Mac G5 help gray screen and shuts down

[Sgt Raven]

After the latest Safari update my Dual 2Ghz G5 w/5.5GB ram hangs at the 'gray' apple screen then shuts off. I'm running OS X 10.5 Leopard, but only have 10.4 Tiger disks. I dfid a PRAM clear and that didn't help. When I start hoilding down shift/control/V I get a black screen with a bunch of text scrolling down then she shuts down again.

I don't know what to do next.

[masameet]

Oh, how awful for you! I know what it's like to have a computer fail and to feel lost.

Don't know the answer. But Google showed some possibilities; chiefly, bad PRAM battery, bad video card, bad peripherals, and bad RAM.

Have you tried starting up with Disk 1? Control+V, I think, are the key combos to hold down during start up. Then choose hardware thingee. Need to disconnect all non-Apple peripherals first though.

GL!

[sfwdiy]

Sounds like you probably need an archive-install. You'll have to scare up a Leopard install disc if you don't want to revert to 10.4. Here's the instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710

Archive-install, select "Preserve Users And Network Settings"

--B

[kperry]

Put in your Tiger disc, and run Apple Hardware Test Instructions -just to make sure you don't actually have a hardware failure - but I think you might just be hanging up where the latest update is trying to check firmware - in which case an archive-install may help you.

Another thing you could try is booting in Single-User mode, kind of analogous to Recovery Console on Windows, and checking your disk out... Start up holding Apple-S, and at the end of a bunch of scrolling text, you'll be left at the command line. Type:

/sbin/fsck -fy(then press "enter")

If it returns "The volume (drive name) appears to be OK" - your drive file structure is OK.
If it returns **File System was Modified** run the fsck command again until it tells you it is clean.
Then you can type either "mac-boot" or "reboot" to try and start OS X normally.

Hope this helps -
KP

[sfwdiy]

Put in your Tiger disc, and run Apple Hardware Test Instructions -just to make sure you don't actually have a hardware failure - but I think you might just be hanging up where the latest update is trying to check firmware - in which case an archive-install may help you.

Another thing you could try is booting in Single-User mode, kind of analogous to Recovery Console on Windows, and checking your disk out... Start up holding Apple-S, and at the end of a bunch of scrolling text, you'll be left at the command line. Type:

/sbin/fsck -fy(then press "enter")

If it returns "The volume (drive name) appears to be OK" - your drive file structure is OK.
If it returns **File System was Modified** run the fsck command again until it tells you it is clean.
Then you can type either "mac-boot" or "reboot" to try and start OS X normally.

Hope this helps -
KP

You can just type

fsck

The "-fy" is assumed and you don't need to specify /sbin at the single user prompt.

"mac-boot" will boot the machine from open firmware, but doesn't work from single-user. It's always a good idea to reboot after repairing the root file system anyway.

Oh, and the first thing that happens in an archive-install is the installer runs fsck on the volume.

--B