My college daughter's iBook cannot get past the boot-up. The Finder screen comes up along with the Dock. No other desktop icons appear however. If she tries to click on a Dock icon, she gets a message that the app unexpectedly quit. We have tried multiple reboots, safe boot (same result), and removing the battery (no joy). I can't think of what else to try. I have to walk her thru anything over the phone as she is 160 miles away....

TIA.
George

Have her boot from the OS CD and run the Disk
Utility and Repair Permissions.

When you say a safe boot I assume you mean using the shift key on boot up to switch off all the extensions.

If that isn't working then your OS CD should have the disk first aid utility on it which will check on a basic level the system components are OK.

For a more in depth check use something like Norton Disk Doctor which will check the disk surface for errors and the file system. You should run this until you are happy that all errors are gone as some errors can be created by fixing others.

Another useful tool is Disk Warrior which will check the and rebuild the desktop database file.

You could also try flashing the PRAM which holds the basic settings of the machine. Do this by holding Command+Option+P+R. You may to do this 3 or 4 times continuously after boot.

If all this fails it may be that one of the core components is corrup and will need reinstalling. You will need to boot from the OS CD and manually drag the following to the Trash:

Finder
System Suitcase
MacOS ROM
Login
Panels
System Resources

Also, in the preferences folder drag the following to the Trash:

Finder
MacOS
System Preferences

Once you have done this you will need to do a custom installation of the OS a choose just those components you have just trashed apart from the preferences stuff as these will be created automatically.

Hope this fixes it. If not, you may have to look at the hardware.