iBook G4 has suddenly died - panic mode!

[brokemacman]

I looked over some past messages and saw that some other had this same issue.

I started it up my iBook and it ran fine, then after about 10 min it shut down. On restart it went all the way to the desktop but never fully booted. Then on subsequent restarts it went only to the gray screen and then to a point where it would just light the display, and then nothing. I could here the drives and fans spin up. And then nothing.

(I copied this from a past question sent in - due to the fact that mine is doing this exact thing)

the response given was this: see if something simple like booting up from an external bootable hard drive works to keep the iBook running indefinitely.

I am not very technical - so can someone explain this to me? Also, if someone has a different option - I would welcome that as well. I did not drop the computer or anything - it just stopped. I foolishly did not back up everything - so I want to try and get on there to salvage what I can.

[VirtualTracy]

Could you post the system specs and which version of Mac OS you are using

Depending on the above info there could be a few different options to try regarding salvaging you files ... I can't stress how important it is to have periodic backups of all those valuable photos, music/movie, and all the other files/data that is so important ... believe me there are plenty out there who have horror stories of how in the blink of an eye they lost important files that hadn't been backed up and I'm one of them!

... the response given was this: see if something simple like booting up from an external bootable hard drive works to keep the iBook running indefinitely.

Here is a link which explains how this works.

Do you have the original Install media that came with your iBook? In these sorts of situations (and others) the install discs are your best friends ...

Try some of the tips at this link for boot issues:

Resolve startup issues ...