S10e boot problems help please

[bbqforce10]

Hi
I recently sold my S10e running Snow Leopard (very sad to see it go but need the money at the moment!).
It was running perfectly.
The buyer has got in touch and after in working fine the first time he used it, he now can't get it to boot.
He is says he is getting the following error and it just hangs:
starting hibernate
sleepimage has garbage
hibernate failed
loading darwin/x86

I'm not sure what he has done to it. All he says he installed is Skype. I'm not sure how he shut down...could this be the cause?
I've been trying to help him to resolve the problem, but am finding it very difficult via email, without the netbook in front of me!

Can anyone please advice me the exact steps to tell him to do?
Is the best idea to get him to boot in verbose mode first? If so can someone tell me the keys for him to press etc and when? I just can't remember how to do this as it has been so long since I had to do so.
He seems pretty clueless re Macs, which is a shame!
Thanks very much to anyone that can advise.

[SilverZero]

Tell him to sign up here and ask his questions directly. Chances are he'll be having more issues in the near future. The short answer is that he probably needs to boot up in single-user mode or with the Install DVD/USB, change the hibernatemode, and/or delete the sleepimage. Those are all Terminal commands, most likely.

[bbqforce10]

Thanks for the reply.
I'd like to try and help him first of all with a solution as I don't think he knows much about macs.
Previously the s10e was working perfectly.
How does he make it boot in single user mode? Does he press the down arrow twice when it is booting??
Thanks

[SilverZero]

Thanks for the reply.
I'd like to try and help him first of all with a solution as I don't think he knows much about macs.
Previously the s10e was working perfectly.
How does he make it boot in single user mode? Does he press the down arrow twice when it is booting??
Thanks

At the bootloader selection screen, make sure the OSX partition is highlighted and then just type "-v -s" (no quotes). I always do this instead of the graphic menu selections, but choosing "single user mode" should also work. The -v flag will give a verbose boot log, so he can see what's going on. The -s flag is for single-user, and it will only get him to a command line, not the desktop, so he'll have to use only keyboard commands.

At that point, he'll need to do the fsck and mount commands (they are listed right on the screen: "/sbin/fsck -fy" and "/sbin/mount -uw /") to get to a usable command line. Then have him enter these two commands (hit Enter between them, of course):

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pmset -a hibernatemode 0
rm /var/vm/sleepimage

Those should both work without putting "sudo" in front of them, but if there are errors, have him try it that way also. This will set the hibernatemode to regular RAM sleep - NOT deep sleep. If he wants to try other modes, refer him to this article for more info. Deep sleep may or may not work depending on the system, and it will create a new sleepimage, so if that's the problem, it will just make it come back.

He can check hibernatemode by typing:

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pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

It should say "hibernatemode 0". (EDIT: This may not work in single-user mode, but entering the pmset code above to actually set it to mode 0 should work.) And he can check that sleepimage was deleted by typing:

Code: Select all

ls /var/vm

He should NOT see "sleepimage" listed in that directory ("ls" lists the files in the given directory).

Then he should restart by typing "reboot." Hopefully that will work.

[bbqforce10]

Thanks very much for that, it is really helpful.

Can you remind me what he needs to press stop the bootloader and be able to select the OSX partition and input -v-s etc?

Thanks

[elk]

Thanks very much for that, it is really helpful.

Can you remind me what he needs to press stop the bootloader and be able to select the OSX partition and input -v-s etc?

Thanks

It very simpel:
Just press and hold "CTRL" after the boot screen, until the chameleon screen is shown.

[bbqforce10]

Thanks for all of your help so far.

Unfortunately they are not managing to boot in single user or verbose mode.

They say that they are just getting the following message still:
starting hibernate
sleepimage has garbage
hibernate failed
loading darwin/x86

They don't seem to be able to interupt the bootloader and enter any commands.
Pressing and holding "ctrl" doesn't seem to be working.
Any final ideas what they need to do??

Thanks

[SilverZero]

I always get to the boot arguments by hitting F8 right when the little spinning cursor shows up at the top-left corner of the screen. Then it waits for you to select the boot partition and enter -v or -s or whatever you want. Never heard of using CTRL.

[bbqforce10]

Ok, thanks, I'll ask them to try that.

Cheers