[X4U] no startup after last update

[Peter Krug]

On Jun 27, 2005, at 2:29 PM, Kansas Territory wrote:

> PowerMac G4/450   has been running fine for years, update after  
> update.

> I was running OSX10.4      one of the updates it wanted to install  
> was 10.4.1 , also a quicktime update, I think a security update ?   
> and maybe an iTunes update ..  anyway I told them all to install.    
> installation finished, asked if I wanted to restart.  I clicked  
> restart.   now the computer just gets to a gray screen with the  
> Apple logo in the middle, and never progresses beyond that.
>
Same happened to me on my 17-inch Powerbook after 32 days without a  
restart.

> I tried starting up with the "s" key held down.. I thought this  
> would start it in simple mode or what ever it's called.  but that  
> did nothing, same gray screen.

Kansas, you need to hold down command-s to enter single user mode.   
It might give you a hint as to why the update caused the problem, or  
it might not.  You can try fscking the drive in single user mode, you  
can try to repair permissions via OS X install CD.  I tried these and  
there was no change.  I figured it would take more time to figure out  
the exact cause and try to fix it than to just archive and  
reinstall.   35 minutes later I had a working 10.4 install, then  
updates to 10.4.1, etc. , worked fine.  1 other of the 30-odd  
computers I support had the same problem. (Yes, we repaired  
permissions prior to the update).

Sorry.  Maybe someone here can troubleshoot you back to a working  
system, but it's my bet that you'll save time by just archiving and  
reinstalling.

Peter

A little computer haiku:
I can't remember
the last time I restarted
I love OS X

This message sent with Mail.app 2.0.1 on Mac OS X 10.4.1
pkrug at mac.com