Mac osx 10.3 stalls on boot 1

[theEclipse]

Hello-

I have a 12" iBook and recently it started having intermittent problems booting. Most of the time when I turn it on it freezes before the apple logo comes up on screen.

I was able to get it to come up eventually after trying a lot of things like taking the battery out, but none of it seemed to be doing any good.

Is this a hardware problem that I should take to apple?
Anybody have a simmilar problem and get it fixed?



Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
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http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[jmgalvin]

Open up Disk Utility (applications/ustilties/disk utility) and scan your hard drive for problems. Also repair permissions. Id hard drive problems are found, start up from the system install CD and run Disk utility (on the CD under Utilities) on the computer's hard drive.

You might also try reinstalling the operating system. If so, make sure to use the Archive and Install option on the osx installer. This will retain all your settings, etc.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[SamBones]

I'm a new convert to Apple, so my suggestion may not mean much, but I have an iBook that was doing the same thing. I would go to boot it and it would hang at different places. Sometimes the little beachball would just stop spinning. Sometimes I would get to the login screen and it would freeze when I moved the mouse. Sometimes I would get all the way to the desktop when it would lock up. I would have to power down and up several times before I could finally use it. Sometimes I couldn't use it at all. I was so frustrated I was about to toss it and go back to the dark side.

I finally figured out it was a memory chip I had put into it. It had been working fine until I put that chip in. It was an inexpensive laptop memory card from a PC store. It met the specs, but I figured it was either a bad chip or the iBook is sensitive to cheap memory. I took it out and everything is fine.

Have you recently added any memory?

 

[theEclipse]

jmg-

Thanks alot! Using your instructions I was able to restore complet performance to the laptop.

bones-

Actually no. The laptop is as it was when we bought it from apple. Thanks for the suggestion anyways. And dont feel bad about being an apple newb -- just because you are new at something doesnt mean you dont know anything about it ;-). That the point of this message board; share what knowledge we have, ask questions when we cant figure it out.

Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[DesperateHusband]

If you can't boot, you can't run the disk utility on the local computer, and it can then only "repair permissions" on the boot/system drive anyway.

Boot from your OS restore disks, don't run installation, instead when you reach the "continue installation" screen go to file, and launch disk utility from the install disk, run Disk First Aid until there are no errors (if you can), and then run "repair permissions". Then try to boot from the drive normally again (quit installation first).