MAC problems! Please help if you can.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Hiya guys'n'dolls...

I was wondering if there are any Mac users here that might be able to help with an issue.

I have a buddy that just bought/switched to a Mac - the "all-in-one" type, where it's just a monitor. He just recently has an issue whereby he can not login. The boot-up gets to the login screen, pauses for a second, then dumps to a blue screen, then back to the login screen after a short while. Lather, rinse, repeat forever.
He's tried re-installing the OS from his disc but it gets part way and says it can't load a specific driver or something for some reason, then fails.

Anyone else ever heard of or have this problem?

Please help if you think you can. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks folks.

Mark Larmand...

[pauland]

He's tried re-installing the OS from his disc but it gets part way and says it can't load a specific driver or something for some reason

This is going to be the key. Unlike Microsoft Apple has control of the hardware and the software, so that really shouldn't happen. I would try and get very specific information about that error.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Thanks for the reply Paul.

Suffice it to say he did the most instinctive thing and reformatted, then the OS installed just fine. So i guess we'll never know exactly why it did what it did. My guess would say a corrupt driver. But not being a Mac user that's just a guess.

Thx again.

Mark...

[pauland]

Glad he got it sorted.

[ajreed]

Unlike Microsoft Apple has control of the hardware and the software

Knowing nothing about Apple - what does this mean? Does it mean for example you can't build a system from componenets of your choice (like you can for Windows), or what?

[pauland]

Knowing nothing about Apple - what does this mean? Does it mean for example you can't build a system from componenets of your choice (like you can for Windows), or what?

Apple is the only company allowed to build apple machines. There is very tight control over the hardware so inevitably there is less likelyhood that there will be any chance of incompaibility. You can't just plug in PC hardware to an apple machine.

There is such a thing as a hackintosh where people have hacked the software to allow Mac OSX to run on PC hardware. Completely unapproved by apple and fraught with hassle.

PCs are essentially built to a standard and manufacturers build hardware to that standard and software to the standards of the OS they wish to support.

Much more regulated/standardised on the Apple platform compared to the PC.

[ajreed]

Very interesting that - thanks for the explanation Paul.