Need Help-Finder in constant loop

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MaxTek's picture
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Need Help-Finder in constant loop

I am running OS X 10.5.5 on an iMac G5 2ghz (do not have OS CD's) and when I tried to boot up this morning the Finder is in a constant loop. Menu bar is blinking on and off and no icons on the desktop. I can access anything on the dock. So I first tried Disk Utility and that didn't help.

Than I zapped the pram, no help
Booted into Open Firmware and ran reset-nvram and reset-all, didn't help
Rebooted and ran FSCK -fy, twice and didn't help
Ran Disk Utility from OS X 10.4 didn't help
Tried to boot into Firewire Disk Mode onto an Emac running 10.4.11, disk never showed up
Made a new account in System Prefences and booted into that, same problem!!

Anyone have any suggestions? Wish I had a 10.5 DVD so I could do an archive and install.

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what did you do before you la

what did you do before you last use it.

did you install anything, run something or what ?

it could be anything causing the finder crash loop. sounds like a corrupt system file to me. It could be that the HDD could have slipped a bit and corrupt some files or developed some bad sectors. since the HDD wasn't detected in firewire target mode could it be a failing HDD or subsystem ?

Running tigers utilities is good for tiger but not advised for a different operating system, that can really hose a system.

May i ask how did you end up with Leopard with not having the install DVD ?

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Did not install anything. Las

Did not install anything. Last time I used it was the night before and was just checking email and on some web pages.

So there is no reason a Leopard Target Disk Mode drive shouldn't show up on a Tiger booted system?

The reason I have the system without the cds is because I picked up the iMac from a recycle center. Just the mac nothing else. It has been working beautifully (after I deleted gigs of crap that was filling up the hard drive to almost full) for two months now.

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if it had an almost full HDD,

if it had an almost full HDD, that could cause a lot of problems, even if the hard drive was emptied

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Re: if it had an almost full HDD,

if it had an almost full HDD, that could cause a lot of problems, even if the hard drive was emptied

But it ran for months after I emptied it?

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Re: Did not install anything. Las

So there is no reason a Leopard Target Disk Mode drive shouldn't show up on a Tiger booted system?

When a drive is failing or gets messed up it will most likely not show up when trying to do firewire target disk mode.

A tiger booted system should still show the drive even if its a Leopard drive no matter what because it sees it as just another storage device.

but if that drive or a subsystem of that drive is keeping if from working right it will not show most of the time if not at all.

it really hurts you not having a Leopard disk to try and getting it working because using the utilities of another OS (like the utilities in Tiger) could hose the systems even further, at least that is what i ran into when i tried using a older version of OS X's utilities on a newer version of OS X because it rendered the OS inop.

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Re: Did not install anything. Las

So there is no reason a Leopard Target Disk Mode drive shouldn't show up on a Tiger booted system?

When a drive is failing or gets messed up it will most likely not show up when trying to do firewire target disk mode.

A tiger booted system should still show the drive even if its a Leopard drive no matter what because it sees it as just another storage device.

but if that drive or a subsystem of that drive is keeping if from working right it will not show most of the time if not at all.

it really hurts you not having a Leopard disk to try and getting it working because using the utilities of another OS (like the utilities in Tiger) could hose the systems even further, at least that is what i ran into when i tried using a older version of OS X's utilities on a newer version of OS X because it rendered the OS inop.

Second time around it showed up as a target disk mode drive just fine. I have know idea what was ailing it the first time.

When it was on the desktop of my eMac I deleted the finder preferences and a bunch of startup item's prefs but when I booted the G5 again, the same thing...blinking finder. So the preference file is not the problem.

I ran TechTool Pro 5 doing every fix and/or optimization it has on the G5 and that didn't help.

This is really getting on my nerves. When I opened something in the dock the G5 runs perfectly, I can restart, shutdown or surf the net etc. but not "anything" that involves the finder.

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The thing you got to look at

The thing you got to look at is how it happened, these things just don't happen from nothing either it being software related or hardware.

glad to see you was finally able to get it to do something. a file has to be corrupt but how, deleting the files preferences does nothing to the file itself (maybe the permissions got screwed up somehow).

It was sort of odd that FireWire target disk mode didn't show the HDD at first, that leads me to believe something is wrong with the HDD or HDD subsystem.

I have never had issues seeing a HDD in FireWire target disk mode unless something was wrong with the drive or its subsystem or the firewire was screwed up. The original HDD in my Digital Audio started to fail and before it fully died it started corrupting files and showing odd behavior and would not mount half of the time when booted into another OS on the second HDD (two drives in the system).

Most of the times when a HDD is starting to fail it will show signs, not all of the times though. The onboard controller can be failing as well making it seem like its the drive failing.

The only time i have ever seen OS X screw up is when you run into hardware failures, a bad software update, install something that does not agree with the OS, or if you do something to the system files.

One has too wonder why it was at a recycle center in the first place. Just because the Computer seemed to be running fine don't mean that it is.

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Re: The thing you got to look at

The thing you got to look at is how it happened, these things just don't happen from nothing either it being software related or hardware.

glad to see you was finally able to get it to do something. a file has to be corrupt but how, deleting the files preferences does nothing to the file itself (maybe the permissions got screwed up somehow).

It was sort of odd that FireWire target disk mode didn't show the HDD at first, that leads me to believe something is wrong with the HDD or HDD subsystem.

I have never had issues seeing a HDD in FireWire target disk mode unless something was wrong with the drive or its subsystem or the firewire was screwed up. The original HDD in my Digital Audio started to fail and before it fully died it started corrupting files and showing odd behavior and would not mount half of the time when booted into another OS on the second HDD (two drives in the system).

Most of the times when a HDD is starting to fail it will show signs, not all of the times though. The onboard controller can be failing as well making it seem like its the drive failing.

The only time i have ever seen OS X screw up is when you run into hardware failures, a bad software update, install something that does not agree with the OS, or if you do something to the system files.

One has too wonder why it was at a recycle center in the first place. Just because the Computer seemed to be running fine don't mean that it is.

Now another strange problem, when I open the Dashboard and add a widget the screen does not perform the water puddle motion. It just appears with no effect. Before the Finder problem it made the puddle motion just fine.

So is there a link between a hosed finder and the screen effects with the dashboard?

Maxtek

P.S. The reason (besides it crashing from a "full to the brim" hard drive was the power supply connector. For some reason the prongs where you plug the wall cord into were bent down completely. It was hard to bend them back straight but once I did, it booted right up.

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Re: The thing you got to look at

Now another strange problem, when I open the Dashboard and add a widget the screen does not perform the water puddle motion. It just appears with no effect. Before the Finder problem it made the puddle motion just fine.

So is there a link between a hosed finder and the screen effects with the dashboard?

Maxtek

P.S. The reason (besides it crashing from a "full to the brim" hard drive was the power supply connector. For some reason the prongs where you plug the wall cord into were bent down completely. It was hard to bend them back straight but once I did, it booted right up.

Was that the reason it was in the recycle center ?

or the reason that the finder kept crashing in a loop.

Yeah they are linked because the finder runs that widget wave effect. when the OS isn't working properly you will run into things that's not working properly because some if not most of the software needed isn't loaded or cant be loaded because the finder is not launching.

it still sounds like a HDD issue.

If the HDD is starting to fail it can corrupt files before it bites the big one (you can not determine how long it will last until it dies, and it may never die but continue to corrupt files). When a file is corrupt it will not load or wont function properly.

if only you had the Leopard install DVD because you could do a reinstall, When you was running the repair did it say what had issues or what was missing or needed repaired.

if a file was corrupted running any disk repair utility wont fix the file and you will still have the same issue.

Was you able to get fireWire target disk mode to see the drive after you ran the repair or before you ran the repair. Because a screwed up file system on a HDD will keep the HDD from being seen in that mode or during the OS install process, that utility will repair a screwed up file system but not a corrupted file.

You might have to do with tiger until you are able to buy a Leopard install DVD.

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