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Power-mac G4 Running Leopard won't Boot. Any info?
Hey there! I'm hoping Yahoo Answers was the place to go for a question like this. Im sorry in advance for such a long, nerdy post. After looking for a long time, there is not really any specific subject found on Google that pertains to my situation. As you can see by the topic, I have a Power-mac G4, MDD (Mirror Drive Door) Edition. Dual 867mhz cpu, 1gb ram, 32mb graphics, etc. Someone was giving away this poor thing for free on Craigslist. Anyways, when I got the machine it was fully working, booting up with Leopard (im not sure of the exact version if this would help any). So after messing around with it, I realized I forgot the password to the machine. He had told me what it was, but I was kinda excited about me getting it for free and just forgot. So, after reading some forums on google, I decided to go through with a procedure that would allow me to create a new Administrator account. Well, that did not go so well.
I followed the steps exactly as many forums suggested I do, and even a answered question on Yahoo Answers by the user 'SilverToungedDevil' in pretty great detail. Thanks for that by the way!
-I start with holding down Apple Logo/Command and the 'S' key. It starts in 'Single User Mode'.
-I type /sbin/mount -uw / at the #root dialogue/prompt.
-Next, I type rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
-Finally, I command it to reboot.
After it restarts and goes to the Apple logo loading screen, the computer just powers off when it seems like it would have loaded the welcome screen. I did get the computer to show the welcome screen ONE time and tried to go through with all of the steps but it refused to to anything past 'How do you connect' and none of the options would make the setup progress. I turn the computer off and try to reboot the machine. Thats when the powering off happens now. I have no install dvd for leopard but I could probably get a pirated version to fix the broken files? Now when booting into 'Single User Mode' with the Apple Key and the 'S' key, trying to do the same steps again, it says "No file found" or basically just that when entering rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
If you have any suggestions on how to fix this, It would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot for your time reading this!
Hey, thanks SilverToungedDevil, I appreciate that. Ok, so here is my current situation. I recently picked up another computer from someone claiming it had a bad logic board, a Macbook Pro in specific but older, model A1212. I took it off his hands for free. He gave me a bunch of things including a Leopard Dvd. So, could I use that disk to reformat the hard drive that is in the MDD G4? It is a retail disk, non-specific to any model. I did a little research, perhaps not enough, and found nothing really. If you could suggest some steps I could do here with no further cost? Would it be fairly simple? It seems you are very knowledgeable with Macintosh computers and how they work. As you can see, I am a novice.
PS: I get the laptop home, it fires up and boots to Leopard first try. The battery died when calling the client to offer his machine back to him. I put it on the charger and it wouldn't turn on again while still on the phone with him. He said to just keep it like originally plan
1 Answer
- 9 years ago
Time to give up. You should buy a different computer for $150. That would be a Power-mac G4, MDD Dual 867mhz cpu, 1gb ram, 32mb graphics, etc. AND a Leopard DVD.
Don't ask about pirating copyrighted software here on Yahoo Answers. That is against their guidelines.
I will offer one tiny bit of help... the rm command means "remove". After you remove a file, it is gone. You can't remove it again. The file will be recreated only after completing the setup. You can't complete the setup, because either the OS has corrupt files (you already suggested this) or because the hard drive file system needs repair. Corrupt file system means even if the OS files are good, they can't load into memory.
