Hi,
Sometimes when shutting down my Macbook i find that the monitor/HD etc appears to switch off but the green light on the right hand side of the front of the computer continues to flash

The computer will not restart until i hold the power button down twice for a few seconds each time

When it finished loading OSX tiger i receive a message telling me that it did not shut down properly last time...

This does not happen all the time, but it is just pretty annoying- very PC like....

Any ideas?

Most probably, this is caused either by some kind of corruption of the HD data, cache corruption, or some software you've installed which has issues.

Since this has been happening a few times, it would be worth booting from your software install disks and running Disk Utility (it's in the menu when the installer loads). There is both a "Repair Disk" and "Repair Permissions" option.

You can also start the machine holding down apple-v which puts it in verbose mode. When you shut down as well, you'll be able to visibly see what's going on and, hopefully, what's hanging the machine, possibly useful if you've installed some software causing issues.

Something worth installing which does this without the need for booting from your software disks is Applejack. It installs a utility that can be run when you boot the machine into what's known as Single User Mode (holding down apple-s at the very start of switching on the machine). It does a few more things, such as deleting caches (which can become corrupt) and checking preferences.

I'm quite certain all of the above will nail down the issue (unless it's software you've installed, which might be a bit trickier to track down).

Actually (and sorry to hijack the thread) I get a similar problem where the MacBookPro goes into sleep mode - when I press a key the screen appears, I can move the mouse around, but none of the programs work and the keyboard doesn't work - I can't even do a force quit and have to power down by pressing the power button to get back to work again. N ot sure what causes this problem.

Ironically, I had this very problem, my computer not shutting down, straight after writing my reply. It hasn't happened before. I'm loathe to re-install the system, as experience says it's either something I've installed or a problem with something like USB causing issues.

This problem is easily fixed, assuming it is the 'battery draining' problem.

If you go to shut down your MacBook, once the screen is turned off, WAIT a few seconds before closing the lid. If you do not wait, but rather close the lid as soon as it turns black, you will put the laptop into sleep mode and the fans begin to run while you think it is off.

If you wake up in the morning and find your MacBook hot, or the fans going off, or unable to power itself on (no battery juice left), then it's because you haven't waited until the machine is COMPLETELY off before closing the lid.

Wait a couple of seconds and watch the sleep indicator light when shutting down. If it remains ON (constant light) then you have just put it to sleep.

Huy: Interesting, but in my case, I get the blue screen with the round processing (?) thing in the bottom middle of the screen non-stop and the machine never halts.

Before a shutdown, I'm going to try unplugging USB devices and reboot in verbose mode (command-v) so that I can see what's hanging.