Common things that users mistakenly install include CD-ROM drivers, the SCSI Probe control panel; drivers for devices such as CD-ROM towers, removable cartridge drives; and drivers for third-party cards. Any of these, including even Apple drivers, will crash A/UX as it begins to load the Mac environment. On these systems, A/UX must own the hardware; anything that interferes with this by trying to address hardware directly will kill A/UX.
WHAT FOLLOWS UNDER THE LINE OF ASTERISKS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE IN THE WINDOW CALLED "A/UX Startup". To get to this point, the Server 95 should be started with the shift key down, then double-click /A/UX Startup. As soon as this program begins to load, type 'Apple-period' to enter the startup shell. If you are too late with the Apple-period, you may still click 'Cancel' as A/UX begins to load and achieve the same effect.
This example shows the best route for the typical situation, where the user directly turns off power or hits the 'restart' button. If the user turned off the system using the key (which rarely happens!), the first fsck (which includes the -b16 argument) may be omitted. When the -b16 argument is used, typically it will find the free block count in master super blocks to be incorrect; other repairs may be made as well.
IN ANY EVENT, if the first fsck that doesn't include the -b16 argument notes at the end that the file system was modified (usually because of repairs made), the fsck command should be run repeatedly until this is no longer the case.
If the item you are attempting to delete is in Control Panels, not Extensions, then the line "startup# cd Extensions" should actually be entered as cd 'Control Panels'.
Also, the line "startup# rm 'nameofthingtoremove'" should reflect the actual name of the offensive item. If the item name includes spaces, invisible characters, or illegal characters then the item name MUST be enclosed in quotes. You may COPY and PASTE the item name from the listing if you prefer; this is NECESSARY if invisible characters are present.
At the end, the 'launch' command will start up a/ux normally. You may also select 'Quit' from the File menu, and then either re-launch A/UX Startup, or restart from the Special menu, as preferred.
Occasionally, the rm command issued from the startup shell may have a problem with certain embedded invisible characters. A common example where this may happen is removal of the FWB CD ROM Toolkit control panel. To resolve this problem, you will need to navigate your way into the directory that contains the offending entity, then use the iterative (recursive) variant of the rm command:
rm -ir .
Notice the period at the end of this command -- it means 'within the current directory'. When the command is run, the utility will prompt the user successively for removal of EACH AND EVERY FILE in that directory. (USE WITH CAUTION!) Responding with 'n' will skip the file (allow it to remain); responding with 'y' will immediately and forever make that file go away.
The example below removes 'Bad Extension' from the Extensions folder of the main system folder, normally located in /mac/sys.
It is always a good idea to list the contents of the edited directory after removal to verify that what you wanted to remove is really gone, prior to starting a/ux. If any remaining incompatible files are encountered at a/ux startup, it will be necessary to go through this entire procedure again to eliminate them (including the fsck procedure, as it is never a good idea to edit a dirty file system).
***************************************************
chroot
chdir
startup# fsck -y -b16 /dev/default
Alternate super block location: 16
** /dev/default
** Last Mounted on
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
FREE BLK COUNT(S) WRONG IN SUPERBLK
SALVAGE? yes
8214 files, 99876 used, 20529 free (745 frags, 2473 blocks, 0.6% fragmentation)
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
startup# fsck -y /dev/default
** /dev/default
** Last Mounted on
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
8214 files, 99876 used, 20529 free (745 frags, 2473 blocks, 0.6% fragmentation)
startup# cd /mac/sys/'System Folder'
startup# cd Extensions
startup# ls
AppleIco
AppleIcoTwo
AppleShare
AppleTalk ImageWriter
Bad Extension
CommandShell VT102
DAL
EtherTalk Phase 2
File Server Extension
File Sharing Extension
Finder Help
ImageWriter
LQ AppleTalk ImageWriter
LQ ImageWriter
LaserWriter
MacTCP Tool
Network Extension
Personal LW LS
PrintMonitor
QuickTime
Retro.Startup
StyleWriter
StyleWriter II
System 7 Tuner
startup# rm 'Bad Extension'
ls
AppleIco
AppleIcoTwo
AppleShare
AppleTalk ImageWriter
CommandShell VT102
DAL
EtherTalk Phase 2
File Server Extension
File Sharing Extension
Finder Help
ImageWriter
LQ AppleTalk ImageWriter
LQ ImageWriter
LaserWriter
MacTCP Tool
Network Extension
Personal LW LS
PrintMonitor
QuickTime
Retro.Startup
StyleWriter
StyleWriter II
System 7 Tuner
startup# launch