system question anyone? DOS-like

[kialua]

After putting my mac to sleep last, it didn't make the quiet noise, so I woke it up and it was not responding. Re booted and a dark blank screen came up with a message that looked so DOS to me. Never saw it before ever. It was in a courier-like typeface about 6 points small, very hard to read, and said:

Welcome to PowerMac3 Apple design
To re-boot type in "Mac-boot" or to
to put to sleep type in "Mac-sleep"
-:) 3 (it actually had a smiley face drawn with line drawing in it)

Well it's not a powermac3, it's a G4 with System X.4.3 but I apprehensively typed it in and then it loaded slowely and started so no disaster but weird.

[Paul C]

That's Unix, the operating system behind the GUI. Sounds like you had a kernel panic, that's the only time you see this part of the computer unless you boot into that mode specifically.

I would shut down, reboot and do all your maintenance: run the CRON scripts, repair permissions, clean caches, etc…

If you don't know how to do this Cocktail is a cool little utility that does it for you. It's very cheap and once you buy it, upgrades are free for life.

peace

[kialua]

Ok that sounds pretty scary to me, an artist chained to the computer, but I downloaded it from Apple and will go for it. Thanks. Do you think it will have any conflicts with me still running classic sometimes, and should upgrade to X.4.8 before I run that? I noticed on the Apple page it had an explanation of Cocktail having a fix for X.4.8.

:eek:

[The Repro Kid]

I'm no PC guy, but I call it the "macOSX screen of death." It signifies a kernel panic. Macs still need to be shut down now and then. Shutting down at night helps alleviate this problem... unless it comes from malevolent sources...

ORIGIN early 16th cent.: from Latin malevolent- ‘wishing evil,’ from male ‘ill’ + volent- ‘wishing’ (from the verb velle).

[kialua]

... unless it comes from malevolent sources...

I'm not on any networks, and am on Mac, so...

But I found this gem of advice from http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html
looks like classic is maybe affecting performance.

Permissions frequently get altered on operating system upgrades, or switching between applications of different operating systems on the same computer, whether running Classic and then using X, or booting back into X after having booted in 9. System level utilities that are installed frequently also change permissions. Any installer which asks for your password potentially could change permissions. In addition, moving files around in Mac OS 9 that are related to the kernel extensions may leave the kernel extensions wiht the wrong permissions. If you think you may have inadvertantly affected the .kext files in the System or Library folders from Mac OS 9, you can attempt to repair permissions with the Disk Utility found in the Applications -> Utilities folder of Mac OS X 10.2.x, or if you have Mac OS X 10.1.5, use the Repair Privileges utility. If you have moved the .kext files, it will be necessary to Archive and Install the operating system to get it to run properly again and apply the Mac OS X combo update to get back up to the last known working version of the operating system.

[kialua]

I installed the program to run a fix on this and it had to shut down of course, and it wouldn't boot up again so I left it sit for a couple of hours. Started up with a loud beep I've never heard before and took 20 minutes to boot. Runs fine now but afraid to shut it down again so it looks like it's the shop for me. yikes. Thanks again. I guess it is malevolent. :(

[Paul C]

Maybe it's time to boot off the system CD and run disk utility. It can't be run completely unless you do this because the system is being used.

Worst case scenario is you reinstall the system.

If you go to Apple and download a combo installer for 10.4.8 it is basically like getting a CD with the system on it. It's about 148 megs if I remember correctly. This is a good way to make sure your system is intact. Of course this does not overwrite preferences and such so if they are corrupt then it might be time to completely reinstall the system from the Tiger CD, and then upgrade again.

One really good thing to do when installing anything is to repair permissions before you install and repair permissions after you install. What you posted explains the reasons why.

Best of Luck!

peace

[The Repro Kid]

"Yeah" to what PaulC says. And I didn't mean to "panic" you, the malevolency thing is highly unlikely. Running os9 can cause problems. On my machines that have it, I don't allow it start up every time, and turn it on only when I need it, and shut it off afterwards, on newer machines I don't even have it installed. There are other weird things that can cause them like leaving your computer on and having applications running all night that might be trying to do some operation in the background, but something is missing for the operation to complete, and by morning, when you begin using your computer again it explodes. Maintenance goes a long way, running things like "onyx" and "macjanitor" frequently. You can verify your disk from in your system prefs and if there is a problem, the tests will fail and prompt you boot from your original installer and run disk utility. It's a little confusing at first. When you boot from the installer don't start the installing process. Instead, go to the menu at the top of screen and open disk utility from the disk utility menu. Then after its run, choose quit installer from the menu.

I just re-read your posts, that loud beep means something but I can't think of right now, I think it's a hardware warning, like a bad memory chip or something. If you have any of the manuals handy it might say in the troubleshooting section. What was the program you ran to fix things?

In general a kernel panic is not a reason to take in your mac. It's basically the same thing as a crash, it just looks so dramatic with all the "defcon 5" graphics on the screen. Usually you just force the machine to turn off and then restart, and maybe run some basic repair fixes for good measure, and move on. Your machine taking 20 minutes to boot might be something weird like it was looking for a different startup drive and it didn't find the one it wanted. I know the beep means something, and you should be able find out fairly easily.

[kialua]

Well I definatly don't know what I am doing but running blindly I got Cocktail and ran a few things on it:
Disks> Permissions > Repair Disk permissions
Files>Caches> system, user and interenet> clean selected cashes

•Misc looks interesteing to mount disks without user login, I don't like the X login process, would that go around it?
•This looked interesting too and wondered if it would be good to do this:
Cocktail>Files>Create symbolic link
create alias toMac OS 9 desktop

Unfortuantly even the help manual for Cocktail is way over my head.
Haven't shut it off the computer yet to see if it worked, too scared right now, have to get this catalog uploaded first (and of course just to mess me up, they are not prompt at getting me the FTP link so I am kind of playing the waiting game).

Stopped by Compusa and asked them a little about it and they were sure that I needed a new hard drive, but they really didn't know much about it. Haven't found much Mac support in the Mpls/St.Paul area since my favorite shop closed last year.



And my system X.4.3 tiger is installed from CD's and I had someone do it for me because this G4 didn't have a DVD drive. So I think doing that again would be difficult? And what would that do all my System 9 files?

[The Repro Kid]

Well I definatly don't know what I am doing but running blindly I got Cocktail and ran a few things on it:
Disks> Permissions > Repair Disk permissions
Files>Caches> system, user and interenet> clean selected cashes

That's good standard stuff

•Misc looks interesteing to mount disks without user login, I don't like the X login process, would that go around it?
•This looked interesting too and wondered if it would be good to do this:
Cocktail>Files>Create symbolic link
create alias toMac OS 9 desktop
Not sure about the first item. You should be able to mount disks without a loggin except when mounting networked disks.

The second one is if you may have deleted the MAcOS9 Desktop alias from your regular desktop by accident. The OS9 Desktop is hard to find so the alias helps, standard installation puts one there for you, so if it's gone, use that tool to re-create.

Unfortuantly even the help manual for Cocktail is way over my head.
Haven't shut it off the computer yet to see if it worked, too scared right now, have to get this catalog uploaded first (and of course just to mess me up, they are not prompt at getting me the FTP link so I am kind of playing the waiting game).

Cocktail has too many ways to add non-implemented features onto your mac. Things like putting the dock on the top, or on the left side. The system can do them, but they must be implemented by the terminal. Cocktail gives access to these things. For that reason I prefer the Maintenance Only programs like Onyx and MacJanitor. MacJanitor is the more bared-boned and safer still than Onyx, Onyx has more to it but is still very safe. Cocktail has some things I rather not have immediate access to.

Stopped by Compusa and asked them a little about it and they were sure that I needed a new hard drive, but they really didn't know much about it. Haven't found much Mac support in the Mpls/St.Paul area since my favorite shop closed last year.

That may from the beep you said you heard. You really need to run disk utility from a bootable CD before you take it in. Also check to see that you have your hard drive selected in the System Prefs under Startup Disk, before you shut down and select it if it is not already. If disk utility can't fix your hard drive than a $99 dollar program like Disk Warrior probably can. I have an external firewire drive that Disk Utility couldn't fix but Disk Warrior was successful.

And my system X.4.3 tiger is installed from CD's and I had someone do it for me because this G4 didn't have a DVD drive. So I think doing that again would be difficult? And what would that do all my System 9 files?

Although you must run Disk Utility from a bootable Installer CD to fix a startup disk, it does not require install anything so your files should be fine. But again, you should go to Applications-Utilities-Disk Utility and select your hard drive and hit the "Verify" button. If this fails, then you can worry about running the "Fix" from a bootable CD. It might be to hard to fix this yourself without System CDs.

[Paul C]

I second Repro's vote for Disk Warrior. It's a great recovery tool.

Actually Repro just about all Cocktail is is a GUI for people that don't want to learn how to use the Terminal. I don't think there's much that's scary about it, just don't do something that you don't understand.

And there's nothing in there that's going to destroy your system.

But I can understand your point.

peace

[kialua]

Wow, ok I have my work cut out for me today inbetween my work. Sounds like I should get Disc Warrior anyway. Good to know there is no danger lurking in Cocktail.

Recently my good friend died suddenly from cancer and she was, among other things, my computer buddy. She was so brave to try anything on her Macs, opening it up to install, replace and upgrade anything. I really appreciate the info from you guys. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks guys.

[The Repro Kid]

Here's my theory on the dangers of something like cocktail. It's shareware. So if you go crazy with GUI enhancements, and then a few weeks down the line realize that you don't want to look at those enhancements anymore, you need to pay for cocktail to undue your experimentation, or get into the terminal's MAN pages. No great danger, but there is the possibility of great inconvenience. With so many free programs that deal with maintenance only, It's nice to keep the two activities separate. One other freebie out there that I like is ClamV. It is a virus scanner. I've scanned my machine and came up with more that a few PC viruses. They don't really do anything, but it's nice to throw them away. It can take a very long to scan your machine, so start with library folders and your desktop first. (Do not scan things like your music files, movies or huge photoshop files.)

DiskWarrior comes with a bootable CD but I'm not sure if Apple's Disk Utility would be accessible from it. You might be able to run only diskwarrior.

kialua, I'm sorry to hear about your friend.