Diagnose and Treat My Mac with AppleJack
“AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can’t load the GUI, or don’t have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use.”
Recently my Macs have been acting up. Maybe its the change of season, all the pollen in the air. Perhaps my anxieties rub off on these machines. My MacBook Pro won’t burn discs. OS X is showing a MEDIUM WRITE ERROR when writing the lead-in. I’ve boiled it down to a problem inside of my User preferences.
Then today all hell broke loose on my Power Mac G5, when suddenly a Capture Now in Final Cut Pro froze OS X and the screen. It rebooted fine, to find the same error again. Then, weird video glitches appeared freezing the computer every time. Looked like it was the video card acting up, so I ran Disk Utility to verify and repair broken Permissions. Disk Utility found wrong permissions in files having to do with my video card. Everything seemed repaired, then suddenly theres the video freeze again when the Dock popped up and froze. Disk Utility never seems to work for me, even when it says it does.
It’s times like these that I am thankful to have installed AppleJack. I completed all five steps in the AppleJack diagnostic tool set and my G5 purred on the next Restart.
Most times a broken Mac will boot up into Single User Mode (hold down Cmd+S when turning on the computer), which is where I can troubleshoot problems associated with Start Up. AppleJack installs right into Single User Mode, allowing me to perform actions like Repair Disks, Repair Permissions, Clean Caches, Validate Preference Files, and Remove Swap Files. A cocktail of all five can be performed automatically! Most Start Up and System Issues can be fixed with this simple utility!
What did you learn in this post?
Or did it leave you with further questions?
Comment here to Ask Steve Blue!
Written by Steve Blue
steveblue@iuseapple.com
CJ
Like you, I always use Applejack and love it but, unfortunately, there appears to be some incompatibility with it and OS 10.4.10 (though evidently not on all machines). After running Applejack, I updated both my MacBook Pro and my iMac G4 17″ flat screen. No problems with the laptop but Applejack crashes during permission repair (doesn’t crash but shuts down something about a power issue). I’ve tried several times - I’m bummed.
Jun 22nd, 2007 11:26 am