Won't start in Install Disk, Safe Boot or AppleJack

Machine works fine except that when I insert Install Disk in effort to use First Aid (by holding C down) it doesn't recognize the disk.
Also, won't Safe Boot (starting with Shift held down), zap PRAM or AppleJack. Just ignores instructions, opens normally. Have Onyxd and Repaired Disk Permissions but no change.
All somewhat worrisome. Any ideas?
Tim

if you see a lock when you reboot with the option key pressed it means you have a firmware password set. that's what preventing you from being able to boot from the install disk, single user mode etc. you need to enter your firmaware password on the screen with the lock and it will let your through to the startup disk manager. you can boot from the DVD there. if you want to boot into Single User mode to run Applejack then you need to turn off the firmware password first. that's done from the install DVD using the firmware password utility in the Utilities menu.

Similar Messages

PB G$ 1.67 won't start, lost install disks, can I install via FW(T) mode?

Hi all,
You, she just gives me the grey screen w/apple logo. Tried all the usual stuff (PRAM, safe mode, single user - no change. Option mode shows the drive, but when I click on it and continue, back to apple screen. I used PB as a source Firewire drive and it worked fine - I saved all my important stuff to my Intel Mac Pro desktop. No problem, so I assume the drive is fine and the directory or system software is messed up. I cannot find my Install DVD - every other Mac in the house but my PB!! How can I get around this? Can I use firewire mode on the PB and install from the Mac Pro somehow? Please, any help would be appreciated. I'd hate to have to buy new disks...
Thanks,
Tony Heyes

Can I use firewire mode on the PB and install from the Mac Pro somehow?
No. Since the PowerPC installer disks won't install on an Intel Mac, or vice versa that's impossible.
I'd hate to have to buy new disks...
Fortunately new disks are no more than $30 or $40 depending on how many disks came with the machine. Call AppleCare for replacement disks:
http://www.apple.com/contact/phone_contacts.html
Note, repairing the directory from Apple's own Disk Utility and the installer disks may not always fix your problem. You may need Alsoft Disk Warrior 4.0 in the most extreme situations. Since you are backed up, that should not be a problem.

Upgrading to Leopard, won't start from Install disk?? Even with 'C' held

Hello, I'm trying to upgrade to Leopard and then Snow Leopard. My DVD drive works, as in I can read DVDs, burn discs etc. When I insert the Leopard upgrade disk (genuine, bought from Apple and already exchanged once) it asks me to restart to get to the Installer - so far so good.
But it just won't get to the Installer stage, I only get the circle wheel, no matter how long I leave it on for. The DVD makes some noise, it is being read but it doesn't boot. I have tried holding the 'C' key and selecting the disk as startup via system preferences, to no avail. I exchanged the disk at the Apple store just in case it was faulty, but I'm still having the same problem.
Is this a hardware problem? Is there any way I could get round it?
Thanks i advance!
Julie

Do you know of a way to 'bypass' the restart to get straight to the Installer?
Do you have a second Mac around? You can "borrow" the optical drive in another Mac by starting it in Firewire Target Disk mode.
There are other ways, but they are pretty involved and require a bootable hard drive you are willing to erase.
And I heard that I'd have to erase my hard drive to upgrade to snow leopard directly, is this right?
No, you do not have to erase the drive.
The only thing I can think it perhaps your optical drive is going bad. I believe that drives have to meet more stringent requirements when called upon to boot from a disc than when just playing a DVD when they can skip minor errors.

Windows Vista won't start or install - firmware or EFI problem?

I am running Snow Leopard on a 2.4GHz MacBook Pro, late 08 - early 09 model. I have been using boot camp to run Vista for the past year with no problem. This morning, I tried to start up Vista and it wasn't working. I got the option key screen to choose between OSX and Vista, but after choosing vista, the cursor blinks once and I get a black screen. The computer is quiet and nothing seems to be running.
At first I thought it was a boot camp problem. So I went into OSX, de-partitioned the drive, and repartitioned it. I then stuck the Vista install disk in, and clicked through the boot camp assistant to reinstall. The computer restarted to begin the reinstall process, but instead of starting the install disk, it did the same thing - a single blip of cursor, and then a black screen.
I'm not technically savvy, but that seems like it's not a Windows problem, but a firmware or EFI problem. The computer will run OSX, but it won't run boot camp and it won't start from a CD-ROM. The only other steps I've taken are to run Software Update and the Disk Utility from Safari. Neither helped. I'm out of warranty and would love to be able to fix it without spending tons of money. Any help is appreciated.

open terminal, run the following command:
sudo gpt -r show -l /dev/disk0
(press return, enter admin password, press return again)
output should look something like this:
Betsy7:~ kj$ sudo gpt -r show -l /dev/disk0
Password:
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
start size index contents
0 1 MBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - "EFI System Partition"
409640 316879664 2 GPT part - "RAPTOR"
317289304 262144
317551448 200889128 3 GPT part - "RAPTOR2"
518440576 262144
518702720 67287033 4 GPT part - "XP"
585989753 82582
586072335 32 Sec GPT table
586072367 1 Sec GPT header
The first line:
"gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0"
should be identical to mine. If the "Suspicious MBR"
line is missing, then it is a GPT problem, which indicates
that the MBR information is missing or more likely corrupt.
also the second and third lines will read:
start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
instead of:
start size index contents
0 1 MBR
If the MBR info in the GPT partition is corrupt or missing,
then (obviously) Windows won't be bootable.
The only tool reliably capable (that I know of) of repairing (rebuilding) the GPT/EFI
without wiping off all partitions and repartitioning the drive
is iPartition:
http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php
The command line program "gpt" is incomplete, so use
it at your own risk:
BUGS
The development of the gpt utility is still work in progress. Many necessary features
are missing or partially implemented. In practice this means that the manual page,
supposed to describe these features, is farther removed from being complete or useful.
As such, missing functionality is not even documented as missing. However, it is believed
that the currently present functionality is reliable and stable enough that this tool can be used
without bullet-proof footware if one thinks one does not make mistakes.
http://17.254.2.129/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/gp t.8.html
Kj ♘

Mac Mini won't start after installing OS X 10.6.3

My Mac Mini won't start after installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3. When I turn it on, the Apple logo appears and the initialization line starts to fill, but it suddenly stops. It does that again and stops at the same point, but this time it shuts down. What should I do?

If you are coming from 10.5.8, hopefully you backed up your important data first. Your mini will need at minimum, 1 GB of RAM to install Snow Leopard and at least 5 GB of storage remaining on your boot drive.
I treat 10.6.3 as a fresh, full install over a 10.5.8 system. That means I choose Disk Utility from the Installer's menu and repartition the boot drive as a single partition, Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) format, and use the GUID partition scheme from the options button. At this point, while still in Disk Utility, I would verify the drive under First Aid.
Then I turn the installer loose, and reboot into a working 10.6.3 system, ready for the software updates that take the machine to 10.6.8.
So, following the above guidelines, reinstall 10.6.3.

Safari won't start, after installing X Lion

Safari won't start, after installing X Lion

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
Step 1
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Post the messages from the time of the last crash, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
Step 2
Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

EMac Freezes in Normal Start Up - OK under Safe Boot 10.3.9 or 10.4.11

In helping a charter school get its eMacs back running, one of these eMacs [(ATI Graphics w/32Mb VRAM), 1.25GHz G4, 37GB HD, 1Gb RAM, and whose SN = G8429CDSQJ8] is displaying very unusual symptoms. It simply has to be software or a very weird RAM or VRAM memory issue, but I am mystified as to whose since I found no Firmware Updates at Apple or ATI. Here is the gory story.
I had replaced its battery and added a 1Gb DIMM (About This Mac and System Profiler show this is OK). I repaired the HD from a “Gray Restore DVD that was shipped with these eMacs” (got a “No Repairs Needed” from this) and its Permissions from the DVD set of 10.3.x system SW, and initially did an "archive and restore" installation. This had worked fine for all the other 10 eMacs as had going up to 2 Gb RAM.
On re-start the eMac froze and refused to eject Restore DVD. I hooked up a Firewire Cable to the ailing machine and ejected the Restore DVD after starting the ailing eMac in Target Mode. After this, I started up in Safe Boot and updated the 10.3.x Restored SW to 10.3.9 using Software Update ... things seemed fine. So, I started up in normal mode, opened System Preferences to Accounts to make sure the Student account was under agreed restrictions. As soon as the Authentication panel opened, the eMac froze, needing a Power Button shutdown … it kept doing this, and it behaved itself under Safe Boot after each freeze. I installed YASU (from a CD in Safe Boot and have used for years on my home PMMD, dual 1Ghz G4, 10.4.11), which I understand is simply a group of Unix scripts under a nice GUI and had it do all the system and web browser tasks (i.e. crons, permissions, prebinding, swap filesetc) but saved the logs and their archives.
We were upgrading all the eMacs System SW to Os 10.4.11 (starting from a 10.4.3 "Black X" commercial system disk … so from a Safe Boot, I loaded the 10.4.3 DVD, started up from it, and did an Erase and Install, so all the SW on the drive is Apple’s own. PRAM was reset and amazingly, on this re-start, this eMac froze a few seconds after a App’s window opened. From a new Safe Boot, Software Update took me to 10.4.11 (I refused to allow Safari, iTunes and Quick Time update until it had also updated all the other security and Java (9 Javas of these in numerical order from SUD).
Under Safe Boot, I found I can open as many as 10 Apps or Utilities, flip between the windows … nothing wrong. After some thought, I used Activity Monitor, Disk Utility (to perform “Erase Free Space, 7X” and with Screen Saver’s Flurry at maximum in the Choice window, and this places the processor use at almost 100% (~70-75% user + ~20% system) … but this does not test much of the memory (couldn’t figure out how to do this). I kept things going for over 7 hours while randomly using Safari or Text Edit. But as soon as a Normal Restart is done and a second window opens (even Activity Monitor’s little floater), it freezes again.
The Web is full of symptoms that usually blame memory, but it seems hard to believe that the 1Gb DIMM would “know” when the system is booted Normal vs Safe. So, tonight, I am going to run Rember (v. o.2b) that I dragged off my PMMD … an have used it under 10.4.11 over the years.
BTW, contents of Trash after two (2) hard freezes are always the same system files [annex_aux, annex.db, filetoken.db, fonts.db, and qdfams.db]. The mention of “fonts.db” seems to suggest a font problem, but why … all are fresh 10.4.3 stuff.
It’s my understanding that Safe Boot allows ONLY Apple extensions and Apps to load and this is why it seems to me that the problem must be SW … somehow, somewhere.
Is there a utility that can list third party components? Does this make sense? In looking into the Preferences and Application Support there are Adobe, Macromedia prefs, fonts … which I assume came in w/ Safari since I have not added any 3rd party programs other than YASU, who tells you truthfully where its stuff is loaded
When back at the school, I plan to swap out 1Gb RAM DIMMs and/or replace the old 256Mb DIMM that was original. Also, plan to go back to the Restore Software DVDs (10.3.4 since these have more Apps that are needed): Erase (Zero Out Deleted Files) and Install to rebuild a “virgin” set of 10.3 after restarting. Then Check to see if Safe Boot is stable BEFORE trying to update to 10.4.11 (via 10.4.3 Black X).
However, if this does not make sense, I would be grateful for readers pointing out my errors and/or flawed plans.

Hi Cosmic (and, per my Southern US heritage, hope yawl are doin fine down under),
Firstly, thank you hugely for guiding me through this eMac puzzle. Your insight that under Safe Boot the ATI video extensions are turned off now has the symptoms I see matching a cause.
Last evening, I did an Erase (Zero out the HD, 1 pass) and a virgin , custom install from the eMac Media DVD that came with the machine; this took the system to Os 10.3.6, and it seemed to let me open more windows than two(2) for several passes, but it still froze, these times leaving no recovered files as a trail.
I decided to use only Apple’s Software Update, under Safe Boot, to sequentially load only system or Java UDs and not let Safari or any iApp stuff bring in foreign SW components(tis strategy caused by finding, last evening, strange troubles with the Font book not validating any font and it displaying most of these incorrectly. This font finding kept me thinking SW had to be the problem instead of heeding your and Alan Jones experience …
All well and good, and when I got to 10.3.9 with all the Java and Security Uds, I could open as many as 4 Apps, but the killer was always testing the “Flurry” screen saver … lots of video here. Yet in Safe Boot, I could open all the Apps in the folder and randomly switch between them with no issues.
Lot of driving chores today kept me from seeing your second reply till late this afternoon, but as I drove I remembered that on my now ancient Power Mac Mirror Door, 2x1Ghz, one of my partitions had 10.3.9 loaded with free Unix scientific SW and Xbench 1.1.3 and Cinebench 2003, both of which test video cards, etc. So, I loaded and made DVDs of these testing apps after running them on the PMMD in the 10.3 partition as well as my normal 10.4.11 main drive. Got them over on the eMac, checked to make sure its fonts were OK, ran the tests under Safe Boot, then saw immediate freezes under Normal Boots, and finally, logged into the Apple site and read your reasoning. Bingo!
I again checked the caps I could see and they matched your ID of them, still, even with a machinists mirror could not see the ones further in … called the school marm and told her we should consider this eM as nearly dead, use its internal organs (HD, RAM, ATA drive) and externals (Keyboards, cables) in our organ donor program. She’s agreed, so it’s a done deal.
So, tomorrow I’ll satisfy my curiosity and do the surgery to remove the innards and see if there is evidence of the caps … sure there will be. BTW, I made my living, till a good severance package induced early retirement , as a PhD level Materials Scientist/Elec Engineer (mostly in chip level packaging and several forays into flat panel electronic displays (LCDs and OLEDS(Orgainc Light Emitting Diodes)). As I looked at the circuit board, these electrolytics seem to be surface mounted, an unusual design even for its day, and I cannot imagine any “shade tree” electrician having much success trying to replace them.
Again, a thank you for your insight. I’ll just have to owe you a beer since I’m doubtful you would get one I’d drop along the seashore. Take good care … and without checking a map, I hope Brisbane is not being flooded.
drsax
PS I forgot to mark your and Allan Jones earlier replies as Helpful which they were ... just did so. Sorry for the oversight. Owe you both a beer for sharing your experience.

Won't reboot from install disk

i can't boot from a bootable disk (my install disk or norton).
i'll hold down the c button just like i've always been able to do before, but it goes straight to the login page, instead of starting up from the disk.
if i try and go into account setting/startup disk it doesn't even list my bootable disk as an option...
anyone ever heard of this?
imac 2 Ghz Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9)

just a silly question - because I've done this.
Is it the right disk? The one that came with your intel?
I tried my G4 disk by mistake and it won't work.

IMac won't start without install disc

Hi, I'm new to all of this. I tried resetting my admin password using install disc on my iMac as I'd forgotten it. Now iMac won't start without disc. If disc is ejected on restart apple logo flashes between no entry sign and folder with "?" on it. Will start up with install disc in, but then wants me to choose language and install OS. Tried repairing and verifying HD and all seems ok. Tried holding option key and selecting HD on startup, but same outcome - choose language and install OS. How do I get back to normal desk top? Do I have to install OS again? Will I lose data? Please, please help! Thanks.

It should only take a minute or so at most to boot from the DVD.
If your sure you have the correct Install Disk for that iMac, I'd start over. Then if it still doesn't work then perhaps a trip to your Local Apple Service Provider with the Disk or Disk and iMac is in order.
http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Alternately using the correct Disk as per the following article, see if you can run the Apple Hardware Test? > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

Need urgent help! Mac OS X won't start up. Disk Utility can't find harddisk

I started up my computer today, and instead of booting into Mac OS X, the screen shows a folder with a question mark on it. I can startup my machine using my Panther disks that i've got, but when I go to disk utility, it can't find my hard disk. Looks like the hard disk is not mounting at all.
If i try to install Mac OS X, that also doesn't give me a hard disk to install it on..
I really need help on this because I was supposed to get work done today.
Would diskwarrior sort this problem out?
Cheers

Hi, Ken.
Start with the troubleshooting steps outlined in "Mac OS X: Your Mac won't start up."
If you're running Tiger (your profile does not indicate what version of Mac OS X you are using) and you only have the Panther install discs, do not use Disk Utility from the Panther discs on your startup disk. See "Only use Mac OS X 10.4-compatible disk utilities with Mac OS X 10.4 volumes."
I recommend you have someone at home send you all the discs you should have with you (Apple Hardware Test, Tiger Install Discs, Software Restore and Install discs, etc.) for your eMac by overnight courier, e.g. FedEx.
When you recover from this problem, it's also time to consider investing in a comprehensive Backup and Recovery solution. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Cannot start from install disk

We have a multi mac household and I'm pretty sure (but not positive) the 10.5.4 install disk belongs to this computer (MacBook Pro). I really need to use Disk Tools but when I try to start with the DVD I grinds for a couple minutes then just sits there with a gray screen (no apple logo). I've tried:
Inserting the disk normally, clicking on install and clicking the restart button as required.
Holding down the "c" while starting
Holding down option while starting
Holding down "d" while starting (for hardware test)
Zapping the PRAM
Changing the startup volume in the settings
..but I always get the same result as above. I have to hold down the power button to get it to shut down, then restart with the trackpad depressed to get the disk out.
Questions:
1) Does anyone have another idea I should try here?
2) Is the gray screen I'm seeing a symptom of trying to start with the wrong system disk?
3) How does one know if the install disk is the right one for the machine?
Many thanks!!!

While the media issues get sorted out, I can offer a workaround to completing the disk repairs, sans Install DVD (BTW, that's why the latter day media came only one to the box; they rolled everything together into a single dual-layer DVD). Normal disk repairs require booting from alternate media because the OS is doing multitasking, that is, accessing the boot media thru various concurrent processes. If multitasking is disabled, the issue disappears.
So, since you're in the Leopard world, I offer two choices. Best would be you download and install the latest release of the AppleJack utility ( http://applejack.sourceforge.net/ ), this is the premier power-user disk repair utility, which we Lion users miss dearly. AJ comes with a quick and easy installer that simplifies the process of getting it ready. Else you will have to do some command-line stuff by hand.
How to proceed; get this down somewhere, cause the Mac won't be usable till you finish. Restart the Mac and hold down the Option Command S keys. This gets you into Single User mode. No graphics interface here and all commands have to be typed on the screen, just like Grampa did back in the dawn of the Computer Age. After the # prompt appears and if you previously installed AppleJack, just type applejack and the return key; follow onscreen instructions, at least do steps 1, 2 & 4. If #1 shows any errors, redo until it comes out clean. When finished, return to quit and restart as indicated by the AppleJack prompt.
If you did not install AppleJack, type the following command exactly as written, followed by the return key: fsck -fy Wait until the # prompt reappears (may take awhile), repeat if any errors are indicated, then type reboot and the return key to restart the Mac. Not as thorough as AppleJack, but this will fix your HDD.
There, you will have now gone deep into the belly of the Unix beast running on your Mac. This is the non-graphics, non-fancy version of Disk Utility, just like computers were done before graphical GUIs.Since only a single process (fsck) runs in Single User mode, it is able to fix the disk without the multitasking issues. Of course, if you can't get a clean and error-free fsck run, the HDD has problems it can't fix (just like it may happen with DU) and you will need more help. BTW, fsck is the Unix geekcode for File System ChecK.

Firefox won't start (not even in Safe Mode) on Windows 7 x64

I am Running Windows 7 x64 and Firefox 3.6.15.
Since the day before yesterday I am unable to start Firefox. Even in Safe Mode it just won't start.
I click the Firefox icon, the mouse cursor changes to indicate the computer is doing something. After 3 seconds or so the mouse cursor again changes back to its default state. Nothing else happens.
The Task Manager in Windows shows me that an instance of firefox.exe is running, but I see no Firefox window.
Then if I again click to open Firefox, another firefox.exe instance starts, but again I see no Firefox window.
There isn't even a warning about one instance of Firefox already running.
What I have tried:
I have uninstalled Firefox, removed all the Firefox files and folders from c:\users\username\AppData\Local and Roamning. I re-downloaded the 3.6.15 installation package and re-installed.
No change.

I have the same problem.
The only Firefox version working is the 64bit nightly build 6.0a1. No 32Bit version of Firefox works!. Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer all work well.
Another Problem I have in this context is, that the Firefox Installer hangs in the tidy up step - even for the nightly 64Bit version. I have to kill the setup.exe process but the Installation seems to be completed.
Before my change to Win7 64Bit I had OpenText NFS Solo 14 installed on a 32Bit Windows7 and no Problems.
Is there a solution for this problem without uninstalling OpenText NFS Solo 14?
I need the NFS Server at work.

Windows 7 install disk not booting

Im trying to instal Windows 7 on my Mac Pro dual core 2.66. Model MacPro1,1. Mac os is 10.6.8. Boot Camp 3.0.4
After running BCA, I click to start the install, the computer reboots, and 1 of 3 screens shows up.
I eather get a gray screen and after about a minute the disk ejects.
or
I get a black screen that says,
     "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" and again the disk ejects
or
I get a black screen that says,
          1.
          2.
     Select CD-ROM Boot Type : _
Any ideas?
and yes it is a lagit copy of Windows 7, I just bought it from Best Buy and cost me $200 for the full version.

I suggest you take your computer to a repair shop for some hardware diagnostics. It impossible to tell you exactly what failed. It could be a component on the motherboard; it could be a failure in the system memory; there are just too many
possibilities to speculate what happened.
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ”

Can't Start from Install disk or external Hard Drive

I've installed an operating system on a external WD 120Gb hard drive. I am unable to start up from the WD Hard Drive or the Snow Leopard install disk, either by selection them from the Startup disk or by pressing 'OPTION' at startup. Every time one of these is selected, the computer starts from the MacBook internal hard Drive.
I have installed the operating system on an Iomega 1 Tb external and it doesn't show up on the Startup disk or when I start using the option key.
I have reinstalled the operating system on both the MacBook Pro Hard drive and he 120Gb portable.
I have a 2Gb SimpleTech Dual Pro Drive, which I can see and start up by, using the Option key at system boot.
I have a 500Gb Iomega I am using for my TIme Machine.
I can't figure why I am unable to start up using the Software DVD.

Thanks for the tip. In the end I combined bits and pieces of what I had read on other peope's messages, what worked for me was putting the frozen computer to sleep with the power button and then waking it up with both the mouse and the C key held down at the same time. Individually nothing happened but with both the CD popped out.
Thanks again,
Jason

Error when trying to start from install disk OS X 10.4

Hi,
I have an iBook G4 with the 1.42 GHz model, 60 GB, 512 RAM. I am running OSX 10.4.11. I would like to get it to run better. I installed TenFourFox as my new browser, that seemed to help, but it's still pretty slow. So then I freed up some more space on the hard drive. Then I started it up in Safe Mode, then I ran the disk utility and repaired the disk permissions. I ran the disk verify and found errors, and I then ran fsck - y at the command line. That seemed to get rid of the errors, but I am thinking I should format the hard drive and do a clean install.
Will doing a clean install help the computer run better/ faster? How can I do it? I am running into errors...
I lost the install disks, but luckily a friend of mine had a copy.
I insert the disk, power down, and restart.
I get the a really long error message, below are snippets:
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x002E0BF4): Unable to find driver for this platform: "PowerBook6,7"
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace 0x00099EA4 0x0009A860 0x00027A28 0x002E)B4.....
No debugger configured - dumping debug information...
panic: We are hanging here.
Is there something wrong with my computer? Or are the install disks not compatible? Maybe they were install disks for a powerbook and not an iBook (not sure if that matters).
I am also considering installing RAM. Will that help a lot with the speed (i.e. 50% faster?) or just a little?
Thanks a lot for any input!

Wrong install Disc, that one is machine specific, & doubtful a reinstall will help all that much.
More RAM will likely help, but not awfully likely it'll be 50%.
To tell, ehen it gets slow, Open Activity Monitor, Show:>All Processes, sort on CPU%, see if anything using too much CPU% when this happens, click on Memory tab, do you have many Pageouts?

Won't start in Install Disk, Safe Boot or AppleJack

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