Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) will not boot

My G5 Tower all of a sudden started booting to the Registration page (a page that appears after installing Mac OS X, where you are supposed to register).

Since I can't get it to boot in safe mode, I used a USB 2.0 - SATA cable to connect my drive to my MacBook Pro. After that, using (CCC) Disc to Disc Clone, I copied all my data to an external Western Digital passport drive and made a startup disc.

My question is this: was there an easier and less time consuming solution than that? Does anyone know why this would happen all of a sudden?

user33136

Posted 2010-04-03T11:29:05.427

Reputation: 21

Answers

From what you describe .. for some reason your initial Apple registration file was missing or corrupt.. That file is typically located in

/private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Hard to tell how it really happened....but I'd say you are on the right track using cloning software to get out of these situations. Super Duper is another option.

If have or can acquire an external USB or Firewire drive for the tower, you could make it bootable and have a known good disc image of the G5 on it to restore from...

CaseyIT

Posted 2010-04-03T11:29:05.427

Reputation: 3 213

Thank You for your help, I cloned the drive and then I did run the set up. It gave me a new user as described by the Spif says below. When I logged on to the new user it would not allow me to see the old users unless I went into the directly in to the directory. I was then able to open the permissions allow rights and copy all the old files: Apps, Doc's, downloads, etc......It is all working good right now. Thank You both for the help!!!! If I can help you guys in any way just ask – user33136 – 2010-04-05T11:59:30.787

Glad to help. Sorry about the Yanks opening nite 2010 ( sox fan here ) .. You can upvote answers that are helpful , and click the checkmark for answers you consider your accepted answer.. – CaseyIT – 2010-04-05T12:27:16.430

Rerunning the setup assistant wouldn't have hurt anything. You would've ended up with a second set of network settings and a second local admin user, both of which you could have gone in and deleted a minute later.

Spiff

Posted 2010-04-03T11:29:05.427

Reputation: 84 656

You can skip the optional parts of the setup assistant by pressing ⌘Q. I don't know whether it would still insist on creating an account if you already have one.

Kevin Reid

Posted 2010-04-03T11:29:05.427

Reputation: 2 854