hoping someone can please help

[cheerful1]

Ok here is what is going on...my daughter has an ibook and last week it was working absolutley perfectly. When she was done using it she closed it,and later on when she opened it back up to chat with her friends it went to the 'lovely' Darwin/BSD screen. She restarted it,and it does try to load,but then goes right back to Darwin.We are fairly new to the MAC world and have no idea what to do.:'( It prompts her to login and then it says: welcome to Darwin! Then that's pretty much it, sometimes it will go to a blue screen with the little 'gear-looking' wheel turning,like it is loading,but then it just sits there. I am decent with using command prompts on Windows on my pc,but totally in the dark,as far as this (MAC) goes. Are there any command prompts that can be typed in while in the Darwin mode that may allow us to do anything to try and fix this? I appreciate any help/ideas that can be offered/tried. I am just at my wits end with this one. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Below is what her system is:

Apple iBook G3. It has the following specifications:
600 MHz processor
256 MB RAM
20 GB hard drive
CD-ROM optical drive -- does not have DVD player
AirPort Wireless Card
Runs Mac OS X 10.3.9 -- Panther
12" screen
Two USB ports, firewire, ethernet, internal modem, earphone jack, built-in microphone
for audio IM chatting with iChat
Includes Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, with iChat, iTunes, iMovie,
iPhoto, Safari and Quicktime installed.

P.S. she was not running any updates or anything when this happened.

[John A]

Hi, and welcome to DaniWeb.

It sounds like some important files have gotten corrupted. It's usually a good practice to create a backup user account when you first install your system, so that if anything goes amiss in your primary account, you can use your backup account to investigate and possibly restore the other account.

But since I'm assuming you didn't do that, your system will need to be reinstalled, so hopefully you have your OS X installation disk(s). If you've got important data on the machine, then make sure to choose "Archive+Install" as the install type. It will preserve your existing system data and files in the root directory of the filesystem (I think it's called "Previous Systems" or something like that).

[cheerful1]

Thank you so much for replying to my post! Why naturally, I don't have the installation disks :( . Guess I need to purchase those (we bought the ibook used). I have researched and researched about this issue. I have seen several things stating make sure you install the correct version of the OS X operating system...how do I know which ones to purchase? I have looked on ebay,and some other websites and there are several but now I am leary about which ones we need?
Thanks again for trying to help us! Have a great day!:icon_biggrin:

[John A]

>I have seen several things stating make sure you install the correct version of the OS X
>operating system...how do I know which ones to purchase?
It's fairly simple. Make sure you purchase Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. I looked at the system requirements for Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger), and your computer meets the requirements except for the fact that you need a DVD drive. So, all you need to to do is purchase Panther... this looks like a pretty good one to buy, considering it's in mint condition, $15 isn't bad at all (well, you'll have to bid higher than that, but there are lots of similarly-priced ones on ebay):

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Panther-Operating-system-10-3_W0QQitemZ290185654966QQihZ019QQcategoryZ171QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Good luck.

[cheerful1]

:icon_cheesygrin: Well, it has taken me awhile,but through words of wisdom (thanks joeprogrammer!!!) my daughter's MAC is back! I was able to purchase the Panther install disks through ebay (had to pay a little more than I expected-people must really really be wanting panther 10.3) and we installed them-to our total surprise:-O all of her personal stuff was still on there! We just had to upgrade a few of her programs. We only had to use two of the three disks that were included in the panther 10.3. Any ideas what is on that third disk? Just curious:?: Making sure we didn't maybe need to go ahead and run it. Also, in one of the answers I got on here,it said something about creating a 'backup' user account...how do you do this? Apparently,we must have had a backup for all of her things to still be on there from before,right? I don't know...
Just wanted to give an update on the status of my initial post and once again say:Thank you for all the support!:icon_cheesygrin:

[John A]

>Any ideas what is on that third disk?
My guess would be that it contains additional software that you can install, usually tools and programs for software developers. If your system works, I wouldn't worry about it.

>it said something about creating a 'backup' user account...how do you do this?
Go into System Preferences, choose "Accounts", hit the Add (+) button, and fill out the information. I recommend giving the backup account administration privileges just in case, and the same password as your primary account.

>Apparently,we must have had a backup for all of her things to still be on there from
>before,right?
The Archive+Install mode in the OS X installer just makes sure it doesn't overwrite any data. Basically, any data stored in your home directory is untouched, and any system data is stored in a "Previous Systems" folder located in the root directory of your filesystem. It's very useful for getting your system back up and running again, even if you didn't make a backup beforehand.

>Just wanted to give an update on the status of my initial post and once again say:Thank
>you for all the support!
No problem. Glad it worked.

[Rick150]

Right, now you have learned your lesson it's time to look after your OS X. Maybe once every 2 week go to Applications, Utilities, Disk Utility & do a 'verify & repair permissions' also pays to check your disk. You could buy DiskWarrior which is great and does a more intensive check and repair. Also get 'ClamXav' and scan for viruses often, Mac's are not immune!

[cheerful1]

:-O Apparently,I jinxed my daughter's ibook when I said everything was going well. lol Here is what happened: apple told her there were updates,she loaded and installed them,restarted and now it is loading up until it gets to where it says "loading login window" almost...almost...stuck there.
I researched a little bit last night and figured out 'sort-of' how to use disk utility, first aid,says there are no errors when I ran the disk repair thing. I did go ahead and run the one that said checking the permissions and it said there were all kinds of errors,but I wasn't sure wether or not to run the 'repair permissions' or not. Should I? I can fix our pc running windows anytime anything happens but this is a whole new world to me! Is there anything like system restore,where you can go back a day or so to before the problems started? BTW: it will not start in safe mode,it gets stuck in the same place,at the very end,and won't finish loading. I can do troubleshooting on our pc,but can't for the life of me figure this out on MAC.
(I am decent at following directions and typing in command prompts,if necessary)If there is something I can do to correct this...can you please tell me what to do or try? I am so sorry to bother you again. But, Once again MAC befuzzles me! lol:$

[antioed]

I saw the same thing with an update that didn't get a reboot cleanly after a larger update. Others are having the same kinds of issues. Older hardware running pre-existing programs probably have a conflict with something in the upgrade or cause the upgrade to corrupt the system on restart.

why not run that "Archive and Install" off the CD's? Make note of what updates you install next time and report it to apple...maybe they should develop a list of programs that cause this instead of just bricking your Apple every time you try to run the update!?

Maybe you should consider re-installing your Mac OS from scratch after making a good back up. Cheers!

[John A]

>I did go ahead and run the one that said checking the permissions and it said there were all
>kinds of errors,but I wasn't sure wether or not to run the 'repair permissions' or not. Should I?
Definitely.

If that doesn't work, I'd recommend doing another Archive+Install from the installation disk again. And as soon as you get your system back up and running again, don't do anything until you've backed up all your data. Your home folder, any important applications, everything. Then I would do a complete format of the disk and reinstall Panther. This way you start on a completely new system. Also remember to do a software update right away, to fix any bugs that may be hiding in the default Panther code.

[Rick150]

Put the OS X CD in the drive and reboot holding down the 'c' key until you see the Apple. Follow the screen until you get to the option 'utilities'. Do the same permissions check except this time use the repair option also. Updates can play havoc with permissions.

[cheerful1]

Thanks again. Well, my daughter decided she wanted to start completely fresh,and just get rid of everything...so we just wiped it out and started over. (Hope that was the right thing to do.) What is the best method for backing up your files,so that maybe we do not go through anything like this again? As soon as we got her mac registered again,and everything,it popped up with the most recent updates,and those were successful. (shew). Are there any 'updates' to be leary of? I've read a lot of complaints from people saying that their computers have gone kind of nuts after updating...so just trying to stay ahead of the game here. Thank you for trying to help us! have a great day!

[John A]

>What is the best method for backing up your files,so that maybe we do not go through
>anything like this again?
Well, there are various different ways of backing up your data; the 'best' one depends purely on the circumstances. However, if you are referring to a full system backup, Panther doesn't have one built-in. You can use something like the free Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard drive onto another hard disk (external hard drives come in handy for this).

>Are there any 'updates' to be leary of?
Nothing in particular, although it's a good practice to update your computer as soon as possible, to prevent a buildup of updates, which makes your software more prone to problems.