seconds. I didn't know what else to do. Those fans were not coming down (not even after 10 minutes).
Anyway, I pushed the power button again and held the C key down. Still, nothing.... The fans stayed idle, for a little while and then ramped up again just like last time. I hit that same dead end and powered down the computer via the power button.
Is there an alternate way to boot the computer from Tech Tool Pro or the original start up disks? I'm having no luck, here.
I'm on my way into town to purchase a new internal drive (something with about 1TB of space) so that my pro apps can swim a little instead of being being bogged down on a 250G drive.
Thanks for any assistance, folks!
Oh yeah.... Happy New Year to everyone!!
Steve

The Install disk has version 10.4 on it. I have also tried booting from my OS 10.5 disk but with no avail.
However, here is an update on my plight.
Apple tech says that after hearing the symptoms, he thinks that one of the processors is shot. Being that my particular model of G5 (dual 2.7 processors) is a liquid cooled machine, it's possible that some sort of leak has formed and has either taken out a processor or has caused a processor to overheat. He says that this model of G5 has been known to do that. In this case, nothing will boot which makes me think that my original system drive may actually be okay. I'm taking it in for the tech to look at it and just be sure that's the problem. However, if it is a dead processor, the part alone would run $799 plus labor to install it. Frankly, that's just too much for me to pay to keep this old G5. I'd rather put that money towards a new or reconditioned Mac Pro 8 core or quad core machine.
I've owned several Mac computers in the past and perhaps this is the frustration talking but it seems that no matter how diligent you are in maintaining your Macintosh, these machines only seem to last about 5 years before something majorly wrong happens (mother board, processor, etc). Can I expect this same, limited time frame from a new Mac Pro? I mean, am I just being paranoid?

Dual boot Solaris 8 and Windows XP

Hello. I currently have windows xp as my OS. I would like to install Solaris 8 as a secondary OS. I have a separate hard drive I would like to put Solaris on. My question is, will the solaris installation allow me to choose which drive to install solaris to? Also, how can I set up my system to boot windows if I do nothing, but boot solaris if I choose to? Thanks for any help, I'm new to solaris and to dual-booting.

Try this URL:
http://sun.pmbc.com/faq/9.html
Hope it helps.
Senthilkumar
Developer Technical Support
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
http://www.sun.com/developers/support

Hard Disk Won't Boot - Recovering Data w/ Live CD

Hey guys,
I have a MacBook.
My operating system got corrupted. I can't boot into it. I also have a tiny Linux partition installed, which can boot totally fine (therefore, not a hardware problem).
I booted into a Linux Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD, and was able to see my hard disk partitions as accessible. I could navigate to the Ubuntu partition, and see the data there.
HERE'S THE THING:
I can also access my OS X partition, and see the data. The problem is that some of the folders I can open just fine, while others have a tiny red circle in the top-right of the icon. When I try to open those ones, it says that I don't have permission.
Is there a way around this?
I am trying to rescue my data before wiping the hard drive.
I have already tried repairing permissions with the original install disk, and it won't work. I have tried booting in FireWire target-disk-mode, and it won't work. I have tried using DiskWarrior, and it worked only enough to tell me it won't work.
The Apple support guy said to try this Linux Live CD. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

Hey dude,
Thanks again for the followup help.
I have done a million diagnostics, here is a short list:
Tried booting resetting PRAM - nothing.
Tried booting in Verbose mode, nothing
Single-user mode, nothing
Safe mode, nothing
Nothing will boot.
I have Ubuntu installed on a different partition which boots totally fine, so it's definitely not a hardware failure. Apple said this as well.
I boot into the install DVD, and run the Disk Utility FIrst Aid. It can't repair the disk, and gives me errors.
The hard drive is nearly full, so there's not 15GB free to do a Archive and Reinstall the OS.
Apple said that the OS is corrupt, and I have to recover the data and wipe and reinstall.
I tried booting in target disk mode, and the host computer can't find the target mac (I tested it with 3 different macs and the cable works and everything else works fine). Apple said this is probably due to the "headers and footers" of the partition being hard to read.
I tried DiskWarrior, and at first it DID find the disk and data, and it said IT COULD RECOVER IT. I did a hardware test and it was fine. I did the permission repair, and then it found all my data and allowed me to browse it before recovering it, but it also gave me errors. Then it said that it COULD NOT recover it. When I tried to run the recover, it said first to reboot. After rebooting, it said that it couldn't even find the Mac hard disk at all, let alone repair it.
Then after trying to boot again as normal, instead of simply staying at the permanent "boot up" screen, it goes to a gray screen with a black message that says "Please reboot your computer".
I am able to boot from an Ubuntu Live CD, and I can even see my Mac disk as accesible. I mount it and can browse SOME of the data, but other folders it says I don't have permission to access. Unfortunately, it's the locked ones that I need the data from.
I didn't put any extra locks on these folders in OS X than the other folders that I can access, so it's nothing like that.
Any ideas?

Boot camp and windows xp

i just purchased an imac and ran boot camp assistant to partition for a windows xp installment. somehow i managed to partion the entire drive (even though i specified the size) and that sent me into a nut roll to eventually erase the partition and then being able to reinstall mac os (nothing was booting). i have tried this again, and this time i can see the partition to install windows (c:/ partition #3 82 gb - even though i only did one partition through boot camp). anyway, i inserted the windows xp disk to install, it asked which partition and i directed to c:/ 82 gb fat32. it then warns me that i should not have 2 os's on the same partition. i am lost - any ideas?

i have the following on the screen:
E: partition 1 (unknown) 200 MB
F: partition 2 (unknown) 220032 MB
unpartitioned space 128 MB
C: partition 3 {bootcamp} [fat32] 84885 MB
then, when i direct the installation to c (figuring fat 32 is windows and has empty windows folders in it), it says : you chose to install xp on a partition that contains another operating system. etc, etc.
i didn't want to continue because i didn't want to screw up my machine. i have since, through utilities, restored the drive to its original size and the partition has been removed. i will try again, using bootcamp to start over. any idea what went wrong or what i am doing wrong?

Imac won't boot from CD or HD-? mark on screen HELP!

I hope someone can help with this. I bought an imac for my little girl on Ebay. Its a Graphite CRT, with I believe a 20G HD and 128 of memory. I think it is either a 400mhz or 600.
It came on at first and I put in a Tiger DVD to upgrade the OS. It worked for a min or two. I also bought another 128 dimm and installed that into the memory slot.
Well, after that, I now only get a purplish screen or the screen with the ? and the mac face flashing back and forth. It will not read ANY CD or start from the HD at all. I took out the memory I put in, reset the pram, tried Disk Warrior on the drive. Nothing. Just the flashing question mark. The guy I got it from on Ebay was totally unhelpful except to say he thought it could be fixed.
I keep thinking Hard drive, but why doesnt the cd/dvd recognize anything I put in there?
I hold the C key down to start from a cd and nothing. It makes a sound like its trying, but to no avail.
I have seen various people on here with various problems, but nothing exactly like this. Can someone please help? I have a 4 yr old that really wants to use her "new" computer.
Thank you.
G5, PowerBook G4, imac Mac OS X (10.4.9) G5, powerbook, imac
G5, PowerBook G4, imac Mac OS X (10.4.9) G5, powerbook, imac

Hello again C,
I have seen, or heard the partition for these older CRT imacs can only have a certain size partition to be recognized, is that true?
Not for your Slot Loader. The "first 8 GB partition" applies to Tray Loaders.
I think the drive I have is about 40G.
That should be perfect as you don't want anything above 128GB.
I started it just now with the option key down. I do get a screen with two icons. The one on the left is like the refresh button on safari, a circular arrow, the one on the right is an arrow pointing right. The circular one makes the little wait clock come up but nothing happens. The other, does nothing.
Darn, I must have had the fingers on the wrong hand crossed. This is the Startup Manager, which will show any bootable Operating Systems. If it doesn't show an OS, there is nothing to boot from on that drive nor any drive connected to it. The circular icon will poll the drive again looking for an Operating System. The right arrow key will let you move between bootable systems to select the one you want (also accomplished using the Tab key, once you find the OS you want, hit the Return key).
Do I have to hold down the f key when i put it on, or should the computer recognize it automatically, like they do in OS10?
No, you shouldn't need to press any key. After you have transferred the information on the Firewire drive, connect it to the Strawberry iMac. The idea will be to install OS 9 on the external drive from the working iMac. Insert your OS 9 disk into the Strawberry iMac and run the installer. When you come to the screen for where to install, select the external Firewire drive (if it doesn't give you this option, cancel the install). On this screen you should also see a pulldown with the type of install, select Clean Install.
You will need to download the OS 9.2.1 update found here:
Mac OS 9.2.1: Document and Software
This will also need to be installed on the Firewire drive to update the OS to one which should boot on any CRT iMac.
After a successful install and update, connect the Firewire drive to the Graphite and see if it will start up (if necessary, use the Option key on startup).
If you have questions or need help at any point, please don't hesitate.
Hope This Helps,
Jeff
Mini 1.25, 12 Al PB 1.5, PTP 250, WS PB G3, 3xiMac 400 (OS 9.1) Mac OS X (10.3.9) Wireless KB/Mouse, AEBS, 80 GB OWC FW HD

MacBook will not boot from HD or OSX DVD.

When I start it, it makes the starting sound then stays on gray screen with HD in it and OSX DVD when I press "option" to see what boot disks it has it sounds like its reading the DVD then comes up with a gray screen with the curser but nothing to boot from. But if i remove the HD it boots up the OSX disk but cant reinstall because it has no HD to put it on... Anyway to get it to start from disk and reinstall and make it work? Would a Different HD help?

Make sure the hdd is installed and once you see that loading icon you can take the finger from C.
What version of OS X are you trying to install?

M9040n Will Not Boot

Hello Everyone,
I have a HP m9040n Vista 32. Basically a stock machine. I have added a blu ray burner and a new PSU. Those are the only mods.
I have been wanting to upgrade the graphics card for sometime now and recently purchased a new one. I went into the BIOS and switched the selection for the graphics card from PCI to the onboard intel graphics. Plugged in a monitor to the VGA port. Rebooted the machine, uninstalled the old graphics driver/cleanup. Went back into the BIOS and changed the graphics card selection back to its original setting of PCI and shut the computer down.
I then changed out the graphics card for the new one. Put everything back together and hit the power button. Nothing, no boot sequence. The lights turn on as usual, fans are on, DVD drives are active, all normal. The hard drive activity indicator light will come on and stay lit for a second or two and go out. No other HDD activity no mater what I try. I also have a lighted keyboard. The keyboard will light up for a second and go out. I am at a total loss, nothing I have tried so far has solved the issue. I even attempted to clear the CMOS thinking that might solve the issue. I have checked the cable connections and everything appears to be seated properly.
Hoping someone can help solve my issue. Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Rob

Lawgiver, welcome to the forum.
I want you to undo everything that you have done. Begin with the computer back to OEM; except for the new PSU and optical drive. Reset the BIOS to default.
When you install the new card the integrated video is automatically disabled. You should not have to do this manually. Using integrated video install the new driver as you did before. Then, shut down and install the new video card. Now, boot and let's see what happens.
What is the make/model of the new video card and make and wattage of the new PSU?
Signature:
HP TouchPad - 1.2 GHz; 1 GB memory; 32 GB storage; WebOS/CyanogenMod 11(Kit Kat)
HP 10 Plus; Android-Kit Kat; 1.0 GHz Allwinner A31 ARM Cortex A7 Quad Core Processor ; 2GB RAM Memory Long: 2 GB DDR3L SDRAM (1600MHz); 16GB disable eMMC 16GB v4.51
HP Omen; i7-4710QH; 8 GB memory; 256 GB San Disk SSD; Win 8.1
HP Photosmart 7520 AIO
++++++++++++++++++
**Click the Thumbs Up+ to say 'Thanks' and the 'Accept as Solution' if I have solved your problem.**
Intelligence is God given; Wisdom is the sum of our mistakes!
I am not an HP employee.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 Boots with black screen, white arrow cursor, no menu or icons therefore no control.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 Mac Book Pro. Won't power up to show menus or icons. Completely black screen with useless cursor and nothing to click on. cn't run any diagnostics.

What do you mean by "Installer CD does nothing?"
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple
logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
lease posted the link for using safe mode. Try clicking on it.

Nothing in /boot

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