OS X Help Please

[Charles Martin]

> From: "Luke Hinman" <louis.hinman at attbi.com>
>
> O.k. so i was messing around with theme switcher in 10.2.4 and 
> rebooted and
> now all i get is a blue screen... it occasionally flashes the desktop
> picture after the blue screen has been on a while. it starts with a 
> chime
> and gray apple and the rotating dots of os X. then it show the boot 
> screen
> with blue bar loading across then blue screen then desktop picture 
> flashes
> occasionally. i only have my os x developer tools disk and maybe a 
> system
> folder on a portable f/w hard drive. i am typing on dell x 200 right 
> now
> (ugh). my broke machine is new ibook 700. restore cd's are not with me.
> thanks.

Try the following two suggestions, in this order:

1. Try booting up the iBook and holding down the shift key. This 
disables third-party "extensions." That might get you to a stable 
desktop. If it does, obviously you want do disable the theme switcher 
and download a program called "AquaFix" from either versiontracker.com 
or macupdate.com. That will solve the problem.

2. If holding down the shift key doesn't get you to a working desktop, 
try running fsck. Here's the procedure:

a. Boot machine, holding down command and s (cmd-s).
b. DOS-like screen of text will appear. Wait till you get a command 
prompt.
c. At the prompt, type the following:
/sbin/fsck -y
d. Press return. Wait for the program to finish running.
e. If you get the message "the hard drive appears to be OK," skip to 
(g).
f. If you get the message "the file system was modified," repeat step 
c. You may need to do this several times.
g. Once the hard drive is pronounced "OK," type the following:
reboot

Let us know if that solves the problem.

_Chas_

"The Box said 'Windows 95 or better' ... so I got a Macintosh."