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No boot and a bomb

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My friend has a macintosh computer that will not boot up. She gets a message that reads “extension error, type 41 and contains a picture of a “bomb” (a round object with a fuse). I immediatly think virus, but am not mac knowledgable. Also she does not have the boot or rescue disk that came with the computer. Any help would be much appreciated, also the location that I might be able to download a mac boot disk. One more thing, if I download the disk will I have to do it from a mac machine?

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No boot and a bomb

In reply to No boot and a bomb

First thing you should try and do is reboot the computer and hold down the shift key. This will load up without any extensions on.
Extensions are what runs the programs. If you computer starts then your problem most likely is with one of your extensions. It becomes very tedious because you basically have to do this by trial and error. The chances of it being a virus are remote. Your friend should try and get a hold of the OS disk. Once he has this then you should be able to boot to the CD by holding down the C key upon reboot.

Good Luck and I hope this helps.

No boot and a bomb

In reply to No boot and a bomb

Sorry, what I meant by trial and error was that you basically have to turn off extensions and turn them on individually until you find the extension that is causing problems.

No boot and a bomb

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No boot and a bomb

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If you are familiar with Windows, Extensions are to the Macintosh what .DLL files are to Windows (very roughly). As the other person said, reboot the computer while holding down the Shift key until the screen says “Extensions Off.” Then you can let go.

When it is up, go to the Control Panels (from the Apple menu) and open Extensions Manager. You will get a list of extensions, each with a check box. You will have to selectively turn off extensions until you find the one that is breaking it.

There are several things that you can do to keep this from being too tedious:

1) Many extension place an icon at the bottom of the screen when the system boots. By looking at the icons, you can usually guess about where it failed.

2) Usea binary search. Turn off half of the extensions and see if it boots.

3) There is a program called Conflict Catcher that you can get which will help you with the trial and error.

Once you have found the extension that is causing the problem, you can either just use the computer as it is or try to reinstall the extension.

Almost never do you have to reinstall the system. I’ve had to reinstall a Mac system maybe three times in fifteen years of Mac use.

No boot and a bomb

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No boot and a bomb

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I agree that you have to turn off extensions until you find the one that’s causing the problem. But you don’t have to do it completely randomly. Ask your friend if she recently installed any new software, and look for any extensions that would be related to that software, and start by turning off those!

Good luck.
-Andrea

No boot and a bomb

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