eclecticism

05/05/2004 |

Apparently I pissed someone off with my self-righteous indignant babbling about IE (and, implicitly, Windows) being inferior to just about everything else out there (including, but not limited to, the Mac).

Last night I installed the latest Security Update for Mac OS X, and something tweaked out right at the end, locking up the computer. When I did a force restart, the computer wouldn’t boot — it got to the grey startup screen with the Apple logo and spinning progress widget, and just sat there, happily spinning away, but never progressing beyond that.

I poked at it for a while last night, resetting the PRAM, figuring out how to get into Open Firmware and reset the NVRAM (whatever that is) that way, nothing helped. Bleah. Tried to reinstall Panther from the 10.3 discs, and realized that by participating in the Apple Up-To-Date program, I’d been sent upgrade discs rather than install discs, and they wouldn’t let me put a fresh 10.3 install over 10.3.3.

Bleah. Went to bed.

Got up this morning, dug out the System Restore disc that came with the G5, installed 10.2, upgraded to 10.3, and ran through Software Update a few times to bring me up to 10.3.3 plus all current updates (including the Security Update that freaked out last night). Everything’s back up and running rock solid again, but that was a good three hours (one last night, two this morning) that I’d much rather have spent in more productive ways.

Ah, well, at least it’s done. On the bright side, while I won’t claim that OS X is completely trouble-free (and I don’t think I ever have made that claim), I still think this process, on the whole, was preferable to a Windows reinstall. For instance, even after a full system reinstall from the ground up, I still have all my applications, documents, and system preferences right where they were when the whole ordeal started, and don’t have to re-install or re-configure anything. That in itself probably saves me another couple hours of recovery time.

iTunes: “Hooked on a Feeling (Ooga-Chaka) (Ooga Chaka)” by Baby Talk from the album Hooked on a Feeling (Ooga-Chaka) (1998, 3:02).

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7 Responses to “Karma just kicked my ass”

Jon Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 12:38 pm

A Windows XP reinstall will keep all settings and documents as they were before as well.

Alex Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 12:47 pm

I have similar problem with the latest security update as well. Mine refuses to shutdown so I had to force shutdown and then when I booted into single user mode and did fsck, tons of invalid inode, etc. Not sure whether the fact I was dismounting my iPod while update is optimizing has anything to do with that…

Michael Hanscom Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 12:58 pm

That’s actually good to know, Jon. While I have a PC, it 1) hasn’t been touched (or even turned on) in weeks (months?), and 2) runs Windows 2000 Professional, as I don’t use it anywhere near enough to bother paying for the upgrade to XP. So, my Windows knowledge is, admittedly, becoming more and more out-of-date as the days go by.

Nice to know that with XP, Windows can perform the same “clean” system-only reinstall that I’ve been performing on my Macs since the early 90’s. (Sorry…couldn’t resist…)

Jon Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 4:53 pm

No problem, Michael. If memory serves, I believe Windows 2000 Pro will also keep all settings and documents, as Windows XP uses Win 2000’s core. Well, I’ll be the first to admit it takes Microsoft 10 years+ to catch up to what Macintosh as done ;).

Chas Redmond Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 5:14 pm

I don’t suppose u’ve considered buying a copy of DiskWarrior?

Chas Redmond Says:
May 5th, 2004 at 5:16 pm

If not, I can always drop down at Michigan and wherever it is you work and give you an eval CD complete with usable SN#. It’s an essential requirement past the basic OSX itself.