oh my god, i'm going to cry.

[swingchickie]

my imac is, at the moment, nothing more than a giant paperweight that goes *whirr, whirr, whirr*.

and apple phone support is closed for the night, so i just have to shut it down and stare at it. *weep*.

i had the noblest of intentions -- install iLife so that i could use iWeb, at several peoples' suggestion, to build a newer, better version of my website. i had to go to 2 apple stores to get iLife (the one in king of prussia is closed until mid-november, GREAT), and then when i got it home it wouldn't install... turns out my operating system is too old (they just released Leopard, and i'm back on Emu or Stoat or some other ancient version of OS X from 5 years ago).

so... apple phone support told me i could either upgrade to tiger, or upgrade to leopard if i also increased my memory. well, try to find a copy of tiger in the stores when the shiny new leopard is out... yeah, right. so i was left with "upgrade the memory, upgrade to leopard". 'cept the apple store didn't have any RAM for me to buy... so the guy on the phone at the apple store suggested microcenter.

*sigh*. off to microcenter, where the super-helpful mac department guy picked out the RAM i'd need, and handed over a copy of Leopard with a $40 rebate. nice. i schlepped it all home, installed the RAM, and my computer happily started up and let me do all my regular net-surf-y stuff on it.

until it was time to install leopard.

i inserted the CD-ROM, it told me that it'd restart my computer to install, i said OK... and since then, for the last hour, it has been an absolute comedy. the computer starts, it whirrs... then i get a blank blue screen, then a blank gray screen. all the while, the whirring. and the joy is, when it's in that mode you can't eject anything from the DVD drive, so i can't get it to stop except to shut the thing down. and then when you turn it on, it starts the ruckus all over again.

i even took the darn thing apart again and replaced the spiffy new RAM with the old one. no dice. so no working on my website, until i can call tomorrow night after work... and i don't think i'm going to get any apple support, because i don't have their apple care plan thingy.

oh my god, when will the saga of this website be over? *panic*

Comments

[viellen]

K, do this:

1. Put the new RAM back in the computer.
2. Make sure your Leopard disk is in the computer (if it's not, let me know and I'll tell you how to get it in there).
3. Boot the computer and hold down the "c" key until you see an Apple with a spinning gear underneath it.
4. Follow the prompts to install Leopard, but after selecting your HD, click the "Options" button.
5. Select "Archive and Install" and make sure the "Preserve Network and User Settings" button is checked.
6. Continue through the installation process to let Leopard install.
7. Eat dinner, take a nap, play Scrabble, watch some TV....whatever...for about an hour and a half.
8. You should have a working system.

Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

first of all, i need to tattoo on my forehead a reminder that you work for apple. you totally rawk.

second -- i did # 1 through 3, and got no prompt to install. i'm back to the apple with the spinning gear, and *whirr, whirr, whirr*. which eventually changes to the blue screen, with the same whirring.

any idears?

[viellen]

Hookay.
-Restart the computer and hold down O+F+Apple+Option
-You will see a command prompt. Enter:
reset-nvram (press enter)
reset-all (press enter)
-The computer will restart.

Follow the instructions again about holding "c" down.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

close, but no cigar.

i typed in the prompts and got an "ok" after each, it restarted, i held down the C, and then got the apple and gear and *whirr, whirr*.

don't worry about it, hon... don't deal with my crappy tech issues on your night off! thanks for trying!!! *mwah*

[viellen]

Okay, well, the last thing I was going to say is try holding down "option" on reboot and see if the disk shows up. It could take a while, but it's worth a shot. I hope your HD is ok! Let me know how it turns out.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

oh ok, let me try *runs up to computer room*...

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

hard drive is ok, but leopard still won't install. hrm. we'll see tomorrow...

[nikki-wraith.livejournal.com]

Hey there,
TommyBGoode sent me thisaway.
I am also an Apple emp. And a long time Mac Geek.

Couple of things:
As you just bought Leopard, you are entitled to support for it.
There have also been some cases of the discs being bad.

To remove the disc when it's being bad, hold down the eject key (F12) when you reboot. Or click and hold the mouse.

Those should help out a bit.

Mikeal

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

thanks so much mikeal! i was able to eject the disc last night by holding the mouse button down... now the question is how to get the darn disc to work.

that's good to know that 1. i can get support without a plan and 2. other discs have been bad... i don't feel like such a techno-peasant now. :)

[ohhjuliet.livejournal.com]

Did you archive and install, or just update. I did the latter on my macbook and couldn't get past the white screen with the grey apple. The good news? A clean install made everything work again.

The bad news, it's a clean install, which means erase.

However, I started up in Target mode (hold down the t-key while it's booting) and connected my laptop via firewire cable to my desktop and dragged my stuff off. So you'll need a second mac, or someone with one, to do that, but it's better than losing stuff. :)

Good luck!!!!

[trotsky-nj.livejournal.com]

I just went through the Leopard upgrade process (sort of), and am so sorry to hear you're having such a hard time of it.
My best advice is use an external hard drive to make a backup of your current HD. (Download the fantabulous SuperDuper - the demo will let you make unlimited full backups)
Once you're sure you've got a good backup, I'd boot to your Tiger DVD or the new backup you just created, and reformat your old HD.
Then try running the Leopard install as a clean install, and on reboot it will ask to import your user account/apps/docs/settings from your backup HD.
Worked beautifully for me.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

wait... so i download superduper, it copies everything on my hard drive and holds onto it in cyberspace, and then once leopard is installed i just tell it to put it all back on my computer??? srsly???? oh, that's so cool.

[trotsky-nj.livejournal.com]

no no no - you need to have an external hard drive to use SuperDuper.
But it will work just like that - when I rebooted to complete the Leopard install, it came back up, with my name and user account pic, and asked if I wanted to bring those settings in. It was somewhat magical.
SuperDuper, while an excellent backup solution, is not magical. Well, not in the truest sense of the word. If you need an external drive to make the move, I have no doubt you have friends who have one handy that can be borrowed for a short period of time.