Big Problem

L

liverpool89

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i have recently got a apple mac g3 power book and i have mac os 10.38 with all the latest updates. However a few days ago i started gettin an error message at startup saying that "you have inserted a disk containing no volumes that mac os x can read" this message comes up at start up for my hard drive but also comes up when i insert a cd or my ipod i have tried repairing permissions virus checkin restarting everything i can think of can anyone help????
 
Try to re-assign your start-up disk.

System Preferences -> Startup Disk
 
Hrd 2 read n annoyng wen u tpe in da abrvated strctrz. If we were texting back and forth on a PDA or cell phone, I could understand the need, but with a full-size keyboard it's not needed, and it makes it a lot easier to read and understand when words are spelled out correctly and used in complete sentences.

Have you tried booting from the OS X Install CD and then repairing the disk (not permissions, the "other" repair)? Your hard drive may have small errors that are causing the OS to malfunction. Also, try creating a new user account and see if the problems manifest under the new user account as well... that way, we could narrow it down to something specific to your user account or something more system-wide.
 
Do you have your hard drive partitioned? It seems weird that OS X will boot from the internal hard drive, yet inform you that it can't read it...

You might want to try doing an "Archive & Install" installation from the OS X install CD... that'll preserve your user account settings and applications and what-not, but install a fresh system.

If there's really nothing you need on the hard drive at all, or you have a good backup, a clean format and complete reinstall of the system is guaranteed to fix any software-based problems.
 
I agree with El Diablo, if you bought the machine and update the OS that was on it when bought. If the latter was the case I would get the machine all the way back to somehting that is well understood and then rebuild back to 10.3.8. Theres probably a single combo update that will do it in a oner. The error you are getting is nearly always associated with unreconisable media, even if its on the same disk but a different partition (check using Disk Utility or pdisk from the Terminal.app).

prompt> pdisk <return>
At the pdisk prompt type L

The partition table will be printed

and q to quite

Its probably likey that there maybe paritions that are corrupt or un-initialised.

You should be able to cut and past the psdisk text into this bulletin board
 
the welshman i am new to mac can u give me a step by step guide on how to do it. I tried to repair the disk using the start up disk but it would let me access it. The disk said to press c as the computer is loading, i try it and it just freezes. I pressed c for like 10 mins
 
Ok here we go, all the best.

The easiest way to find out about disks and partitioning on MacOSX

1. Launch "Disk Utility" (its in Applications -> Utilities)

On the left "Disk Utility" will find all disks attached to the system and list them

"Disk Utility" will also show the partitions.
example: Pardon the use of text to emulate a GUI
74.5 GB ST380021A
SYSTEM
spare
data

8.5 GB IBMDDRS-39130D
system2


Here there are two disks, desicribed by size and model number. On the 74.5 GB disk there are 3 partitions, named SYSTEM, spare, data.

On the 8.5 GB disk ther is only one partition named system2.

2. If you highlight "74.5 GB ST380021A", the right side of the windows show some options, "First Aid", "Erase", "Partition", "RAID" and "Restore".

3. Click on "Partition", and the size of the partitions is shown, take anote of these and their sizes.

And QUIT do not do anything else at this point, just send the information along.

NOTE: BE CAREFULL HERE, NOT TO "ERASE" if this is not your system disk.


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The other way you will need to do the following:

Open "Terminal" (its in Applications -> Utilities)

A window will open, this is the command line interface to UNIX (don't worry its brilliant fun)

sudo pdisk
Password: (Its asking for the Adminsitrator or root password)

At the "Top level command (? for help):" type "L"
example: Top level command (? for help): L

Wait for a few seconds and a bunch of text will appear which you can paste into this bulletin board, so I/we can take a look at it.

It is possible to boot off a hardisk that has bad partitions, the OS treats it as an unitialized disk. Problem here is that the original user may have partitioned the disk into "system", "Applications", "Library" etc and that may explain why you can boot but some of the Applications are not behaving properly. Anyway well see when you get back with some data.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The disk changing name, is not a problem, you can do it yourself quite easily from the GUI. However it must conform to the following:

example: (my machine) its MacOSX disk name is "SYS". The DISK ICON on you desktop.

Open the "Terminal" application once more and type the following:

cd /Volumes
ls -al

A bunch of lines will appear, on my machine there is a line:

"SYS -> /"

All this is doing is pointing the name "SYS" to the UNIX root partition. If that name is something other than the name on the DISK ICON on your desktop then things are a little confusing, but paste that in here as well along with your disk icon name from the desktop.

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One more test is to see which disk/partition you machine is supposed to boot off.

Open "System Preferences" - Under the "blue" Apple in the top left hand corner.

A window will appear with a bunch of ICONS in it, search for the one that says "Startup Disk".

Click on that, a box will appear with anything that can be booted, it will also tell you if you have more than one MacOSX loaded on your iBook.


You can also boot OS9 at this point if its loaded - maybe an important point

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TTFN (Apologies for time delay - I live in Scotland)
 
Do my knowledge, you CAN'T run Panther on any G3. Are sure you're running Panther? Not sure if that affects your original problem, but just wanted to clear that up.

--Alex
 
Panther will not install natively on any of the beige series G3 (like the desktop and tower models). Any G3 after that with built-in USB ports supports Panther natively.
 
Hi all- my 1st post on this forum, & I noticed Liverpool 89 has EXACTLY the same symptoms as my iBook. I've been advised never to use Norton Utilities,again!!! OK I won't but:
My CDRW will not mount or burn but is visible to Disk Utility & the internal HD will not erase/format,partition or mount.
I also noticed the date of this topic was February, & don't know if he fixed it, but he didn't post his Terminal read outs either. It IS scary to the uninitiated but I went for it...
<Last login: Tue May 31 08:32:16 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
[technopagan-ibook:~] stevebemand% sudo pdisk
Password:
Top level command (? for help): L
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk0' (Input/output error)
/dev/rdisk1 map block size=512
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 64
3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 120
4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 176
5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 232
6: Apple_FWDriver Macintosh 512 @ 288
7: Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh 512 @ 800
8: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 1312
9: Apple_HFS Infamous 12683848 @ 1824 ( 6.0G)
10: Apple_Free 0+@ 12685672

Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=12685680
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: @ 64 for 23, type=0x1
2: @ 120 for 36, type=0xffff
3: @ 176 for 21, type=0x701
4: @ 232 for 34, type=0xf8ff

pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk2' (No such file or directory)
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk3' (No such file or directory)
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk4' (No such file or directory)
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk5' (No such file or directory)
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk6' (No such file or directory)
Top level command (? for help): >

If anyone has the time,just to save going over old ground, here's my Apple Discussion

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@312.Q5pZaE42ZSu.1@.68ae5a12

& here's my MacOSX.com question

http://www.macosx.com/help/qview.php?questionid=2307

One thing I still haven't tried is Hardware Test in target mode, as my mac buddy is away for a few days but at least I'm still up & running with my firewire backup now with no backup (gulp!)
Cheers if any one can help
technopagan
 
SOmetimes just reinstalling the OS is more of a pain since you would have to backup all your files. If you can fix the problem, fix it. Reinstalling the OS should be your last resort. :rolleyes:
 
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