Powerbook G4 Freezing on Start Up Screen

I have a Powerbook G4 12" and OS 10.4 installed although for some reason the powerbook displays the apple logo and spinning circle at start up but gets stuck there and does not move on even when i try starting in safe mode. I have also tried removing the airport extreme card but this makes no difference.
The specs are as follows:
G4 867 MHz
640mb Ram
40GB Hd
OS 10.4 Tiger
If anyone knows a way i might fix this or even if it a problem with the operating system of the actual computer it would be appreciated.

Hello,
Have you tried booting from the restore disk while holding down the C key?
Shut down the PBook.
Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your PB, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
Click the First Aid tab.
Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
Select your Mac OS X volume.
Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
Considering your PBG4 most likely has a 40GB drive, unless you have upgraded to a larger one, you have to keep an eye on available disk space. Select your MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop, (if you can), then Command + I That will open the Get Info window. Where it says: General, click the black arrow so it points down. It will indicate Capacity and Available. Never allow the available disk space to fall below a minimum of 15% of the total drive. Editing iMovie files can increase the file size exponentially, so it's really important to keep track of that.
If you could run Disk Utility from your restore disk and it couldn't repair any errors, DiskWarrior at www.alsoft.com or TechToolPro at www.micromat.com ... I've used DW twice on my PBookG4, and have yet to have to take it in for any service and I've had it for over 5 years. Knock on wood ...
And... here is how to do Target Disk Mode:
Target Disk Mode allows you to access the hard drive on your PB from your iMac with a Firewire cable. Just follow the instructions at this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
It's very easy. If you can access the PB disk, you can probably save your important personal data like audio/video/images and documents... just move them from the PB to the iMac. That way you won't lose your files!
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Similar Messages

MSI Z68A-GD80 Freezes up @ 'Starting Windows' screen.

MSI Z68A-GD80 (oc genie off, with corsair h60 cpu cooler, around 46 degrees celcius, as it reads in the bios. reset the cmos many times, tried a different cmos battery, also flashed to the newest BIOS version. )
8GB DDR3 g.Skill turbulence 2200mhz RAM (tried with 1 stick in DIMM 1 slot @1333 @1.6v, ect)
GTX480 x 2 (tried with and without a video card, tried on board via dvi, same result)
i7 2600k default values across the board
OCZ MX 1250W PSU
Tried with no HDD even, when installing windows, would get to the Starting Windows screen and freeze, or give me a BSOD: IRQL IS NOT LESS OR EQUAL TO
But I have also tried with hard drives, 120gb revodrive, 64gb ssd from corsair, and 640gb 6gb/s from western digital.
Everything I have tested on a different system working, including the processor. Am I missing something? The RAM might not be compatible? I unfortulately do not have another stick to test on the mobo.
Edit: Also, tried with both 32 bit and 64 bit w7 disks.

Quote from: aqualab on 08-June-11, 23:50:31
Have you try with a fresh formatted drive ?
If I was you I will take the WD 640 put it on another build and delete the partions and reformat ntfs
When you install Windows on an old drive , it will look at the existing OS on it ,to know if you can upgrade, if the install detect an install who was made on ACHI ( a ssd as example) and your BIOS is set to IDE, I wonder if it will not create the problem you have as the install thing you are on ACHI when you are not.
I tried it with no hard drive at all. Booted from disk, and before the installation got to the point where it needed a hard drive, it froze up on the 'Starting Windows' screen after loading windows setup files.

Exceeded RAM..was crashing now freezes on start-up screen..HELP!!

My mac is only about 2 mths old.
I've got about 15GB music, lots of tv shows (about 13 series) and yesterday I installed Microsoft Office.
My mac had been freezing occasionally before and I would just have to resart it. The cursor would freeze on the page.
Well as I said yday I installed Microsoft Office and also downloaded 4GB worth of TV shows and another 2-3GB music and tonight it has crashed.
At first it was freezing after a minute or two of being on, no pages would load especially internet pages with lots of pictures.
I've restarted it a lot trying all the different combo's on the discussions/forums but it still seems to just freeze on start up.
Resarting whilst holding down Command-S gives me
"error enabled
uncorrected error
mca error code: 0x0400
model specific error code: 0x2008
other info: 0x00001210
debugger called: <panic>
backtrace <cpu 1>, frame: return adress {4 potential args on stack)
I just put in what I thought might be significant.
It freezes after that page and wont let me type anything..
Have tried resetting PRAM, resarting in Safe Mode, resarting with mac disk that came in box...
Nothing is plugged in.
I totally forgot about my mac having limited RAM :S

All good... I quickly typed in 'fsck -fy' Return
before it froze.
It ran through some checks. Then typed in 'reboot' Return. It booted up. Halleljah!
The cursor was still acting up a bit, jumping around and lagging. I managed to uninstall microsoft office, skype, sims 3 and some other crap I didn't use. Seems to be running perfect now.
That'll teach me to get an external hard-drive...

Windows 7 freezing at 'Starting Windows' screen. (GX620)

I had been running Windows 7 since June '09 with no problems. Recently, every time I start windows it gets stuck on the 'starting windows' screen. I've tried reformatting, reinstalling with different versions of Windows 7 and different discs. I've tried swapping the memory and the hard-drive. I've updated the bios.
What is going on? Please help.

I am having this same issue and was wondering if you came up with a solution.
Even when I try to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 7 the computer locks up after the installation of the initial files. Then I'm left with a useless barely-installed new system so I am forced to go back to the original one that doesn't work anyway. Safe mode works just fine, but I can't work in Safe Mode all the time.

Macbook freezes at Start Up screen/Will not boot

I have a 13" MacBook purchased almost two years ago. The computer recently froze completely. I tried to restarted the computer but it would just go to the white start up screen (w/ Apple logo) over and over again. I turned it off completely and let it sit for a hour or so while it was plugged in. Now when I turn on the computer it will not turn on - it makes the Apple chime and goes to the white start up screen with grey logo.
Is there anything trouble shooting I can do to try and resolve this problem?

What operating system are you running please?

Freeze during start: Black screen with cursor

I have an L305-5955, probably infected by a virus (?) which freeze during booting (also with a backup CD) ending with a black screen and the cursor. Someone has an idea how to solve this? Thank's a lot for any help.

Choose Startup Repair from the System Recovery Options menu.
If that doesn't do the trick, go back to the System Recovery Options menu and do a System Restore.
If that doesn't fix things either, go back to the System Recovery Options menu and follow the directions here,
How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair start...
-Jerry

Mac Pro (Early 2008) running Lion, freezes on Start up screen

I have a Early 2008 Mac Pro running Lion. Its been running well but then last night it froze while I was on the internet. Pretty rare that this happens so I held the power off button and turned it off. Turned it back on and it made the chime noise, apple logo came up, a grey spinning wheel came up for about 30 seconds and then it stopped spinning and the computer froze there.
I tried a bunch of different things. I tried rebooting in safe mode, Recovery mode, From time machine external hard drive, Tried booting in the Windows partition that I have (its on the same as the boot drive I'm trying to boot in Lion off of).
Any ideas on what is wrong with this? I'm hoping its just a hard drive but i fear worse.
Thanks!

OK. I have an idea!
This has just happened to me and I am up and running fine now. My boot disk would get to the login screen, type PW, and just come back to the login. Or, just sit at the Apple logo either with the loading gif, and or the progression bar trying to update the firmware.
I took out my graphics card to test that (swapping with another). Nothing.
Have you tired a PRAM and VRAM reset? Hold cmd+shift+p+r at start up, computer will shut down, still hold cmd+shift+p+r untill you hear the start up chime for the second time. Computer may hang for a bit whilst it resets the magic beans. Around 5 minuets.
If you've done all that...
Keep trying that boot into recovery mode (hold opt key, a.k.a alt key at boot).
I did this and was able to get in to install Lion on a new HDD. From my exprience your HDD is on it way out and you need a new one.
Are you getting any Kernel panics? I had that a few times. Sometimes the RAM doesn't like what's going on and can mess with things. Try taking out some RAM just leave one stick in the top riser, turn back on see what happens. Still getting the same problem? Try 1: boot safe mood, that doesn't work. Then try 2: boot in recovery.
Failing all that. Let me know. I'll scratch my head and have another think. Also I'll think on some more as to what I did to get things moving and let you know if I remember anything.
Good luck, don't fret we shall get the beast back up and running!!

Powerbook G4 freezes at start up

My Powerbook G4 suddenly crashed while I was using Firefox. Now when I try to boot up it freezes on the Bluetooth Set Up window looking for a bluetooth mouse when I don't even have one. I can't even access the Log-in window as it's sitting beneath the frozen Bluetooth Set Up assistant window. It won't even boot up from the Apple Tech Tools CD. Anyone have any ideas of how I can get this machine up and running. I'm lost without it as I use it all day for work!

If I were you I'd reset both PRAM & PMU:
Reset PRAM:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Reset PMU:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
If this doesn't work then try a Safeboot into Safemode:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
If you're able to boot into Safemode then run "Repair Permissions" from Disk Utilities.
Then see if you can boot from the OSX install DVD to use Disk Utilities to run "Repair Disk"

Zen Micro 5 GB freezes at start up screen (says "Creativ

At the "Creative" sign on the screen, it freezes and nothing works, not even turning it off the conventional way. I have tried the disk cleanup, rebooting, totally draining the battery then charging again, reloading firmware, even reformatted the dri've, but i still get the same problem. I bought it in late May, so i don't know if warrenty will cover the problems i am experiencing. This freezing has happened to me before, but after a good battery draining and recharge, it worked fine. NOT ANY MORE!! Please help me! I can't li've without music.

My zen micro problem:
Brief Problem description :.When I put a battery in the Zen micro, it automaticly turn on andshow "hardware problem" and freezed.2. If I connect to power adapter, i it automaticly turn on and show"hardware problem" and freezed.3. If I connect to my computer via usb cable, my computer can not findthe player and the player do not turn on even I switch on. As long asI put the battery in it, it automaticly turn on and show "hardwareproblem" and freezed. My computer still can not find it. I'm sure thecomputer and usb cable is working because all of my other device isworking ( include mouse, keyboard, logitech web camera, canon digitalcamera, samsung 52MB mp3). I try to take off all of theother usb equipements and the zen micro still not work. I can not rewrite the firmware because the zen micro freezed at"hardware problem" and my computer can not find it.
Help!!!!!!

My mum's MBP freezing on start-up screen (stuck on the opening screen)

My mum said she was using i-photo this afternoon and the MBP crashed. So she restarted and it kept getting stuck on the opening screen (Apple logo + spinning thing).
We can't work out how to start it up again. It's stuck on the opening screen far absolutely ages, with nothing happening.
Any help appreciated. She needs it operational ASAP for her work. Thanks.

Have her try this:
Boot holding down Apple/S and don't let go until you see scrolling text.
When that stops and you see a root#: prompt enter
fsck -fy
Let it run through all the checks and repairs.
If it fails first time, at any time, or finds and fixes a fault - run the command again and keep doing so (some fixes can take several passes) until it says "Appears to be OK" then enter
reboot

Cannot install Windows 7 Pro; gets stuck on "Starting Windows" screen

I have read dozens of posts on this topic but none has helped yet.
My system has Windows 8 with UEFI. I want to install Windows 7 Pro on another partition. I have turned off Secure Boot in the UEFI/BIOS. When I try to install Windows 7 Pro from a DVD it shows "windows is loading files" and then gets stuck on "Starting Windows"
for ever. This happens even when no USB peripherals are attached.
I have already wasted many days on this. I hope someone can help.
Thanks!

Hi friends of the internet
I have been reading several forums regarding the issue of installing windows 7 (64 bit) to a computer that have had windows 8 installed previously or just a GPT formatted disk.
My Case:
Windows version installed: Windows 7 Professional N with Service Pack 1 (x64) or Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Computer used: Samsung laptop
Model Code: NP53U4C-A02SE
See the specks here:
http://www.samsung.com/dk/consumer/computer-peripherals/notebook/notebook/NP535U4C-A02SE-spec
Create a USB install disk that not freezes at ”starting windows” screen:
First I followed this great guide (Thanks Daniel):
http://
hodgin.ca/2012/10/02/creating-a-uefibios-windows-7-usb-and-installing-to-gpt-partitions/
STOP AFTER STEP 13!
1. Open a command line in administrator mode
2. run DISKPART
3. type LIST DISK
4. Look for the disk number that represents your USB drive
5. type SELECT DISK # where # represents the number of your USB drive. Get this right or you will wipe a different drive out.
6. type CLEAN
7. type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
8. type SELECT PARTITION 1
9. type ACTIVE
10. type FORMAT fs=fat32 quick
11. type assign
12. The drive should now be formatted and marked as active and fat32. Do not format the drive as NTFS or you will only be able to boot into the installer in BIOS mode.
13. Now you will need to copy the contents of the windows 7 install dvd to the USB with a regular copy paste from windows explorer.
Here comes a very weird hack... I do not know why it works, but I think it is all about flash drive data structure. I did these steps on a win 7 prof. computer.
(Let’s assume it’s drive E:)
Make a copy of your e:\efi\microsoft folder to e.g. your desktop.
Delete the e:\efi folder
Copy the \efi folder from a windows 8 installation disk (I used Windows 8 (x64) Professional) to the e:\efi folder. Sorry I cannot provide this for you.
Here comes the weird part. Then delete e:\efi\microsoft you just copied from the win 8 installation disk.
Copy the \microsoft folder form the desktop to e:\efi\microsoft
Resume the guide from step 18.:
http://
hodgin.ca/2012/10/02/creating-a-uefibios-windows-7-usb-and-installing-to-gpt-partitions/
18. Insert the USB in the machine and turn it on and boot into the UEFI/BIOS loader and check for boot options. On the ASUS Zenbook it detected two boot options on the USB drive. One was UEFI and one was regular BIOS. I made the
UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.
My bios setup was:
Secure Boot = Disable
OS Mode Selection = CSM and UEFI OS
Boot Device Priority = I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.
The installation should start normal.
E.g. See this guide:
www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/186875-uefi-unified-extensible-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html
What I did was:
Select custom installation (Advanced).
Click Drive options (Advanced).
Delete all partitions (this might not be needed). When I did not delete all partitions I was asked every time after the install, during start up by the windows boot manager to select ether win 8 or win 7.
Click new (DO NOT make Changes in the size of the disk), apply, see NOTE!
Edit the Primary partition as you want it e.g. divide it to more partitions.
Select the one you will install windows on and do a normal install.
I do not make changes in the Bios after install. The Boot priority is automatic set to “Windows boot manager”. If I change the boot mode back to OS Mode Selection = UEFI OS, the computer will freeze at the “starting windows” screen again.
All this worked for me, good luck. There might be more to it, but this is a start.
By the way, the start up time for a MBT install was 37 s. And for the GPT it was 49 s.
Remember if we stand on each other’s shoulders we will reach higher
J.
NOTE: Here the installation program should create three partitions automatically!
Partition 1 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 2 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 3 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.
If this isn’t the cast you are not installing in UEIF mode. To check for this (thanks again Daniel):
If you need to find out if you have booted into BIOS mode or UEFI mode when the installer starts you can press SHIFT+F10 when the welcome installer shows up to open a cmd prompt. from here you will likely be at X:\Sources. Type cd .. to
go back a dir and move into \Windows\Panther\
Then type notepad setupact.log
Within this file do a ctrl+f and search for
Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment:
It should either say BIOS or UEFI.
To check if your disk is in the GPT format.
Open the command prompt.
Type: DISKPART
Type: List Disk
See for the star (*) in the GPT column

Powerbook keeps freezing on the blue "STARTING MAC OS X" screen

Had to reboot about 4 times today and finally I got stuck on the blue screen with the progress bar under the "starting mac os x" message about a quarter full. this is the screen that you get after the grey start-up screen with the apple logo. anyone have any suggestions or ideas? thanks!

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
First, if you have any hardware connected to yrou PB, unhook it.
I would want to insert the first OS X CD, which says 'AHT Version x.x' on it, and reboot holding the alt/option key down. Choose the Apple hardware test, click the arrow pointing to the right, and follow directions. Choose the extended test. Does it tell you anything?
Another option along the same lines .... insert the first OS X CD, and reboot holding the C key down. This will boot from the CD. The bring up the disk utility, and choose repair permissions, then repair disk. Does the repair disk tell you anything? Eject the CD and try rebooting normally.
And another option is to reboot holding the shift key down. This is a safe boot, and it does some disk maintenance and doesn't load the login items, amongst other things. If this works, try rebooting normally.

My old MBP (2005) often crashes, freezes or shows grey screen at start up. Also track pad often does not work. I have re fomatted the HD and reinstalled system but to no avail. Genius bar says possible faulty HD, but suspect logic board, any ides any body

My old 17" MBP (2005) often crashes, freezes or shows grey screen at start up. Also track pad often does not work. I have re fomatted the HD and reinstalled system but to no avail. Genius bar says possible faulty HD, but I suspect logic board. All checks out OK on the Apple Diagnostic bench. Can a Logic board go intermittant?? Any Ideas any body??

Ive repaired 1000s of laptops over the years (translate: diagnose and replace parts).
Its not that old, Ive owned 100s of laptops (most were free) ....some I still have are nearly 13 years old and still perfect, ....some extremely expensive ones died in under a year.
other than becoming obsolete at some point, there isnt really any "will spoil on" data like Milk for solid state computer parts, ....alas.
You can have a $5000 laptop die in 4 months, and a junker one keep kicking after 10 years.... Ive seen that firsthand countless times.
Common logic dictates that "very expensive = long life" in computers,..... but all the repair people will tell you just the opposite.
I know you have a gripe, I get that all too well honestly .

Powerbook G4 won't start up past grey screen

Hello. I'm a little worried about my mac.
It doesn't start up past the grey apple screen. I hear the start up sound, and I hear the hard disk start spinning, but after a while the only thing I hear is the fans. The longest I've let it try was about an hour, and still nothing. I've tried resetting the PRAM and resetting the PMU. I don't have the OS 10.5 install disc with me at the moment, so I can't use that.
Some events that may have led up to the problem:
I installed the latest software update last night. Installation was sucessful, and I restarted. Everything was fine on restart, so I put the computer to sleep for the night. Today when I woke it up, one of the toolbars in the Finder was open (probably not a problem, but unusual). Everything seemed fine and then I opened Text Edit. It was bouncing in the dock for about a minute, so I tried to force quit, and after a while it eventually stopped bouncing. Then I tried a restart, and I got a message saying it was unsuccessful because Text Edit failed to quit, but there was no marker under it in the dock. Tried again, and I ended up having to do a ctrl-command-power. After that, I haven't been able to get past the grey start up screen.
PLEASE HELP Thanks!

If that's the case, then what I would do next is to use TDM to clone the contents of your problem drive onto an external FireWire drive using either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make sure you have a backup of everything. Once done make sure you test the backup by restarting from the external drive.
Next thing I would do is run DiskWarrior (sometimes it can be a directory issue that might be causing problems) to check that everything is still OK on the drive. It might be worth running DW on the external backup whilst you are at it. If DW finds nothing wrong then I would consider reformatting the drive and installing a fresh copy of OS X onto it to test if everything works fine. On the other hand if DW finds problems, it might be able to fix them so that you can restart properly.
If after all that everything works then you can try cloning everything back from the external drive onto the PowerBook's internal drive.

Start Up Screen Freeze With Lines Across Screen

The computer is the iSight version. In moving it from one room to another I shut it down properly. I had a back-up HD with Time Machine which I shut down properly. When I tried to restart it shortly after at the new location, the start up chime sounded and the Apple logo came on with the spinning wheel but the screen had light blue horizontal lines across it. The lines at first seemed squiggly but after restarting a few times, the screen seemed to be divided into vertical columns about 3/4" wide with one column having pixels colored light blue and the next column having the same coloration but the row of colored pixels was above the previous one. This arrangement alternated across the screen. I hope this is clear. After a while the spinning wheel and the screen froze and the computer would not continue with the start up.
I reset the SMU by unplugging the power cord, etc. but this did not work. I tried restarting in safe mode-negative. I tried restarting from the original disc-negative. Initially, it sounded like the disc was working because it makes a distinctive noise when a disc is working in the drive but eventually the same initial screen came on with the wheel spinning and then freezing. I tried the current versions of Techtool Pro and Disc Warrior and neither worked. The same thing happened. The noise from the disc drive but the same screen would come on and then the spinning wheel would freeze. Initially the screen with the Apple and the spinning wheel and the lines came on quickly but after a number of times turning the computer on and off, the screen remained dark with a faint light and when the screen came up, the spinning wheel was already frozen.
I use a flight simulator-X-Plane- a lot and some times when I leave it on, screen saver comes on and when I bring the screen back up, the first screen that came up and quickly changed had to do with X-Plane but not with what I was doing. Also, sometimes when I left it and came back there was a different screen but still part of X-Plane but not the screen I left before. I don't know if this is related to my problem or specific with X-Plane. I brought it up because this is the only thing that was different prior to this problem but may not be related. Right now, I've turned it off(obviously) and disconnected the power cord and the keyboard.
Any help would be appreciated.

I've started taking the iSight apart. Detaching the plastic took some time and care but with only a few tears. Separated the screen. The main board is positioned such that the capacitors are on the bottom. So many connections and most of them small. Have to be careful. So many small screws. I hope I can remember where they all go when I put everything together-I hope. I'm at the point where I've turned the main board over so that the capacitors are showing. I hope I can reconnect correctly. Two capacitors have a slight bulge at the top compared to the others. Although I am not sure whether these two are part of the problem. There is another one that has no bulge but there seems to be some stuff on the top. It is not corrosion so I'm not sure whether it was manufactured that way or something is wrong with it. I finally found the battery. Just to change it is such a job. You have to disconnect a lot of stuff and turn the board over to get at it unless Apple technicians have a shortcut. Do you think the battery could cause the problems I have? Anyway, if I have the board exposed already might as well try and change the capacitors. I have not come across any video that shows how to expose the underbelly of the main board. Nor have I seen any video that shows what each part is. On the left side of the layout is an long rectangular shape covered over with black plastic. I haven't checked it out but I assume it is the power source. At the upper left there is a rectangular board with capacitors underneath but there are connections underneath that are so tightly stuffed that I couldn't turn it over but I could lift it up a little and see the heads of some capacitors and there wasn't any bulging capacitors or corrosion. There's one big capacitors under there. Much bigger then those on the mother board. Interesting observation. When I turned the screen over to expose its back most of it was frosted except for a small rectangular piece that was dark but glassy like and the glass like part lies exactly on the small rectangular board about 4X5 or 4X6. Interesting why this small section of the back of the screen should be different from the rest of the back and why it should be exactly above the smaller board. Like the previous versions of iMac, it would be so easy to be able to open the back and have all of the capacitors exposed. My next action is to contact one of the references you posted and see if I can get these three capacitors and the battery from Radio Shack or somewhere and solder the capacitors to the mother board. After all of this putting the whole thing together correctly without ending up with extra parts. One thing did break. Next to the fan in the middle there is a piece of metal attached to the back. There is a small narrow slot in this metal that another piece of bent metal seems to go into and was soldered to it and when everything is put together it seems, although I'm not sure, that this metal touches the back of the screen. It looks like I have to solder it back. I don't know what its purpose is, maybe it grounds the screen? I thought the piece of metal was something to pull in order to liftup something else. So far that is the only thing that has broken and hopefully can be easily fixed. But nothing that seems easy is easy.

Powerbook G4 Freezing on Start Up Screen

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for