Mac PowerBook 1400 hangs on desktop display (my bad)

[Punkyclown]

Hi all, everyone here is always very supporting when I (always) post issues.
And I am very much appreciative of that, thank you all.
So I loaded a number of 9.2.2 desktop images on my 9.1 Powerbook 1400.
I switched to one of them and it loaded, but the next time I restarted my Mac
the computer hung after loading the desktop image and there it stays.  The mouse
is active but everything else is frozen.  So I loaded a 7.6 disk and removed the Appearance
Control Panel, but everything is set so,
 same issue.  When I try to Zap my Pram it just turns
the computer off or puts it to sleep and I have to restart. If I try to load System 9 using my
CD and the cmd - option - shift - delete keys it just show a diskette with a question mark
on it.  So aside from having to completely erase and do a new install on the hard drive.
Does anyone have an idea of how I can proceed with this issue?
Brad Hansen
 

 

[bibilit]

Try holding the Shift key to disable extensions 

 

[Punkyclown]

Thank you, that's the first thing I did, but it does't disable what is in Pram... Where all the

startup setting are kept.

Brad Hansen

 

[CC_333]

At the frozen desktop, try Command-Option-Escape to force quit whatever might be hanging things up.

It's not a sure thing, but sometimes I've encountered similar problems, and it was usually something related to the Control Strip that was causing the problem (force quitting that seems to unfreeze it). It may be something else, even Finder (in which case force quitting will effectively relaunch Finder.

c

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Appears I've got SCSI Disk Mode on the brain tonight. If you've got the cable, use it. Clear away the crud that you put on there while it's mounted as a volume on another Mac or PB and give it another go.

What kind of desktop images? What OS are you running on the 1400?

 

[Danamania]

Does it eventually go through to the desktop with enough waiting? (could be 5 minutes or so). 

If it does (hey, even if it doesn't), try booting from a CD and deleting the System Folder/Preferences/Appleshare Prep file if it exists.

It may be a long shot, but it fixed a problem with symptoms exactly like you're describing: booting to the desktop, freezing, but mouse pointer can move about.

I've had it suddenly become problematic even when I haven't been using filesharing or even networking for several boots previously.