frozen mac

[careyk]

I have a mac powerbook G4 that froze while i was working on a word document. force quit would not work and the only way i could get the computer to turn off was by holding down the power button until it turned off. so once it was off, i tried to turn it back on... but now it won't get past the start up screen - the grey one w/ the apple sign. im worried that i've lost that document and i dont want to do anything to make it worse. what should my next step be?

[Hughvane]

Originally Posted by careyk

I have a mac powerbook G4 that froze .. what should my next step be?

If you have the original OS installation disks that came with the G4, reboot with Disk 1 holding down the C key on your PwrBk. You may be able to effect repairs from the OS disk.

Second option is Disk Warrior, reported (by others) to be the best repair utility around.

The problem may be hard drive failure, in which case DW may be able to retrieve valuable software and documents to an external backup drive, even to a flash drive (or two or three), providing your USB ports are still functional.