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20051111 Friday November 11, 2005

PowerBook won't boot after upgrading to 10.4.3 This morning, I began building a new user account for my demos tomorrow at NFJS. I'm doing this because the last time I did demos was a disaster. Since then, I've rebuilt my hard drive, and while things seem faster - a clean user account is the best way to get maximum efficiency. While building the new user, I was prompted by Software Update, and promptly installed Backup 3.0.1 and OS X 10.4.3.

After configuring a number of settings, I rebooted the machine. Now all I get is a gray screen with a dark gray apple on it. The damn thing won't boot. I rebuilt the disk with DiskWarrior, but no dice. Now I'm trying to repair permissions and all that jazz with Disk Utility.

Luckily, I can still boot off my iPod and I can always rebuild an external Firewire drive if I need to. However, I'd much rather get back to where I was this morning. There's nothing like hosing your machine the day before you really need it.

Update: I fixed the problem by reinstalling OS X with the "Archive and Reinstall" option. No data loss, time to backup. Posted in Mac OS X at Nov 11 2005, 01:12:52 PM MST 6 Comments

Comments:

It's things like this that really scare the shit out of me being an Apple owner. Mainly because I hear about it happening way too often. I guess I'll just keep my fingers (and toes) crossed.

Posted by PJ Hyett on November 11, 2005 at 04:02 PM MST #

Admit it, life is much simpler when you're using Windows.

Posted by Bau R on November 11, 2005 at 09:39 PM MST #

I had the same issue on iMac G5. Had to reinstall the OS in archive mode. Basically it only overwrites the system folder, everything else stays the same. Quite painless actually. But Mac Os X sucks big time for me now.

Posted by Sergey Dubov on November 11, 2005 at 10:11 PM MST #

actually, i think OS X has gotten a bit buggy since 10.4.1. Recent updates seem quite shaky. For the weak-hearted, I would suggest staying on 10.4.1.

Posted by bookofjames on November 13, 2005 at 10:54 PM MST #

If there is an unfortunate next time that this occurs, try holding down cmd-v when your PowerBook is booting. That will show you the verbose output from the Mac while it's booting, and may help to identify why the machine isn't booting. Does DiskWarrior do any more than check that the disc is okay?

Posted by Greg on November 15, 2005 at 03:56 PM MST #

I had this same problem with my G5 tower - tried to update to 10.4.3 and MAN, did that suck. Wouldn't boot and fans sounded like they were gonna take off and fly laps around my office. Re-installed the OS in archive mode which, as Sergey states, is quite painless. Thanks, guy. I won't be updating anytime soon, that's for sure. Incidentally, I stuck DiskWarrior in and it said it couldn't do anything because it "only" suports Mac OSX. Waste of dinero.

Posted by Janet on December 28, 2005 at 07:24 PM MST #

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