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By Christopher Breen
Note:This article is an excerpt from "MAC 911" © 2002 Christopher Breen Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Peachpit Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. To buy this book, visit www.peachpit.com
-Continued from page 2
I don't want to give away the plot of the rest of this book, but a few just-after-startup annoyances are so vexing that I'd feel like a heel if I forced you to scamper to the book's index to find assistance.
Uh-oh: Your Mac running Mac OS 9.2 or earlier starts up, but only long enough to display an error message before it crashes.
Technically, your Mac has booted successfully, but how helpful is that if, after displaying the desktop for a split-second, your Mac goes kablooey?
Treatment 1: Press Command-Control-Power or the Reset button.
If your Mac won't respond to keyboard or mouse input, it's frozen. To take some of the chill off your Mac, you must force it to restart. One way to restart is to press Command-Control-Power key at the same time. If you Mac doesn't respond to this key combination, press the Reset button on your Mac (a button with a left-pointing triangle). Treatment 2: Hold down the Shift key at startup. Yup, it's our old friend Mr. Extension Conflict again. If your Mac behaves after disabling extensions, you'll need to ferret out the troublesome extension or extensions.
Treatment 3: Hold down the spacebar at startup.
If disabling extensions by holding down the Shift key at startup made your Mac a more contented computer, see whether a third-party extension is the cause of your problems. Holding down the spacebar brings up the Extensions Manager as your Mac boots up. When the Extensions Manager window appears, select Mac OS 9.2 Base (or whichever version of the Mac OS you're using) from the Selected Set pop-up menu and restart. If all goes well, reopen Extensions Manager (you can find it in the Control Panels hierarchical menu), select Mac OS 9.2 All (or, again, whichever version of the Mac OS you're using), and restart. If things seem to be hunky-dory, a third-party extension or control panel is the likely culprit.
Treatment 4: Undo your handiwork.
Have you just installed a new piece of software or a peripheral that requires its own special software? If so, restart your Mac by holding down the spacebar at startup to bring up the Extensions Manager. When the Extensions Manager window appears, look for any extensions and control panels related to the item you just installed. If you just installed a new Acme Super-Duper Mouse, for example, and that mouse required you to install the Acme Super-Duper MousePlay extension, locate that extension, and turn it off.
USB was supposed to put an end to hardware conflicts. It doesn't.
Treatment 1: Search for updated drivers.
USB drivers are updated routinely when folks like you discover these annoying conflicts. Check the peripheral maker's Web site for driver updates, and install any that you find.
Treatment 2: Run Software Update.
The Software Update application included with both Mac OS 9.x and Mac OS X exists solely to keep your Apple software up to date. Apple is also responsible for its share of USB drivers, and Software Update may be able to outfit your Mac with drivers that are more up to date.
Treatment 3: Juggle peripherals.
Certain USB peripherals just don't get along—Zip drives and some printers, for example. Pull the plug on a peripheral, and restart to see whether there's a conflict between that peripheral and another.
Treatment 4: Give 'em enough juice.
Some USB peripherals require more power than an unpowered USB hub or the USB port on your Mac's keyboard can provide. Give a powered USB hub a try.
Mac OS X should boot if you've selected it in the Startup Disk control panel, but sometimes, it just won't.
Treatment 1: Be sure that Mac OS X is selected in the Startup Disk control panel (Mac OS 9) or in the Startup Disk System Preferences (Mac OS X).
An obvious suggestion, I know, but double-check anyway.
Treatment 2: On recent-model Macs, hold down the Option key at startup, and select the Mac OS X partition in the resulting screen.
"New world" Macs—Power Mac G4s, iBooks, and recent Power-Books and iMacs—allow you to select a startup disk by holding down the Option key when you start up your Mac. Note: This treatment is a quick fix only. If the Mac believes that it's supposed to boot into Mac OS 9 instead of Mac OS X, it will do just that the next time you restart.
Treatment 3: Insert your Mac OS X CD, restart with the C key held down, and run Disk Utility.
Apple combines Disk First Aid and Drive Setup in a single Mac OS X utility called Disk Utility. When the Mac OS X CD boots into the Mac OS X installer, select Open Disk Utility from the Installer menu, click the First Aid tab, select your Mac OS X drive, and click the Verify button to see what's what. If Disk Utility finds a problem that it can fix, click the Repair button.
Treatment 4: Run a third-party troubleshooting utility.
Current versions of Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro, and Norton Utilities can diagnose and repair Mac OS X volumes. Boot from your troubleshooting utility's CD and examine (and, if necessary, repair) your Mac OS X volume.
Treatment 5: Reinstall Mac OS X.
As I write this chapter in late 2001, we're in the infant days of Mac OS X. Many parts of the new OS are unfinished, and an unfinished operating system sometimes does odd things. Rather than spend hours troubleshooting unusual Mac OS X behavior, I'd simply reinstall the sucker.
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