OS X boots drops to a console prompt

[rustydomino]

hello all,

I am new to this forum. I tried searching for some info on my problem with no solutions that work, including on this forum and on google groups.

When I boot up, the grey apple and spinning circle show up, and I get the blue background and bootup progress bar. It gets as far as "login window starting", then drops to the BSD login in console mode.

I think, but am not sure, that this problem only started after I obtained and installed some updates from the auto-updater.

I tried following the advice given for similar problems, such as ssh-ing to the machine as root and repairing file permissions (I have the root account enabled), resetting the nvram, nothing seems to work. I also cannot get the GUI to start by SystemStarter -g, I get the following error:

Could not create IPC port (com.apple.SystemStarter).Hangup

I ran dmesg and the two lines that return things that look like errors are:

AppleRS232Serial: 0 AppleRS232Serial::start - returning false early, Connector or machine incorrect

(I think this is because my machine is a revD iMac 333, it doesn't have a serial port)

ROM ndrv for ATY.RagePro_C is too old (0xb34623ea)

(sounds like I might have an issue with a video driver??)

when providing advice, please keep in mind I am not a machead (I use this machine for only one program that I need), and my level of unix technical expertise is limited (I got linux to work as a cross platform file server at one point but eventually gave up because it was too complicated). thanks so much for any help, downtime sucks, I need to get some work done.... :)

oh yeah, mentioned that my machine is a RevD iMac 333, 256 Megs of RAM, 40gb WD drive (probably not relevant)....can't think of anything else...

Mike

[hexstar]

what version of OS X? (10.x.x)

[rustydomino]

10.3.?, some version of Panther? I'm back home now, will check tommorrow.

[hayne]

Try Apple suggestions for startup problems:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464

[ulrichm]

Have you installed any RAM recently? In any case, try to remove the RAM modules and try to start up in various RAM module combinations.

[rustydomino]

OK, I tried all of the things suggested by Apple, I still get dropped to the console BSD login prompt.

have not swapped hardware around yet; don't have any spare hardware around anyway, and getting into the guts of a RevD iMac is not exactly fun :P

will try to reinstall at some point, I guess, but that is really a last ditch measure. It will be a pain to reinstall everything, not even sure if I remember how to do everything I did (set up a separate swap partition, moved /Users to to a different logical partition, etc etc).

Anyone else have other suggestions? does the os install CD have any kind of utilities that might help? like I said I am not a mac head, and this is a lab computer. I just need it to do some work. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, don't want to spend several hours reinstalling.

Mike

[ulrichm]

Have you tried the suggestions of this thread http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=13846
You could of course boot into single user mode, run fsck and afterwards boot from the Panther CD1 and run Disk Utility.
Good luck.

[hayne]

You should use "verbose boot" (hold down the Command and V keys after the chime) so you can see all the system messages scrolling by.
Pay close attention to see how far it gets.

In particular, you want to determine if it is failing somewhere inside the /etc/rc script before it gets to SystemStarter or if it is failing inside SystemStarter itself.
If the former, you might find it useful to insert "echo" statements into the /etc/rc script as described in this other thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpost.php?p=145594&postcount=6

If it is failing inside SystemStarter, that means that one of your StartupItems is failing catastrophically. There should be an error messages in system.log (in the /var/log folder)

[rustydomino]

the system log seems to be giving more useful information. However, I have completely screwed up the network configuration, and can't send the logfile to another computer through the network at all. I am at home now, and will copy the last few lines of the logfile by hand tomorrow at work annd post here. As the previous poster suspected, it seems that SystemStarter is looking for a file that doesn't exist.

On a completely unrelated note, this seems to be a serious flaw in a Unixy backend for Mac OS X, in terms of user-friendliness. If something catastrophic like this happens to your garden variety user, he/she will not be able to diagnosis or fix it without some rudimentary Unix skills. Macs are marketed as being easy to use, with a low learning curve. Digging through the root filesystem, finding system logs, and displaying those logfiles without the benefit of a GUI is not easy to use...

[hexstar]

yeah...perhaps...is there anyways to make a MacOS X boot cd that would start a basic MacOS X area where you could browse the HD etc...like knoppix for pcs?

[hayne]

Do you know yet what version of OS X you are running?
Show us the result of the following command:
uname -r

I have completely screwed up the network configuration, and can't send the logfile to another computer through the network at all. I am at home now, and will copy the last few lines of the logfile by hand
Some possible alternatives to copying by hand:
- use a digital camera to photograph the screen showing the log file contents
- mount a USB drive (following the instructions in this other thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=22516 )
and then copy the log file to the USB drive using the 'cp' command.
E.g.:
cp /var/log/system.log /Volumes/name_of_usb_drive
(or you could similarly use a firewire drive but I'm not sure if your Mac has a firewire port)

If something catastrophic like this happens to your garden variety user, he/she will not be able to diagnosis or fix it without some rudimentary Unix skills. Macs are marketed as being easy to use, with a low learning curve. Digging through the root filesystem, finding system logs, and displaying those logfiles without the benefit of a GUI is not easy to use...

It's just like with cars. Most car owners (say 90%) will just take the car into the shop for any and all problems. A small fraction (say 9%) will do some of the easier jobs themselves but take it to the shop for all else. A very small group (1%) will fix most things themselves.

The percentage of Macintosh owners that will come to a forum like this for help and will be able to follow the instructions offered is probably less than 10%. Most will take it into the shop. Or just suffer with the problems.

Providing a failsafe troubleshooting mode is a nice idea (and "Safe mode" as obtained by holding down the Shift key after the chime is one step in this direction) but I think the problem is that if the possible problems were understood well enough to provide such a mode, the system could be programmed to avoid them - or to fix itself. Unfortunately, the problems that result in situations like the one in this thread are not yet well understood, so the only feasible solution is the flexibility offered by the Unix prompt.

[hexstar]

microsoft managed to do a gui safe mode for situations like this ;) why not Apple with MacOS X? If Microsoft can do it I'm sure Apple can do it if not better.

[hayne]

microsoft managed to do a gui safe mode for situations like this.
I'm not familar with what MS offers. Is this in Windows XP or earlier?
Do you have a web page reference that explains what this mode offers?

Are you sure it isn't similar to what you get with "Safe mode" in OS X (see above)? I.e. does it work in all circumstances, e.g. if C:\Windows has been renamed to something else?