Friday, June 12, 2009

Mac blue screen on boot, OS X 10.4 on mac mini

So, something stuffed up.  Software update chimed in and did it's download (new itunes & security update) and asked the usual shutdown/restart.   Knowing my wife was logged in - with perhaps unsaved work - I went to switch users and save it all off.

Except it didn't let me.  So, did a log off, thinking I could login as her and save.  Er, nope.  Blue screen.

Power off, reboot.  Er, nope again.  Grey apple logo, spinner, blue screen.  Sometimes spinner, sometime mouse pointer, sometimes none.  No luck, even waiting for 20 minutes...

There's lots and lots of results if you google the problem.   Nothing really worked.  Booting install & repairing HD fixed some problems, but not the blue screen.  Removing assorted files from the depths of /System and /Library didn't help.  Booting off external firewire backup helped, but only to copy a couple of essential files to a (third) backup.

Solution: archive & install again...  only took a few hours, and user data preserved.  After a tense first reboot, software update required 100's of megs of updates (from 10.4 to 10.4.11, and assorted others).   Still, fixed.

I'm glad I keep regular - bootable - backups!

No comments: