# "Finder" not responding after forced-quit!



## Pastor41 (Sep 8, 2004)

I placed a CD with pictures into the Combo-Drive drive of my Apple iBook.

I tried to copy all the pictures, 220 of them, into a folder on my Desktop. After I clicked on paste, I realised that instead of having selected the specific folder i wanted, I was pasting directly onto the desktop. Not wanting 220 pictures on my desktop, I hit "cancel", and nothing happened. The progress bar just froze. After more than 20 minutes, I force-quit, and still nothing happened, so I restarted the iBook.
iBook re-started all right, I ejected the CD, but, I realised that in the background, behind the Finder window, there seemed to be activity, as if the pictures were still being loaded onto the desktop. 
I can open most of the programmes in the Dock, but Finder does not seem to respond. It is frozen. I have force-quit many times, no change, there still seems activity going on in the top-right corner of the screen, where the icon for the hard disk would be.
I have taken out the battery for 2 hours, put it back, and still Finder freezes!

Help! I am in Africa, there is no Apple dealer or repair shop close to where I am (the nearest is in a town 500 hundred miles away... every one is using PC's here...)

Woudl appreciate help to revive my iBook to it's previous fine state before this debacle.

Thanks!


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## tgal (Apr 6, 2005)

*You can attempt permission repairs from your OS X Install CD Jaguar (OS 10.2). Boot to the CD by holding down the "C" key on the keyboard at startup, and choose the disk utility from the install menu in the upper left corner of the screen. Select the drive partition and choose to repair the permissions. A basic disk first aid option is also available.

The newer Macintosh operating systems, Panther (OS 10.3) and Tiger (OS 10.4), includes a disk utility program (named "Disk Utility," located in Applications / Utilities) that can repair the disk permissions of your startup disk. This means you do not have to boot using a system installer CD to repair permissions. It is a good idea to periodically repair your disk permissions, since forced restarts, power failures, etc. can cause file corruption that can sometimes be fixed with this permission utility. Disk first aid must still be performed from a system CD or other startup volume, however, you cannot perform disk first aid with the disk utility program on the active startup disk.

Hope this helps and cheers.*


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## Pastor41 (Sep 8, 2004)

Hi Tgal,

Unfortunately, since it is "Finder2hat is hanging, i cannot get to the Applications to select Disk Utility.

Finder is not responding, though other programmes open okay. I cannot get past Finder to the Desktop, I cannot close or minimise the Finder Window, and I can see to the right of the Finder Window, in the top right corner where the Hard Disk icon is, a jumbled up number of pictures trying to load or something and I cannot stop this, even though the disk is not in ...

Help! Please!


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## emoxley (Jan 6, 2004)

Have you tried booting up with extensions off? In OS 8.6 or 9.xx, you hold down the shift key, while booting up. Not sure how in OSX. If you can do this, there's a conflict with an extension. Could be a long boring process to figure out which extension.

If you can get into the preferences folder, throw away the prefs for the finder. Also, if you can somehow get to it, you probably should run "Disk First Aid". Should be in system folder.

Good luck!


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## Pastor41 (Sep 8, 2004)

Am runnig OS X 10.3.x, and I can't get into Applications to run Disk Utility, and can't get into preferences folder either ...

Is there no way I can reset the iBook, to stop those items loading up that are loaded "onto" the hard-disk icon on the desktop?


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## tgal (Apr 6, 2005)

*I believe you can still attempt the following even with Panther:
Boot to the CD by holding down the "C" key on the keyboard at startup, and choose the disk utility from the install menu in the upper left corner of the screen. Select the drive partition and choose to repair the permissions. A basic disk first aid option is also available.*


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## amoeba7 (Jun 22, 2005)

I had this same problem, not with photos, but with 1200 fonts that slipped onto my desktop by accident. How did I solve it? 

1) I logged in as a different user, in this case "guest"
2) I gave "guest" permission to access my personal Desktop folder (Use "get info" for that folder, then change permissions)
3) I moved the offending items off the desktop into a subfolder
4) I reverted the Desktop folder permissions to it's old status
5) I logged in again as myself.

Voila! C'est Parfait!


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