Refusing to complete booting

I have a G5 Xserve that refuses to complete the boot process. From its own hard drive O/S it stops at the desktop background, just short of the login window. It does start into single user mode (command line) though. But the really strange thing is, it will not boot from the installer CD/DVD. With this it hangs at a blue screen just after the grey Apple logo.
I have tried zapping the PRAM/NVRAM and I have swapped out all the memory completely but it still hangs. It goes into target disk mode ok and the drives all look fine.
I dont need to keep any of the data on the hard drives, I would just like to be able to install a new OS from the DVD - any clues why it wont even boot from the install disk?

I have it - FYI: (this might be useful to somebody)
The xserve has a graphics (display) card and I was working directly on the machine with monitor and keyboard. I had the VGA monitor plugged into the new digital display socket using the adapter. I switched the monitor to the old style VGA socket and it now boots fine.

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My media center M8000y no longer completes boot sequence...I turn on the desktop and sometimes the b

HP Media Center M800y, System # GG755AV#ABA, Windows Vista Ultimate, Desktop will not complete boot sequence as the Blue & white HP screen which doesn't always appear, will give options to either
a).Press F10 to enter setup or,
b). to press f11 to start recovery partition in hard drive that doesn't work when tried.
Can enter setup when blue & white HP screen appears but do not know what to look for when inside.
If I pick none of the 2 options, the screen just turns black with a horizontal line "-" blinking at the upper left hand corner of the screen. Sometimes the screen will not even show the blue & white HP screen and it just stays black.
I changed the CMOS battery and nothing happened except that now the blue & white HP screen with the 2 options appears even less when I attempt to start up... I also tried using the recovery disks to no avail...
A power surge knocked out the power in my building and the computer suddenly stopped working while streaming netflix video afterwards... Then when attempting to re-boot once power was restored, The screen showed some very wierd, almost alien fonts on the top of the black screen that almost resembled Chinese or hyrogliphics. Upon further attempts to re-boot to no avail, I'm at a loss in diagnosing the possible causes or failure modes... Can somebody help me in the right direction???
I'm leaning towards either a corrupted bios via virus, or a fried hard drive or both. If you think something else or this has happened before and anyone knows a fix, I would be eternally grateful for your guidance in resolving this problem I'm experiencing.
Respectfully,
Henry

I would lean more to a hard drive problem.
A quick test is to temporarily disconnect the hard drive - the system should quickly indicate it can't find the HDD, can't boot, etc. You should also have the option to press one of the function keys to enter system BIOS.
If when you hook the drive up again - it starts getting flaky/slow again to do anything - you've likely found your culprit.
-DM (a long-time HP employee)
-DM (HP Retiree)
NOTE: If this helps you or solved your problem - please say thanks by clicking the white kudos star on the left.
If you think this would also help others, please mark 'Accept as Solution' to help them find it easier.

[Solved]Hibernating without a swap, now systemd can't complete booting

Tried hibernating without a swap (by mistake, I forgot that I don't use a swap nowadays!), now systemd can't complete booting.
But, if I remove the init=whatever/systemd line from the bootloader, the old init system does its work nicely.. (though that's a poor permanent solution. )
I have saved the 1000+ line journalctl log, but have no idea where to start looking for the problem.
https://www.pastee.org/j3htz
It seems to be something to do with filesystem errors, as the following line is the last shown by systemd before stopping.
Nov 11 20:19:45 manasijd systemd-fsck[413]: Home: clean, 85694/1221600 files, 4430911/4883456 blocks
But running fsck(after unmounting the partitions) from the 'emergency mode' systemd drops me into, the results come up clean.
Any idea what can be wrong, or what exactly to look for in the log ?
Last edited by manasij7479 (2012-11-12 11:54:55)

Seems like I was correct about the filesystem problem @ /home .
Backed up the home folder and nuked the ext4 partition and created a new btrfs in its place.
Everything seems to be fine now, after copying back the folder (few issues with kde not cooperating, but nothing major) .
Btw, can anyone try to replicate this on a 'torture' rig or a virtual machine, seems to be a pretty important bug ?

My FCPX boots up and then says restoring windows and stays there and never completely boots. I've tried everything. Any thoughts?

My FCPX boots up and then says restoring windows and stays there and never completely boots. I've tried everything. Any thoughts?

Please state what you have tried - there's no point in people here wasting their valuable (own) time trying to help you, only to find you've already tried what they are suggesting.
Have you tried trashing your preferences?
Unexplained faults like this can often be fixed by clearing out FCP X's preferences (for some reason, they get knotted up from time to time).
Download Digital Rebellion's Preference Manager (free, simple to use, and perfectly safe, both to download and use).
With Preference Manager, you can backup the Prefs first, then if trashing makes no difference, you can restore all your settings.
If you trash them and don't restore them, you will need to manually restore all your FCP X settings again, so it's a great idea to backup Preferences from time to time when FCP X is working well, then if they get corrupted you can ditch the bad prefs and restore from your (Digital Rebellion) backup.
Can't guarantee it, but it's worth a try.
If that doesn't work, move your projects and events (if you have any) to new folders so that FCP X doesn't find them, then relaunch the application. If it launches OK, there's a very good chance one of your projects or events is corrupt or one of the files in an event is corrupt.
Quit the app, then move one event or project at a time back to the original folder and launch FCP X agian - keep going until you find the cause.
Andy

Recovering IPS-4260 6.0 that is not completing boot sequence

Hi all,
I have a 4260 with 6.0 Image that is not completing the booting sequence, it stops at "grub". As you are all aware, the 4260 do not have CD drive to boot from.
Any idea how to recover it. I downloaded the recovery image with .PKG extension but I am unable to find the procedure how to use it for the IPS recovery.
Appreciate your expertise.
Sami

Here's your instructions.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ips/6.2/configuration/guide/cli/cli_system_images.html#wp1274735
- Bob

Very sick imac won't complete boot (not a HD problem)

My imac (24-inch Early 2008) is not completing the boot process. After the apple appears and then the "working" pinwheel has spun for a while, the pinwheel stops and never recovers, forcing me to do a hard shutdown. Below I'll list what i have tried and what was the result.
-- My first thought was that it was the HD. It's always the HD, you know? Well, I replaced the hard drive and we're still having the same issue. BTW this means my data is fine. the orig HD is no longer in the imac, and was totally readable by my other machine.
-- I've tried booting from an external HD (not the original drive, hooked via firewire and then by USB), a usb thumb drive (once with a Snow Leopard boot, then once with Lion) and of course the install disk. Displays the same behavior for all .
-- Attempted to boot in safe mode (CMD Shift):
          -- --Displays apple screen with the progress bar
          -- --fills the bar about 30%
          -- --bar disappears and is replaced with spinning gear
          -- --gear freezes, no boot
-- pulled and re-set ram in slots (not original RAM, but replaced w Kingston RAM when I got the machine in early 2008, and there have been no probs until now). Tried switching slots, tried each ram card alone in both slots.
-- PRAM Reset: CMD + option + P + R
-- SMC Reset: Unplugged for 15 seconds, plug and wait for 5 seconds, press power
-- Unplug for 15 seconds, hold power button while plugging in, release power button, press power to turn on (Some other variation of reset I found out there, don't remember what they said it was for)
Verbose mode, shows it stopping in roughly the same place no matter what I'm trying. The same place being the initialization of the network cards. Even tho' verbose says it logs to /dev/console/ there is nothing in that directory for whichever boot drive I'm using (yes, I looked in hidden files). So, I hand copied the last few lines from my latest attempt:
yukon: Ethernet address BLAH BLAH
Airport_Brem43xx : Ethernet address BLAH BLAH
IO80211Controller:: dataLinkLayerAttachComplete () adding AppleEFINVRAM notification
Airport: Link Down on en1. Reason 1 (unspecified)
I have had some verbose logs stopping after "yukon: Ethernet address", as well as other lines that all seem to be related to either one of the network cards.
It will go into single user mode, so i imagine the solution has to come from things I can do at that command line.
I've seen some posts listing those lines from error logs, etc., but they all seemed to be issues with slowing and poor performance (which my mac had displayed prior to death). The solutions, if any, don't really apply to me since I can't boot at all.
I've got to get this puppy up and running for the start of school in a week. HELP! :eek:
Please don't make me go to genius bar!
juliana
P.S. I should note that the OS is not yet installed on the internal drive. After I replaced the drive, I figured I'd boot off the install disk and install then. Do you think it's worth opening it up again, take out the drive, install OSX from one of my other machines, then reinstall? It's an imac, so it's a bit involved. But I can't imagine it would be any different than trying to boot from an external, right?

I have one machine (iMac 2006 Late) that had the same problem. It would not boot from ANY source and all the things I have tried are the same as what you have tried. Finally, after the computer sat unplugged for a week or so, I ran across the web site linked below. They had a list of a number of power up key commands.
I do not know if it was conincidental or if it actually cleared the problem but after I did the Command-Shift-K comands twice, I tried my Lion Installer flash drive, which had never been recognized earlier and lo and behold, it was recognized on an Option Boot. It then allowed me to actually begin the install from the flash drive. I won't know till tomorrow if it completed the install but it is more progress than I made in a month of trying before the Command-Shift-K combo.
I had previously scrubbed the hard drive right before the problem started so I do not know if it would have booted from the HD had in not been completely erased.
Give the Command-Shift-K combo a try and let us know if it works or if my machine suddenly for no known reason, decided to rejoin the land of the living. Like I said I did do that combo twice in a row. I don't know if it makes a difference but there ain't a heck of a lot to lose if you try it.
http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Tech_Notes/Mac_Keys.shtml

Iphoto refusing to completely load

Once i opened my iphoto it claims to be loading but none of my photos ever show up. I don't know how to reboot it, I have quit it and shut down my computer several times, everthing else pulls up just fine, but Iphoto just refuses to load completely. Any ideas on how i can fix this?

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

OS X won't complete boot

My Mac Mini won't complete the startup process. It gets as far as the message "starting OS X" with the blue progress bar all the way full but then stays there...it's been there for the last 3 hours. It doesn't look frozen and I suspect memory issues. As I can't get to the "About this mac" screen I can't tell you exactly what kind of mem. it has, but I believe its 512 with 2.something RAM & 30g hard drive and non-Intel...so yeah, older, slower model but has been working fine up until just a few weeks ago. Symptoms have included programs freezing, not waking or taking forever to do so. I emptied the Safari cache and later read about the activity monitor & how emptying the CPU history cache would also help...both of these things did completely resolve the issue but was back to it moving slowly within a week or two. I also did reset the PRAM as outlined in another discussion but since it went past the gray screen with the logo & spinning gear, I sensed this was probably not the issue and sure enough, there was no change. At this point I figure I need to just wait for it to eventually complete its boot then empty the caches again, but what about helping it to not do this again? Is there something else I'm missing other than uninstalling infrequently used programs, not running widgets, etc.?
Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification, but it still just continues to the"starting os x" message with the blue progress bar. By "old aluminum keyboard" do you mean the flat, newer ones that are out? The one I got with the mini in '05 was all white, plastic and been thrown away a long time ago when certain keys stopped working. So yes, I probably do have the kind that doesn't work with it (I actually kept my old keyboard for a couple of years "just in case" but threw it out in the last year...of course!) The mini doesn't have bluetooth or remote capability...so...do I go borrow someone's old plastic white one?
Also, I installed Tiger when it came out. Should I be using that disk for the reinstall, or the original with Panther on it? I've been using the original.
I was suspecting a virus mostly because I do keep the hard drive with around 10g free, so at about 30%. The only recent difference is that I tried to open PhotoShop CS4 which I installed a couple of years ago but never got around to learning. It told me it needed to be reinstalled as something was missing or corrupted so I closed it and that was the end of that. I've read that it's one of the programs out there that can really deplete memory, maybe it did something when I opened it. But if I can't log in to uninstall it, I'm stuck.
Thank God for my MacBook!
Thanks

OS X Won't completely boot - blue screen, pointer then nothing

(MBP with problem is 2.0GHz Core Duo 15" MBP. 1.5GB RAM)
As topic says, g/f woke her MBP pro up from sleeping to type an email. Shortly after opening the mac everything stopped responding. She held down the power button to turn off the mac and then turned it back on. MBP loads past grey Apple screen and shows the progress bar for loading OS X. Once progress bar dissapears then nothing, just a blue screen with the mouse pointer.
I have already done the following:
- Booted from Install DVD and ran disk utility. Verified Drive but no isssues. Verified and Repaired Permissions. Still didn't boot
- Booted in 'Safe' boot. Exact same problem
- Booted into Single User Mode and ran fsck -fy, no problems reported. I can browse the drive and see files etc.
- When I attempted to finish loading OS X from the command line I do remember seeing the following error: coreservicesd crashed. Googled but couldn't really find out anything I understood to help.
What are my options here. The MBP in question is unfortunately about 2 weeks past the Warranty date w/ no applecare but she may take in tomorrow regardless.
Can I use a firewire cable to connect the two macs and at least get the most important data off if we have to reinstall?
Thanks in advance for the help!

That sounds like wake from Hibernation/Deep Sleep - there's no "progress bar" with a normal Boot, only a spinning grey wheel then the Desktop appears .
I believe this is the screen he is referring to.
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
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Palm t/X unable to complete booting process .

Dear sirs, I am connecting my palm tx to the computer in order to charge it and /or when pressing the reset , palm logo (orange) shows with the black bar at the botton of the screen indicating the booting process, inmediately when the bar reach the opposite end it turns into the Palm powered screen , then the screen goes black and the process repeat itself, ALSO when the handheld is connected to the computer it is not recognized . (during that process I have pressed the synchro. and nothing happens) usually when this or other hardware is connected to this or other comp. I do hear a high pitch sound (bell) indicating recognition. I do not have another charging device in order to try. thanks in advance for your help .
Post relates to: Palm TX

Hello and thank you for using the Palm Help Forums!
The device will need to be fully booted for the computer to recognize it. I would make sure that the device is NOT connected to the computer during resets.
Once you ensure the device is disconnected from the sync cable try a 10 second soft reset. Just hold the reset button for approx 10 seconds then release it.
If the device is still having trouble booting you may want to do a hard reset to try to recover the device. A hard reset will erase everything on the device and restore settings back to default. For further information and instructions on hard resets please visit kb.palm.com and look up article number 42094 in the solution id search field.
I hope this helps and let me know if have any other questions.
-Pat
Post relates to: Treo 800w (Sprint)

No sound after completing Boot Camp?

Hi everyone,
I recently discovered Boot Camp, and I had a spare Windows 7 CD lying around, so I figured that I might as well give it a shot and see what happened.
Everything went perfectly fine, down the the last detail, except for one thing. There's no sound! I tried booting from Mac OS X (as opposed to Win 7, which I'd been booting off of earlier), and still no sound. Not from YouTube, not from the system, nothing. I figured this was probably because of a missing driver, but unfortunately Apple is so concerned about helping you that they don't let you help yourself, and instead of simply redownloading the driver I'm forced to put up this post. In any case, could anyone redirect me to some sort of driver download page?
Any ideas would be appreciated,
Dylan
P.S. Apple - you might want to consider adding support options other than Express Lane. Not everyone's covered under warranty, and we's like some free support if you don't mind

you have to download the windows driver from the BootCamp.
First go to Mac and Open the BootCamp and download the windows driver.

Doesn't completely boot up, then restarts

hi, i'm new here and need someone's help!
i have an imac that i bought about 6 months ago. i turn the computer on, i hear the start up tone, the apple sign, and the spinning "gear". it stays like that for a while and then reboots on its own. if you let it go, it reboots again and again but never fully boots up.
i've tried to repair on disk utility, and it said that the hard drive was ok. i tried to boot in safe mode and it didn't work, so i tried to use fsck. it said that it was ok. i also tried to archive and reinstall os x, but it failed.
anyone have any suggestions?

I just downloaded the latest edition of iTunes and two other updates. I have an intel MacBookPro, and am having the same problem. Disk Utility offered no relief. I am able to start the computer as an external disk (by holding down the T key) and saved a lot of data. I also ran Techtool Pro from the eDrive as well as the DVD and was informed that all is well. I also deleted iTunes, but still all I get is the gear and the computer starting up again, again, and again.
Help please

IBook G3 Dual USB won't completely boot

I have an iBook G3 Dual USB 500 mhz. I went to boot it up the other day, i heard the boot sound, saw the initial grayish screen with the apple logo. then it went to a tanish screen with the folder with a question mark, then the folder with the mac face. and it continued to go back and forth with those two icons. I thought it was the hard drive so i replaced it with a good one. But it still does the same thing.
If i try booting while holding the option key,the blue screen that comes up for the boot source comes up. It identifies the hard drive, and if there's an install disc in the drive, it reads that as well. If i try booting from either location, it just refreshes the pages.
Or if i holding the "c" button down while booting, it goes to the screen with the ? folder and the mac face folder.
Any suggestions?

If it won't boot from a known good disk, then it's likely that there's been a hardware failure, probably the logic board. You can try resetting the PMU, via the instructions in this document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
and see if that makes any difference, though it's a long shot. If that fails, then your iBook has probably gone to the "great beyond".
Regards.

New 2010 mini won't complete boot out of the box

Never seen this before. I just unpacked a new unibody Mini and booted it up only to end up in a screen that shows a picture of what appears to be the underside of a mouse highlighting what I think should be the power button, and the spinning progress icon in the bottom of the screen. Powered down, unplugged all hardware except for monitor and still get to this point.
Looks like I get to do a fresh system install from day 1....lets hope the rest of my experience with this machine is better.

Word to the wise, the new mac mini won't boot if no mouse is connected. If you plug in a usb wire mouse, the system is supposed to detect this right away and continue the boot process. Mine won't do this.
Apple Care rep had me try the following all to no avail:
(1) remove power cord and other USB cords. Hold power button down for 10 seconds. Plug it all back in and reboot.
(2) zap the p-ram
Other tid-bit that is good to know. Apple treats the Mac Mini as a desktop which I was told means they do not want to do mail in support and instead want me to take the box to a support rep in my area, which in this case is not close. The support rep then put me on hold to see if they could do a mail in swap out since this did come to me DOA, and after about 10 min they set me up with a new one.

IMAC G5 won't completely boot up

When I turn on the computer I hear the Apple start up sound but then I get a screen that has 3 strange icons on it. The fan motor turns on very loud and I can't click on any of the icons on the screen. What should I do?

Sometimes zapping the P-RAM helps:
1. After the startup tone, hold down <cmd><opt><r> until 3 additional startup tones are heard, then release the 4 keys.
Sometimes doing the Open Firmware resets helps:
1. After the startup tone hold down <cmd><opt><O><F> until a text screen appears (that's the letter Oh, not the number zero).
2. When you can start typing, enter the following commands, following each command by pressing <return>.
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
The mac will start normally at this point.
If still not successful, try this as well:
After the startup tone, hold down the <shift> key until you (hopefully) reach the desktop. This start is called "Safe Start" and it will be longer than normal, because Disk Utility's "repair" is invisibly run; it also will bypass any login items. If the system gets to the desktop OK this time but stalls when the shift key is NOT held down, the problem may be some login item that will need to be removed, using the Accounts panel of System Preferences and its Login Items section.
If none of these suggestions work, you may be required to perform an "Archive and Install" re-installation of the Mac OS. This is one of the options presented by the OS installer when you run it, and remember to select "preserve user data and preferences" all your settings, data and added programs will be there, but a new copy of the OS will be on the hard drive from which to boot.
Please post back,
Miriam

Refusing to complete booting

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