Cannot fix permissions, bizzare mail problem

[Al-Rashid]

G4 450DP acting wierd again; Applications crash randomly (Dreamweaver, Word, Diablo, IE5 and Safari), Kernel Panics and now Mail cannot see any of my mailboxes in my Users/<username>/Library/Mail folder.

Running /sbin/fsck -y fixed several catalog problems, so I booted from the installer CD and launched Disk Utility, but the option to fix permissions remains greyed-out and won't let me.

I dont do anything heavy on this system Using mostly the aforementioned Apps), but this seems to happen every six months or so requiring a complete format/reinstall. Running another 3rd party utility only makes it worse. I've had the hardware checked from stem-to-stern (memory/Motherboard, Drives, etc) and it's fine. WTF!? If I loose all of my Wife's email again, I'm DOOMED!! HELP!!

G4 450DP/1gb RAM/40gb HD x2/120gb HD x2/CD-DVD
22" Cinema Display

 

[Al-Rashid]

Now it seems I cannot boot from any CD. I've seen this problem posted by other members also. Hey Apple; WTF!?

 

[Al-Rashid]

UPDATE;
It seems that I cannot boot this G4 450DP from any OS9 CD. I CAN boot from the OSX 10.2 install CD but the "Repair Permissions" option remains inactive. I can also boot from the "Drive 10" CD, but it doesn't find any problems.

Since this is an older Mac, not being able to boot into OS9 doesn't make sense. I've tried boot from the following OS9 CDs to no avail;
?Norton Systemworks v1 and v2
?Norton Antivirus v8.0
?Disk Warrior
?Techtool Pro 3.0.2

I am at a loss to figure this one out.

 

[billbaloney]

I had a problem booting to CDs as well for a while in 10.2.5, and I solved it by booting with the option key, where you enter firmware's "choose a startup volume" mode. Actually, I installed Apple's Firmware Password utility, so now I have to boot with the option key down and enter my password in order to boot from a CD or any volume besides the system default. Somehow explicitly selecting a startup volume works better for me.

I also think that the advent of the OS X-centric version of Diskwarrior is going to make my life better. Now if they can just deal with their backlog of orders....