If you’re lucky, this is a wasted chapter. After all, you’ll probably never have to install Mac OS X (assuming it came preinstalled on your Mac), and in the best of all technological worlds, you won’t have to do much troubleshooting, either. But here’s this appendix, anyway—just in case.
For starters, you need to make sure that you and your Mac have what it takes to handle Mac OS X—specifically:
A Macintosh with a G4, G5, or Intel processor. Basically, most Macs manufactured since the end of 2004 are eligible, which isn’t bad at all.
Plenty of free hard disk space. You need 9 GB free to install the full Mac OS X 10.5—less if you decline to install all the optional languages and printer drivers (more on this in a moment).
A lot of memory. Apple recommends at least 512 MB of memory, but for the greatest speed, install 1 gigabyte—2 or more if you can afford it. (And these days, you probably can.)
The latest firmware. Firmware describes the low-level, underlying software instructions that control the actual circuitry of your Mac. Every now and then, Apple updates it for certain Mac models, and it’s very important that your Mac has the absolute latest. If yours doesn’t, a message will appear to let you know during the Leopard installation. Some Macs might just spit the DVD right out. Quit the installer and grab the latest updater from www.apple.com/support/downloads.
A copy of Leopard to install. Apple sells Leopard in several ways. There’s the regular Leopard DVD, for example, and there’s the Family Pack, which authorizes you to install Leopard on up to five Macs in the same household. (Neither version is copy-protected or requires any kind of serial number, which is a nice change from Windows; only the honor system stops you from installing on a sixth Mac.)
And then there’s the version that comes with every new Mac. It’s labeled Mac OS X Leopard Disc 1, but it’s the same thing as the sold-separately DVD. (Disc 2, in this case, contains all the other programs that come with a new Mac, like the iLife software suite.)
The Mac OS X installer can perform a number of different installations. For example, it can put a copy of Mac OS X 10.5 onto a hard drive that currently has:
Nothing on it. If you one day have to erase your hard drive completely—because it’s completely hosed, or, less drastically, because you’ve bought a new, empty external hard drive—this is how to do it. See in "Erase & Install,” for a step-by-step guide.
Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.4. The Leopard installer can turn your older copy of Mac OS X into the 10.5 version, in the process maintaining all of your older preferences, fonts, documents, accounts, and so on. See in "The Upgrade Installation“.
On the other hand, a substantial body of evidence (specifically, hundreds of moaning Mac fans online) points to the wisdom of performing a clean install, rather than an upgrade installation. (Apple calls the clean install the “Archive & Install” option.) A clean installation provides a healthier, more glitch-proof copy of 10.5. See in "The Clean Install (“Archive and Install”)“.
Mac OS X 10.5. In times of dire troubleshooting, when nothing in Appendix B has helped, you can actually give yourself a fresh copy of 10.5, even though it’s already on the hard drive. See in "The Clean Install (“Archive and Install”)“.
The installation process takes about 45 minutes, but for the sake of your own psyche, you’ll probably want to set aside a whole afternoon. Once the installation is over, you’ll want to play around, organize your files, and learn the lay of the land.
Here’s how you install Leopard onto a drive that doesn’t have a version of Mac OS X on it already:
Insert the Mac OS X DVD. Double-click the Install Mac OS X icon in the disc’s main window. When the Restart button appears, click it.
The Mac starts up from the disc and takes you directly to the first Installer screen.
The installer soon falls into a pattern: Read the instructions, make a couple of choices, and click Continue to advance to the next screen. As you go, the list on the left side of the screen reveals where you are in the overall procedure.
Tip
You can back out of the installation at any time before step 5, just by choosing Installer→Quit Installer. When the Restart button appears, click it. Then eject the Mac OS X disc, either by holding down the mouse button while the computer restarts or, if you have a tray-loading CD drive, by pushing its Eject button during the moment of darkness during the restart.
Work your way through the Select Language screen, Welcome screen, and Software License Agreement screens, clicking Continue each time.
Note that once you’re past the Select Language screen, the Mac OS X Installer menu bar becomes available. In the Utilities menu are some very useful commands; they let you jump directly into programs like Disk Utility (to erase or partition your hard drive), Terminal (to do some Unixy preparatory steps), System Profiler (to see how much memory this machine has), Reset Password (if you’ve forgotten yours), and more.
If you do decide to take that detour to another program, when you quit it, you’ll return to the Installer program, right where you left off.
The Software License Agreement requires you to click a button confirming that you agree with whatever Apple’s lawyers say.
On the Select a Destination screen, click the disk or partition on which you want to install Mac OS X.
Icons for all of your disks (or partitions) appear on the screen, but ones that are off-limits to Mac OS X (like CDs and USB hard drives) appear dimmed, if at all. Click the icon of the drive—or the partition, if you’ve created one to hold Mac OS X—that will be your new main startup drive.
Note
If a yellow, triangular exclamation point logo appears on a drive, it probably has a newer version of Mac OS X 10.5 on it. (Read the message at the bottom of the dialog box to find out.) That’s the case if you’re trying to install from the original 10.5 DVD, but you already have 10.5.2 on the hard drive, for example. No problem; you should be reading in "The Clean Install (“Archive and Install”)" instructions anyway.
Click Continue.
You arrive at the Easy Install screen. The easiest way to proceed here is to click Install. But don’t.
Instead, take the time to click Customize.
The Installer shows you a list of the various chunks that constitute Mac OS X. A few of them are easily dispensable. For example, if you turn off Additional Fonts, Language Translations (for Japanese, German, French, and so on), the drivers for printer models that you don’t own, and the X11 Unix kit, you save 5.5 gigabytes. It’s like getting a whole mini-hard drive for free (ka-ching!). Click Done when you’re finished gloating.
Click Install.
Now you’re in for a 25-minute wait as the Installer copies software onto your hard drive. When the installer’s finished, you see a message indicating that your Mac will restart in 30 seconds. If you haven’t wandered off to watch TV, click the Restart button to end the countdown and get on with it.
Mac OS X 10.5 is now installed on your Mac—but you’re not quite ready to use it yet. See "The Setup Assistant" on the facing page.
If Mac OS X version 10.0 through 10.4-point-anything is on your hard drive, the Leopard installer can neatly nip and tuck its software code, turning it into version 10.5. Everything remains just as you had it: your accounts, folders, files, email, network settings, everything-else settings, and so on.
This sophisticated surgery occasionally leaves behind a minor gremlin here and there: peculiar cosmetic glitches, a checkbox that doesn’t seem to work, and so on. If that possibility concerns you, a clean install is a safer way to go. (A clean install does, however, require a little more post-installation fiddling to reinstate your settings, notably your Internet and network preferences.)
If you’re still game to perform the upgrade installation, follow the previously outlined steps 1 through 3. On the Select Destination screen, however, click Options.
Now you’re offered several variations of the basic installation. The one you want is Upgrade Mac OS X. Click it, and then click OK. Proceed with the previous step 4. (The button described there now says Upgrade, though, instead of Install.)
In Windows, the clean install is considered an essential troubleshooting technique. It entails installing a second System Folder or Windows folder—a fresh one, uncontaminated by the detritus left behind by you and your software programs.
In general, though, you and your software can’t invade the Mac OS X System folder. The kind of gradual corruption that could occur in those older operating systems is theoretically impossible in Mac OS X, and therefore the need to perform a clean install is almost completely eliminated.
That’s the theory, anyway. In fact, somehow or other, things do go wrong with your Mac OS X installation. Maybe you or somebody else has been fiddling around in Terminal and wound up deleting or changing some important underlying files. Certain shareware programs can perform deep-seated changes like this, too.
The point is that eventually, you may wish you could just start over with a new, perfect copy of Mac OS X. And thanks to The Clean Install (“Archive and Install”) option, you can—without having to erase the hard drive first.
Start by following steps 1 through 3 in "The Basic Installation" section. On the Select Destination screen, though, click Options. Now you’re offered four kinds of installation. Turn on “Archive and Install.” (“Preserve Users and Network Settings” should be on, too.)
This powerful option leaves all of your accounts (Home folders, documents, pictures, movies, Favorites, email, and so on) untouched. As the option’s name implies, it also leaves your network and Internet settings alone. But it deactivates your old System folder (you’ll find it, later, in a new folder called Previous System Folders) and puts a new one in its place. And that’s exactly what you want.
Click OK and then continue with step 4 (The Basic Installation). When it’s all over, you’ll be confident that your Mac OS X installation is clean, fresh, and ready for action.
The final installation option is called Erase & Install (known to the geek community as “Nuke ‘n’ Pave”). As you can guess, it erases your entire hard drive and installs the ultimate clean, fresh, sparkling new copy of Leopard and its applications there. Use this “nuke-and-pave” option when you’re about to sell your Mac and want to ensure that no trace of your former stuff is still there.
If you’re absolutely certain that you won’t regret completely erasing the computer (or you have a brand-new, virgin hard drive), follow the previously described steps 1 through 3. On the Select Destination screen, though, click Options, and select Erase & Install. Continue with step 4.
When the Mac restarts after the installation, the first thing you experience is one of the most visually stunning post-installation OS startup movies in history: a fly-through of deep space, accompanied by scooby-dooby music and a fancy parade of 3-D, computer-generated translations of the word “Welcome.” Once Apple has quite finished showing off its multimedia prowess, you arrive at a Welcome screen.
Note
You also hear a man’s voice letting you know that if you’re blind, you can press Esc to hear audio guidance for setting up the Mac and learning VoiceOve.
If you do so, you’re treated to a crash course in VoiceOver, the screen-control/screen-reading software described in Spotlight. This, by the way, is the only time you’ll be offered this tutorial, so pay attention. (Hint: Here are the basics. Hold down the Control and Option keys and press the arrow keys to highlight different elements of the screen, hearing them pronounced. When a new window opens, press Control-Option-Shift-W to read the contents of the window. Press Control-Option-Space bar to “click.”)
Once again, you’re in for a click-through-the-screens experience, this time with the aim of setting up your Mac’s various options. After answering the questions on each screen, click Continue.
The number and sequence of information screens you’ll encounter depend on whether you’ve upgraded an existing Mac or started fresh, but here are some of the possibilities:
Welcome. Click the name of the country you’re in.
Select Your Keyboard. Different countries require different keyboard layouts. For example, if you choose the Canadian layout, pressing the ] key on a U.S. keyboard produces the ç symbol. Click Continue.
Do you already own a Mac? If you choose “Transfer my information from another Mac,” the installer will assist you in sucking all of your old programs, files, folders, and settings from the old Mac to the new one.
You have to help it, however, by connecting a FireWire cable between the two Macs, and then restarting the old Mac while holding down its T key. (“FireWire connection established.”) Yes, that’s right: the installer is putting you into FireWire Disk Mode (FireWire Disk Mode (Target Disk Mode)) for super-high-speed transfer.
You’re using the Mac OS X Migration Assistant, shown in Figure A-1. The bottom of the screen lets you know how much stuff you’ve tagged for transferring, and how much disk space remains on the new Mac.
When you click Transfer, the data-copying process begins.
Select a Wireless Service. This is your chance to introduce the Mac to any wireless networks in the vicinity. Click the network name you want to join, if you see it. If you don’t see it, click Rescan to make the Mac sniff again in an attempt to locate the network. Or if there’s no wireless hot spot at all—hey, it could happen—click Different Network Setup.
In that event, you’re offered choices like Airport wireless, Cable modem/DSL modem, Local network (Ethernet), and “My computer does not connect to the Internet.” (Bummer!) When you click Continue, you may be asked for specific information—the local access number, account name, and password, and so on—regarding your Internet account. See Chapter 10 for advice on filling in these settings.
Enter Your Apple ID. Here, you’re offered the chance to type in, or create, an Apple ID—which is your email address. An Apple ID doesn’t cost anything, but it makes life easier if you want to buy songs from the Apple Music Store, order gift books or prints from iPhoto, and so on. (If you have a .Mac account—see .Mac Services—put that account info here.)
Registration Information. This is your chance to become a grain of sand on the great beach of the Apple database (and to set up your own “card” in Mac OS X’s Address Book program).
Tip
If you’re not interested in providing your personal information to Apple, or if you’ve already done so during a previous installation, press
-Q. A message offers you Skip, Shut Down,
and Cancel buttons. If you click Skip, you jump straight ahead
to “Create Your Account,” below.Figure A-1. The Migration Assistant is actually pretty amazing. It brings over to your new Mac (or new Mac OS X installation) all of the files, settings, folders, and even installed programs from an older Mac—or, in times of tragedy, from a Time Machine backup (see Chapter 6). Along the way, you’ll be asked whose account folder(s) you want brought over, which other stuff (like applications, files, and folders) to copy, and which sorts of settings. When it’s all over, you might have to reactivate a couple of Adobe programs, but otherwise, you should be ready to roll on your new (or new-feeling) Mac.
A Few More Questions. Where will you primarily use this computer? What best describes what you do? Do you want to get junk mail from Apple?
Create Your Account. Most of the steps up to this point have been pretty inconsequential, but this is a big moment. You’re about to create your account—your Administrator account, in fact, as described in Chapter 13.
All you have to do is make up a name, usually a short variation of your name and a password. Choose carefully, because you can’t easily change your account name later.
What you come up with here is extremely important, especially if several different people use this Mac at different times, or if other people connect to it on a network. In Phase 2: Name, Password, and Status for details on creating a password and a hint that will help you remember it.
If you’re the only one who uses your Mac, it’s perfectly OK to leave the password blank empty.
Select a Picture For This Account. If your Mac has a built-in camera (most models do), you can take a photo of yourself to use as your account icon. Just click “Take a video snapshot.” You get a three-second countdown, and then the Mac snaps your photo. (You can always reshoot it.) Adjust the cropping by dragging inside the photo, and adjust the size by dragging the slider beneath it.
If you’re camera-shy, of course, you can choose “Choose from the picture library” instead, and find an Apple-provided icon instead.
Your .Mac Billing Information. If you have a .Mac membership, Apple cheerfully lets you know when it will expire.
Thanks For being a .Mac member. Aw, shucks.
Thank You. When you click Go, you wind up at the Mac OS X desktop, just as described in Chapter 1.
Whether it’s a car engine or an operating system, anything with several thousand parts can develop the occasional technical hiccup. Mac OS X is far more resilient than its predecessors, but it’s still a complex system with the potential for occasional glitches.
It’s safe to say that you’ll have to do less troubleshooting in Mac OS X than in Mac OS 9 or Windows, especially considering that most freaky little glitches go away if you just try these two steps, one at a time:
Quit and restart the wayward program.
Log out and log back in again.
It’s the other problems that’ll drive you batty.
All kinds of glitches may befall you, occasionally, in Mac OS X. Your desktop picture doesn’t change when you change it in System Preferences. A menulet doesn’t open when you click it. A program won’t open—it just bounces in the Dock a couple of times and then stops.
When a single program is acting up like this, but quitting and restarting it does no good, try the following steps, in the following sequence.
An amazing number of mysterious glitches arise because the permissions of either that item or something in your System folder—that is, the complex mesh of interconnected Unix permissions described in Chapter 14—have become muddled.
When something doesn’t seem to be working right, therefore, open your Applications→Utilities folder and open Disk Utility. Proceed as shown in Figure A-2.
This is a really, really great trick to know.
Tip
Many Mac mavens, in fact, believe in running this Repair Permissions routine after running any kind of installer, just to nip nascent problems in the bud. That includes both installers of new programs and of Apple’s own Mac OS X updates.
Figure A-2. Click your hard drive’s name in the left-side list; click the First Aid tab; click Repair Disk Permissions; and then read an article while the Mac checks out your disk. If the program finds anything amiss, you’ll see messages like these. Among the text, you may recognize some Unix shorthand for read, write, and execute privileges (Setup: Sharing Any Folder).
If a program starts acting up immediately after you’ve installed or upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5, chances are good that it has some minor incompatibility. Chances are also good that you’ll find an updated version on the company’s Web site.
A corrupted preference file can bewilder the program that depends on it.
Before you go on a dumpfest, however, take this simple test. Log in using a different account (perhaps a dummy account that you create just for testing purposes). Run the problem program. Is the problem gone? If so, then the glitch exists only when you are logged in—which means it’s a problem with your copy of the program’s preferences.
Return to your own account. Open your Home folder→Library→Preferences folder, where you’ll find neatly labeled preference files for all of the programs you use. Each ends with the file name suffix .plist. For example, com.apple.finder.plist is the Finder’s preference file, com.apple.dock.plist is the Dock’s, and so on.
Put the suspect preference file into the Trash, but don’t empty it. The next time you run the recalcitrant program, it will build itself a brand-new preference file that, if you’re lucky, lacks whatever corruption was causing your problems.
If not, quit the program. You can reinstate its original .plist file from the Trash, if you’d find that helpful as you pursue your troubleshooting agenda.
Remember, however, that you actually have three Preferences folders. In addition to your own Home folder’s stash, there’s a second one in the Library folder in the main hard drive window (which administrators are allowed to trash), and a third in the System→Library folder in the main hard drive window (which nobody is allowed to trash—at least not without one of the security-bypass methods described in the box on the next page).
In any case, the next time you log in, the Mac creates fresh, virginal preference files.
Sometimes you can give Mac OS X or its programs a swift kick by restarting the Mac. It’s an inconvenient step, but not nearly as time-consuming as what comes next. And it can fix problems that cropped up when you started up the computer.
Sometimes reinstalling the problem program clears up whatever the glitch was.
First, however, throw away all traces of it. Open the Applications folder and drag the program’s icon (or its folder) to the Trash. In most cases, the only remaining pieces to discard are its .plist file (or files) in your Home→Library→Preferences folder, and any scraps bearing the program’s name in your Library→Application Support folder. (You can do a quick Spotlight search to round up any other pieces.)
Then reinstall the program from its original disc or installer—after first checking the company’s Web site to see if there’s an updated version, of course.
The occasional unresponsive application has become such a part of Mac OS X life that, among the Mac cognoscenti online, the dreaded, endless “please wait” cursor has been given its own acronym: SBOD (Spinning Beachball of Death). When the SBOD strikes, no amount of mouse clicking and keyboard pounding will get you out of the recalcitrant program.
Here are the different ways you can go about force quitting a stuck program (the equivalent of pressing Control-Alt-Delete in Windows), in increasing order of desperation:
Use the Dock. If you can’t use the program’s regular File→Quit command, try right-clicking its Dock icon and choosing Quit from the pop-up menu.
Force quit the usual way. Choose
→Force Quit to terminate the stuck
program, or use one of the other force-quit methods described in
Quitting Programs.Force quit the sneaky way. Some programs, including the Dock, don’t show up at all in the usual Force Quit dialog box. Your next attempt, therefore, should be to open the Activity Monitor program (in Applications→Utilities), which shows everything that’s running. Double-click a program and then, in the resulting dialog box, click Quit to force quit it.
Tip
If you find yourself having to quit the Dock more than once, here’s an easier way: Make yourself a little AppleScript (Chapter 16) consisting of a single line: tell application “Dock” to quit. Save it as an application. Whenever you feel that the Dock (or Spaces or Exposé, which technically belong to the Dock) needs a good kick in the rear, double-click your little AppleScript.
If all of this seems like a lot to remember, you can always
force restart the Mac. On most Macs, you do that by holding down the
power button for five seconds. If that doesn’t work, press
Control--power button.
If you’re not allowed to drag an icon somewhere, the error message that appears almost always hits the nail on the head: You’re trying to move a file or folder that isn’t yours. The box on the facing page explains the solutions to this problem.
If a program won’t open (if its icon bounces merrily in the Dock for a few seconds, for instance, but then nothing happens), begin by trashing its preference file, as described on the facing page. If that doesn’t solve it, reinstalling the program usually does.
Not every problem you encounter is related to running applications. Sometimes trouble strikes before you even get that far. The following are examples.
When you see the cheerful, multilingual dialog box shown in Figure A-3, you’ve got yourself a kernel panic—a Unix nervous breakdown.
(In such situations, user panic might be the more applicable term, but that’s programmers for you.)
If you experience a kernel panic, it’s almost always the result of a hardware glitch—most often a bad memory (RAM) board, but possibly an accelerator card, graphics card, SCSI gadget, or USB hub that Mac OS X doesn’t like. A poorly seated AirPort card can bring on a kernel panic, too, and so can a bad USB or FireWire cable.
Figure A-3. A kernel panic is almost always related to some piece of add-on hardware. And look at the bright side: At least you get this handsome dialog box in Leopard. That’s a lot better than the Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 effect—random text gibberish super-imposing itself on your screen.
If simply restarting the machine doesn’t help, detach every shred of gear that didn’t come from Apple. Restore these components to the Mac one at a time until you find out which one was causing Mac OS X’s bad hair day. If you’re able to pinpoint the culprit, seek its manufacturer (or its Web site) on a quest for updated drivers, or at least try to find out for sure whether the add-on is compatible with Mac OS X.
Tip
This advice goes for your Macintosh itself. Apple periodically updates the Mac’s own “drivers” in the form of a firmware update. You download these updates from the Support area of Apple’s Web site (if indeed Mac OS X’s own Software Update mechanism doesn’t alert you to their existence).
There’s one other cause for kernel panics, by the way, and that’s moving, renaming, or changing the access permissions for Mac OS X’s essential system files and folders—the Applications or System folder, for example. (See Chapter 14 for more on permissions.) This cause isn’t even worth mentioning, of course, because nobody would be that foolish.
In times of troubleshooting, Mac OS 9 fans used to press the Shift key at startup to turn off the extensions. Windows fans press an F-key to start up in Safe Mode. Either way, the idea is the same: to turn off all nonessential system-software nubbins in an effort to get a sick machine at least powered up.
Although not one person in a hundred knows it, Mac OS X offers the same kind of emergency keystroke. It can come in handy when you’ve just installed some new piece of software and find that you can’t even start up the machine, or when one of your fonts is corrupted, or when something you’ve designated as a Login Item turns out to be gumming up the works. With this trick, you can at least turn on the computer so that you can uninstall the cranky program.
The trick is to press the Shift key as the machine is starting up. Hold it down from the startup chime until you see the words “Safe Boot,” in red lettering, on the login screen.
Welcome to Safe Mode.
What have you accomplished?
Checked your hard drive. The Shift-key business makes the startup process seem to take a very long time; behind that implacable Apple logo, Mac OS X is actually scanning your entire hard drive for problems. It’s running the same disk check that’s described on page 779x.
Brought up the login screen. When you do a safe boot, you must click your name and enter your password, even if you normally have Automatic Login turned on.
Turned off your kernel extensions. All kinds of software nuggets load during the startup process. Some of them, you choose yourself: icons you add to the Login Items list in the System Preferences→Accounts pane. Others are normally hidden: a large mass of kernel extensions, which are chunks of software that add various features to the basic operating system. (Apple’s kernel extensions live in your System→Library→Extensions folder; others may be in your Library→StartupItems folder.)
If you’re experiencing startup crashes, some non-Apple installer may have given you a kernel extension that doesn’t care for Mac OS X 10.5—so in Safe Mode, they’re all turned off.
Turned off your fonts. Corrupted fonts are a chronic source of trouble—and because you can’t tell by looking, they’re darned difficult to diagnose. So just to make sure you can at least get into your computer, Safe Mode turns them all off (except the authorized, Apple-sanctioned ones that it actually needs to run, which are in your System→Library→Fonts folder).
Trashed your font cache. The font cache is a speed trick. Mac OS X stores the visual information for each of your fonts on the hard drive, so that the system won’t have to read in every single typeface off your hard drive when you open your Font menus or the Font panel.
When these files get scrambled, startup crashes can result. That’s why a Safe Boot moves all of these files into the Trash. (You’ll even see them sitting there in the Trash after the startup process is complete, although there’s not much you can do with them except walk around holding your nose and pointing.)
Turned off your login items. Safe Mode also prevents any Finder windows from opening and prevents your own hand-picked startup items from opening—that is, whatever you’ve asked Leopard to auto-open by adding them to the System Preferences→Accounts→Login Items list.
This, too, is a troubleshooting tactic. If some login item crashes your Mac every time it opens, you can squelch it just long enough to remove it from your Login Items list.
Tip
If you don’t hold down the Shift key until you click the Log In button (after entering your name and password at the login screen), you squelch only your login items but not the fonts and extensions.
Once you reach the desktop, you’ll find a long list of standard features inoperable. You can’t use DVD Player, capture video in iMovie, use a wireless network, use certain microphones and speakers, or use your modem. (The next time you restart, all of this goodness will be restored, assuming you’re no longer clutching the Shift key in a sweaty panic.)
In any case, the beauty of Safe Mode is that it lets you get your Mac going. You have access to your files, so at least the emergency of crashing-on-startup is over. And you can start picking through your fonts and login items to see if you can spot the problem.
Confirm that your Mac has the latest firmware, as described earlier. Detach and test all your non-Apple add-ons. Finally, perform a disk check (see below).
Most of the troubleshooting steps for this problem (which is usually accompanied by the Spinning Beachball of Death cursor) are the same as those described under “Kernel Panic” above.
If you or one of the other people who use your Mac have forgotten the corresponding account password, no worries: Just read the box in INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: The Case of the Forgotten Password.
The beauty of Mac OS X’s design is that the operating system itself is frozen in its perfect, pristine state, impervious to conflicting system extensions, clueless Mac users, and other sources of disaster.
That’s the theory, anyway. But what happens if something goes wrong with the complex software that operates the hard drive itself?
Fortunately, Mac OS X comes with its own disk-repair program. It takes the form of a program in Applications→Utilities called Disk Utility.
In any case, running Disk Utility is a powerful and useful troubleshooting tool that can cure all kinds of strange ills, including these problems, among others:
Your Mac freezes during startup, either before or after the Login screen.
The startup process interrupts itself with the appearance of the text-only command line.
You get the “applications showing up as folders” problem.
Disk Utility can’t fix the disk it’s on (except for permissions repairs, described at the beginning of this appendix). That’s why you have to restart the computer from the Leopard installation disc (or another startup disk), and run Disk Utility from there. The process goes like this:
Start up the Mac from the Leopard DVD.
The best way to do that is to insert the disc and then restart the Mac while holding down the C key.
You wind up, after some time, at the Mac OS X Installer screen. Don’t be fooled—installing Mac OS X is not what you want to do here. Don’t click Continue!
Choose Utilities→Disk Utility.
That’s the unexpected step. After a moment, the Disk Utility screen appears.
Click the disk or disk partition you want to fix, click the First Aid tab, and then click Repair Disk.
The Mac whirls into action, checking a list of very technical disk-formatting parameters.
If you see the message, “The volume ‘Macintosh HD’ appears to be OK,” that’s meant to be good news. Believe it or not, that cautious statement is as definitive an affirmation as Disk Utility is capable of making about the health of your disk.
Disk Utility may also tell you that the disk is damaged, but that it can’t help you. In that case, you need a more heavy-duty disk-repair program like Drive 10 (www.micromat.com) or DiskWarrior (www.alsoft.com).
If the basic steps described in this chapter haven’t helped, the universe is crawling with additional help sources.
In general, this is the part in any Mac book where you’re directed to Apple’s help Web site, to various discussion forums, and so on—and, indeed, those help sources are listed below.
But the truth is, the mother of all troubleshooting resources is not any of those—it’s Google. You’ll find more answers faster using Google than you ever will by starting at any of the individual help sites below. That’s because Google includes all of those help sites in its search!
Suppose, for example, that you’ve just installed the 10.5.1 software update for Leopard, and it’s mysteriously turned all your accounts (including your own) into Standard accounts. And without any Administrator account, you can’t install new programs, change network settings, add or edit other accounts, and so on.
You could go to one Web site after another, hunting for a fix, repeating your search—or you could just type Leopard 10.5.1 standard accounts into Google and hit Enter. See Figure A-4.
Figure A-4. Don’t waste your time. Start any troubleshooting search at Google. Leave out small words like “it,” “the,” “of,” and so on; Google ignores them. Bottom: Presto: Google’s very first results link contains the answer.
These Web sites contain nothing but troubleshooting discussions, tools, and help:
Apple Discussion Groups (http://discussions.info.apple.com). The volume and quality of question-and-answer activity here dwarfs any other free source. If you’re polite and concise, you can post questions to the multitudes here and get more replies to them than you’ll know what to do with.
Apple’s help site (www.apple.com/support). Apple’s help Web site includes downloadable manuals, software updates, frequently asked questions, and many other resources.
It also has a Search box, which may look mild-mannered but is actually the mother of all troubleshooting resources: the Knowledge Base. This is the collection of 50,000 individual technical articles, organized in a searchable database, that the Apple technicians themselves consult when you call for help. You can search it either by typing in keywords or by using pop-up menus of question categories.
MacFixIt (www.macfixit.com). The world’s one-stop resource for Mac troubleshooting advice; alas, you have to pay to access the good stuff.
Finally, consider contacting whoever sold you the component that’s making your life miserable: the printer company, scanner company, software company, or whatever.
If it’s a Mac OS problem, you can call Apple at 800-275-2273 (that’s 800-APL-CARE). For the first 90 days following your purchase of Mac OS X (which, as far as Apple knows, is the date of your first call), the technicians will answer your questions for free.
After that, unless you’ve paid for AppleCare for your Mac (a three-year extended warranty program), Apple will charge you to answer your questions. Fortunately, if the problem turns out to be Apple’s fault, they won’t charge you.