Pwrbk wont boot from HD or DVD

[JFlex]

For some reason my 15" Powerbook (the new model with HD screen) stopped booting into the OS. It will start to boot then it just freezes and doesnt do anything. If I insert the 10.4 DVD and hold down the 'C' key, it starts to boot from the DVD then it shows a picture of an optical mouse and how to insert the batteries. I figured this means it can not find a pointing device, so I plug in a mouse and it continues to boot for about 3 seconds and freezes. So for some reason the boot DVD doesnt detect the track pad, however, when I hold down option upon booting up to enter open firmware, the track pad works fine. I have tried everything I can think of. I zapped the PRAM (cmd-opt-p-r, reboot three times) and that didnt help. The pwrbk will boot into single-user mode, and target-disk mode (i already used tarket-disk mode to backup my data, so im not worried about formatting the drive if i have to). Anyone have any idea's as to what the problem may be or how to fix it?

Thanx to all who respond in advance!

Best,
-Jason

 

[Ric]

Hi there and welcome !

When you booted into single user mode, did you 'do anything' ie run FSCK ?

Sometimes the quickest method is just to reinstall !

Did anything preclude this crash ?

regards

Ric

 

[JFlex]

Hi there and welcome !

When you booted into single user mode, did you 'do anything' ie run FSCK ?

Sometimes the quickest method is just to reinstall !

Did anything preclude this crash ?

regards

Ric

Hi Ric,
Thank you for your response! When I booted into single user mode I did run fsck and it said everything was normal.

I would love to reinstall if I could, however, I cant even boot to the 10.4 DVD. It starts to boot then just locks up.

The computer was working fine thismorning, then I booted to the 10.4 DVD to run Disk Repair in DiskUtility and to also install 10.4 on an external firewire drive. The DiskUtility said that it made repairs to the drive. So I rebooted to the DVD again and ran the installer. I left the computer to do its thing and when I came back it was powered off. It was plugged in to an outlet, so it wasn't running on the battery. Im not sure why it powered off, but it did, Im also not sure at what point during the installation it did this.

I could understand why it may not boot from the HD, because of a failure during install, but it should still boot from the DVD, right?

I have also tried booting to open firmware (holding down the option key) and selecting the DVD as the boot device, and it does the same thing.

Not sure what to try next!

Thanx again!

-Jason

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

try reseting the PMU http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

let us know if it helps, if not we'll try something else !

regards

Ric

 

[JFlex]

Hi there,

try reseting the PMU http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

let us know if it helps, if not we'll try something else !

regards

Ric

Hey Hey,
Thanx for the link! I reset the PMU the way the site said for this specific model pwrbk (turning off, unplugging power supply, removing the battery and holding the pwr button for 5 seconds). Doing this got me a little bit further, but it still locks up. This time, after it showed the screen that requests me to plug in a mouse, instead of going to a solid blue background and freezing, it loaded the first screen you get when you boot from the DVD (the select a language screen). Then it froze up again.

It seems odd to me that it makes me plug in a mouse before the install DVD will go any further.. I've never seen that happen before.

I forgot to mention that I am attempting to boot from a purchased 10.4 DVD (retail, out of the box, not a copy). Should I attempt to boot from the system CD that came bundled with the Pwrbk instead? If so i'll have to go digging through my stuff to try and find it!

And thank you very much for all your help so far! I just found this forum today and look forward to spending alot of time here! Judging by what i've read so far, everyone seems really awesome!

Best,
-Jason

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

thanks for your kind comments !

It might sound daft but try it again, doing it twice can sometimes be more effective, and then try a boot from the DVD...

The retail DVD should boot the Mac just as the supplied one should, there's no dirt/scratches on the bottom of the DVD is there ?

Could you have inadvertently done anything accidental whilst in the firmware ?

regards

Ric

 

[JFlex]

Ric,
Thankyou for all your help! It seems to be working now! I reset the PMU once again and tried from the DVD.. this didnt work.. so i found the system CD that came with the pwrbk and tried it with that. And like magic, it works! So now im formatting and reinstalling.

Thanks again for your kindness and assistance with my issue! Im sure you'll see me on the forums soon.

Best,
-Jason

 

[Ric]

Well done !

Glad it's working, feel free to call again ;-)

regards

Ric