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From: J.J. O'Shea on 19 Jan 2010 09:07
On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:24:35 -0500, elmo wrote
(in article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>):

> My wife was given an iMac running 10.5x, and it ran fine for a while,
> but now, it won't boot. Specifically, it boots to the point that the
> screen shows blue, with a cursor stuck at the top left corner. There is
> also a cursor that we can move with the mouse on the screen. It will
> boot into safe mode, but I can't boot from there. I've run fsck and
> everything seems well, but to no avail thereafter. We do not have the
> original disks. Google has not been helpful so far. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks

1 get a copy of the last commercial Leopard release. Try booting from it and
running Disk Utility.

2 get a copy of a heavy duty disk utility such as Disk Warrior or Drive
Genius. Boot from it and run the utility.

3 if both the above fail, use the commercial Leo DVD to create an archive
install. Alternatively, skip (2) and go directly to generating the archive
install. At this time I would _not_ try either the normal update install or
the extreme erase install.

4 if (3) fails, back up your data using the backup system of your choice
(Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, Backup, whatever) and then do an erase
install using the commercial Leo DVD and restore the backup once you've nuked
and paved the volume.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

From: J.J. O'Shea on 19 Jan 2010 09:08
On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:33:37 -0500, Michelle Steiner wrote
(in article <michelle-8ABF02.16333718012010(a)news.eternal-september.org>):

> In article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>,
> elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
>
>> We do not have the original disks. Google has not been helpful so far.
>> Any ideas?
>
> Buy Snow Leopard, and run Disk Utility from it.
>
>

He appears to be using a G5, so that may not work. Go with Leo instead.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

From: J.J. O'Shea on 19 Jan 2010 09:13
On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:10:05 -0500, Kevin McMurtrie wrote
(in article <4b55309d$0$1957$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>):

> In article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>,
> elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
>
>> My wife was given an iMac running 10.5x, and it ran fine for a while,
>> but now, it won't boot. Specifically, it boots to the point that the
>> screen shows blue, with a cursor stuck at the top left corner. There is
>> also a cursor that we can move with the mouse on the screen. It will
>> boot into safe mode, but I can't boot from there. I've run fsck and
>> everything seems well, but to no avail thereafter. We do not have the
>> original disks. Google has not been helpful so far. Any ideas?
>>
>> Thanks
>
> How old is it? The G5 iMacs and other products of that time suffered
> from low-quality and counterfeit components. The most common problem is
> failed electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard and inside the power
> supply. If you have the tools, skill, and time to fix it yourself, go
> for it. I wouldn't recommend paying for repairs on a G5 or older.
>

Pretty much all G5s which had the Capacitor Plague have already been fixed,
so this is unlikely. I do not, repeat, NOT recommend that anyone attempt to
replace bad caps on the motherboard of a modern computer unless they know
what they are doing and have _lots_ of experience at component-level repair.
Officially the free motherboard swap for machines affected by the Capacitor
Plague is over; unofficially, if you bring one of those machines in to your
local Apple Store or authorised Apple service provider, you'll get the swap,
though it might take a while for them to get the replacement board.

And I have OS X Server running on an eMac here, a machine older than a G5,
and still going strong. Well, as strong as an eMac ever was, anyway.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

From: Jolly Roger on 19 Jan 2010 13:00
In article <4b55309d$0$1957$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>,
Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote:

> In article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>,
> elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
>
> > My wife was given an iMac running 10.5x, and it ran fine for a while,
> > but now, it won't boot. Specifically, it boots to the point that the
> > screen shows blue, with a cursor stuck at the top left corner. There is
> > also a cursor that we can move with the mouse on the screen. It will
> > boot into safe mode, but I can't boot from there. I've run fsck and
> > everything seems well, but to no avail thereafter. We do not have the
> > original disks. Google has not been helpful so far. Any ideas?
> >
> > Thanks
>
> How old is it? The G5 iMacs and other products of that time suffered
> from low-quality and counterfeit components. The most common problem is
> failed electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard and inside the power
> supply. If you have the tools, skill, and time to fix it yourself, go
> for it. I wouldn't recommend paying for repairs on a G5 or older.

You can get a new (refurbished "Rev B") power supply for $104 from
http://www.sunsetmac.com/.

You can have the capacitors on the iMac motherboard replaced for $85 by
Chris at http://badcaps.net/.

I've already refurbished one iMac G5 motherboard, and it's been running
great ever since.

I am refurbishing a second iMac G5 20-inch ALS my step father recently
noticed sitting at the side of the road in front of a doctor's house.
It's got blown capacitors and burnt coils inside the power supply and
bulging caps on the motherboard. All other components are in great
shape. Once it's repaired, it'll make a great machine for my cousin.
It's amazing what people throw away! : )

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR
From: Jolly Roger on 19 Jan 2010 13:04
In article <hj4elk2b99(a)news3.newsguy.com>,
J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to(a)but.see.sig> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:10:05 -0500, Kevin McMurtrie wrote
> (in article <4b55309d$0$1957$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>):
>
> > In article <woof-B3FDFD.18243218012010(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>,
> > elmo <woof(a)woof.com> wrote:
> >
> >> My wife was given an iMac running 10.5x, and it ran fine for a while,
> >> but now, it won't boot. Specifically, it boots to the point that the
> >> screen shows blue, with a cursor stuck at the top left corner. There is
> >> also a cursor that we can move with the mouse on the screen. It will
> >> boot into safe mode, but I can't boot from there. I've run fsck and
> >> everything seems well, but to no avail thereafter. We do not have the
> >> original disks. Google has not been helpful so far. Any ideas?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >
> > How old is it? The G5 iMacs and other products of that time suffered
> > from low-quality and counterfeit components. The most common problem is
> > failed electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard and inside the power
> > supply. If you have the tools, skill, and time to fix it yourself, go
> > for it. I wouldn't recommend paying for repairs on a G5 or older.
> >
>
> Pretty much all G5s which had the Capacitor Plague have already been fixed,
> so this is unlikely.

I'm sorry, but that's just incorrect! There are lots of iMac G5s out
there that are just starting to show signs of failure due to bad
capacitors.

> I do not, repeat, NOT recommend that anyone attempt to
> replace bad caps on the motherboard of a modern computer unless they know
> what they are doing and have _lots_ of experience at component-level repair.

Then again, there are gracious individuals who are experienced and will
do it for you cheaply (around $85 for an iMac motherboard).

> Officially the free motherboard swap for machines affected by the Capacitor
> Plague is over; unofficially, if you bring one of those machines in to your
> local Apple Store or authorised Apple service provider, you'll get the swap,
> though it might take a while for them to get the replacement board.

Maybe, maybe not.

> And I have OS X Server running on an eMac here, a machine older than a G5,
> and still going strong. Well, as strong as an eMac ever was, anyway.

An aunt of mine has an eMac that is exhibiting symptoms of bad
capacitors. If it were an iMac G5, we'd probably repair the caps; but
for an eMac it's really hard to justify the expense.

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR
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