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About Jeff Greenberg
Expertise
I can comfortably answer most basic/advanced questions regarding Macintosh hardware and software - nowadays only OSX. In fact, if it's prior to 10.3, there's a good chance I'll reject your question. Forget OS9 stuff - Igave up OS 9 ten years ago). Please do not ask me about OS9. My particular specialties are in Video editing/DVD authoring. I am a certified trainer in the "pro apps" (Final Cut, DVDSP, Soundtrack, Motion). I have been using Macs since 1985.

Experience
I'm an Apple Cert. Trainer for FCP, DVD SP, since the inception of this program. I've was
certified as an Apple Cert. Technician back in 1989.

Publications
Videography, Macworld, Tibits

Education/Credentials
BA film- Penn State. Certifications from Apple, Adobe and Avid for training.

You are here: Experts > Computing/Technology > Focus on Mac Support > Macintosh OS > MacPro stuck in endless reboot

Macintosh OS - MacPro stuck in endless reboot

Expert: Jeff Greenberg - 10/22/2009

Question
Hi
I installed a second hard drive, installed iphotomanager, merged some iphoto libraries onto the new drive and all was working fine. I changed some permissions ("unlocked" all of the drives as the merge was having trouble writing to the new drive but then it worked fine after I unlocked). Then I started getting the message again that it could not write to the iphoto library plist and the merging stopped working. So I thought maybe if i restart the computer, it would sort itself out but noooo, now it won't start.

It just starts to power up then you hear the drive die down. Tries over and over. So I took out the new drive I'd merged all the iphoto libraries on (which had been working fine until it didn't). But i suspect it had to do maybe with me changing permissions in the middle of the process maybe?

I tried restarting in safe mode, by holding down the shift key when I heard the start up tone until the grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel appeared, and it takes longer now, but still ends up trying to restart and never gets to the login screen.

I have my Mac Pro installation disc 1 but can't find any others.
I have Disk Warrior 4.1.1

But I can't get the disk drive to open since it won't start.

This is a MacPro Running Mac OS X 10.5.8
Processor 2.2 INtel Core 2 Duo

Any ideas? I'm absolutely stuck.

Thanks so much in advance!
Laura

Answer
Laura,

Sounds like you have a mess on your hand.

I think the *best* suggestion, is to grab your OSX disk, boot from it (hold down the C key) and resinstall OSX.

I'd suggest doing a clean install (DO NOT FORMAT THE DRIVE....)...and then AFTER, running migration assistant to 'migrate' your old user information to your clean OSX install.

Let me know if you have any questions about this..

Best,

Jeff

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