Finder can't be found!

[mac_linux_chick]

I have an iBook G3. Two days ago, I upgraded from 10.2.8 to 10.3.4. The first time the computer started up, my main concern was getting on the internet [my dorm now has wireless; before the upgrade, I couldn't access the network] so I opened up my web browser [Firefox] before really paying attention to everything else. I did not notice whether or not Finder loaded. For whatever reason, I restarted my computer. Attached to my computer, I have a 160gb external drive. My internal is only 10gb, I'm a music enthusiast [it's all legal, I swear!], and so the extra space is absolutely necessary. When I restarted my computer, I noticed that neither the icon for my internal, nor my external drive was on the desktop. Finder had the little black arrow below it in the Dock, however, momentarily, the arrow disappeared and I got to stare at the spinning beach ball of death for a few minutes. Eventually my cursor came up, but Finder/my desktop never did. There was no bar at the top of my screen. I panicked. I waited several minutes, praying that Finder would load, that I would recover my "lost" data, that all would be well. The clock ticks; no Finder. Out of curiosity, I launch iTunes. It loads with no problem. "Good," I think, "my hard drive is still intact." I double clicked the first song in my library . It plays. I check a few others, just to make sure, and yes, it appears that the drive mounted with no problem. I still can't see it. Finder still can't be found. I know that version 10.3.8 is available for download, and so, thinking that perhaps it will bring Finder back, I download it and update my computer s'more. Once again, my computer restarts, the Dock loads, Finder opens, closes itself, spinning beach ball of death returns. I wait. No Finder. I click the icon in the Dock. Nothing. I click it again, holding the button down. It pops up in grey "Finder not running." So I click it again. I hear my computer make a few sounds and think "this is it! It's going to work." But alas. I wait a few moments. Still no Finder. Click and hold, it pops up three rows: "Finder not responding," "Hide," "Relaunch." I click relaunch. Nothing happens. I have restarted multiple times, verified and restored permissions, verified and restored the disk, after much hesitation, consulted Norton. Still, I have no Finder. What's worse, I can't downgrade the OS back because I don't have enough free disk space, and without being able to see my disk[s], I can't free up any space. Does anyone know anything I can do to fix my computer? I'm getting frantic, my laptop is my lifeline. :cry: :sad: :eek:

[yellow]

Do you have root enabled? If so, log into that and remove the com.apple.finder.plist found in your broken user's preferences.

If not, then boot into Single User Mode (hold down cmd-s at boot), at the prompt, type:

fsck -fy

And make sure it says everything is OK. If it says it fixed things, run it again until it says everything is OK. Then type:

mount -uw /

Now type:

cd /Users/your_broken_user/Library/Preferences

Where "your_broken_user" is the shortname of your user where Finder is foobar. Now type:

mv com.apple.finder.plist ../../Desktop

That will move the Finder's preference file to your Desktop. Now type:

reboot

And that will reboot you and you can log in and hopefully your Finder will be functional.

[mac_linux_chick]

And that will reboot you and you can log in and hopefully your Finder will be functional.

Hi. Thanks for the help. However, it didn't work. After going through all of that, I rebooted, again waited for Finder, which never came up. The time, volume control, airport status, and Classic menu showed up briefly against the desktop, but when the beach ball stopped spinning, they disappeared. Is there anything else I can attempt short of getting Apple's help? [I'm a student and very poor.]

[yellow]

Hi. Thanks for the help. However, it didn't work. After going through all of that, I rebooted, again waited for Finder, which never came up. The time, volume control, airport status, and Classic menu showed up briefly against the desktop, but when the beach ball stopped spinning, they disappeared. Is there anything else I can attempt short of getting Apple's help? [I'm a student and very poor.]

Do you have any startup items that might be intefereing?
Any haxies?

You could try and login holding down shift in hopes that it will disable any screwy startups.

I can tell you what Apple is going to tell you..

Reinstall the OS.

[mac_linux_chick]

Do you have any startup items that might be intefereing?
Any haxies?

You could try and login holding down shift in hopes that it will disable any screwy startups.

I can tell you what Apple is going to tell you..

Reinstall the OS.

I disabled all startup items. Tried login with extensions off, got tired of holding down shift [5+ minutes or so of my hard drive just clicking away to its content], the moment I let go, the computer restarted, extensions on, etc.

There's no way I can reinstall the OS without having to erase everything. I'd rather not do that. I've tried going back to 10.2 but I don't have adequate space, and, like I mentioned before, can't free up space without being able to see my hard drive...
And on that note, can't even back up everything to CD because Roxio Toast won't load in 10.3.8 for some odd reason..

[yellow]

[5+ minutes or so of my hard drive just clicking away to its content]

If the hard drive is literally clicking (while it looks for data on the disk you hear a distinctive repetitive click (kind of a schick, schick, schick noise)), while it boots up and looks for data, I suggest you figure out a way to back up A.S.A.P. This is often a sign of hard drive failure.

Have you booted from your installer CD/DVD and tried to repair the drive (not the permissions)? You could also try DiskWarrior or TechToolPro.

If you can find a friend with a Mac, you can easily boot your laptop in target mode and hook it up to their Mac with a firewire cable. It'll appear just like an external hard drive on their Desktop. That way you can at least back up your home directory if the hard drive does fail, or you find that you have to reinstall.