> Sorry for the OT mail, but I figured one of you might have seen something > similar (and be able to express your responses in a way that makes sense > to a Unix geek ;-) > > I had a complete meltdown of our iMac last night (running Jaguar 10.2.1). > Kernel panics (whenever I tried to ssh into work, but only then--I'm not > kidding) hour-long fscking, config files that suddenly sprouted junk in > the middle of them, and then when I finally got it into some semblance of > stability, I discovered that all (like ALL) the 300+ user-installed fonts > are no longer recognized by the system (only the default ten fonts existed > anymore), my preferences in almost all apps have been damaged (Terminal > had its windows set so small that they were just five or six pixels square > and wouldn't let me resize them), and--weirdest--I can no longer drag > files in the Finder, it's like they're glued in place, though I can > manipulate them with the shell or by doing Cut/Copy/Paste. > > I guess I'm going to have to do a clean reinstall tonight, grr. Mac OS X > seems to either be rock solid, or explosively unstable, and nothing in > between.... > > Wondered if anybody else had a similar experience or might have some idea > how to extricate short of reinstalling (after ten months of customization > of this machine, that is a really unattractive concept). > > Trey
You could have a bad hard drive. That might explain the behavior you are seeing. Wiping the drive and reinstalling OS X may work. But if it's the drive, you're not out of the woods. -B...
