Mac OS X won't start up

C

claire_9191

Registered
Hi, I've got a problem with my Powerbook G4. It randomly froze 2 days ago and it hasn't been able to turn on since. When I turn it on, it alternates between getting stuck on the plain blue sceen, the apple smbol with the circle progress icon and a flash question mark/folder icon.

I've tried running it in safe mode but the only result is a small flashing globe symbol.

I've also rebooted from the Mac OS X Install/Restore CD and run the Disk Utility Repair Disk procedure which says 'Invalid Volume Header' right away eventually followed by an error message saying first aid failed because the underlying task reported failure on exit.

I've got a hold of DiskWarror on another computer but I can't seem to burn it to disc with an autorun command on OS X to be able to reboot from that.

I'm running out of ideas and I really don't want to have to wipe the entire computer.. Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks in advance,
Claire
 
If your Disk Utility won't repair your hard drive, then Disk Warrior should give you your best chance.
Do you have a good backup of your hard drive?
You'll likely need that backup.
 
if you have access to the computer that has Diskwarrior on it, you could try connecting the two systems via Firewire cable, then restart your sick computer while pressing the "T" key to start it in Target mode. It should now show as an external disk on the DiskWarrior system and you can try to run DiskWarrior on it to repair it.

Best of luck to you,
jb.
 
I forgot to say you'll have to be in open firmware, when you push the powerbutton and hear the startup chime press Command Shift O F
Which brings you to a white screen, first try -s and push enter

if that doesn't work, try typing mac-boot and see if that gets you any further.
 
Thanks a lot for the replies. Unfortunately I don't have access to the mac with DiskWarrior on it anymore and as I'm short on time and desperate, I'm focusing on just getting a working laptop even with a wiped harddrive.

I haven't tried single user mode yet; I have however had to format the harddrive (I have my documents backed up) and I tried to reinstall Mac OS X from the disks, but I'm still running into problems.

I've partitioned the hard drive but the partition scheme according to Get Info is stuck as Apple Partition Scheme and as far as i can tell it should use the GUID partition scheme.. (following information from http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1600) There isn't the Options button in the Partitions tab of Disk Utility to allow me to change the scheme. I've tried to use the Erase tab which is supposed to set it to GUID as default but it doesn't work. The installation runs for about 30 minutes and then just says, please try again.

So basically at this point, simply being able to reinstall everything from scratch would be great but it won't even do that. Ideally I need the quickest solution to get something re installed otherwise Apple shop tomorrow, but I'm assuming they will take a while..
 
You have a PowerBook G4, is that correct?
Then Apple Partition scheme is what you want, NOT GUID. GUID default is only for intel Macs, such as MacBook Pro.
The error message that you get when installing can have a variety of sources:
Faulty installer disk. which could mean the disk, or the DVD drive is not reading the disk properly.
Hard drive not functioning properly.
Other hardware problems, such as faulty RAM memory chips.
I think the hard drive is the most likely failure here....
 
DeltaMac said:
You have a PowerBook G4, is that correct?
Then Apple Partition scheme is what you want, NOT GUID. GUID default is only for intel Macs, such as MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

Yeah just like DeltaMac stated its supposed to be APM as opposed to GUID. But since you already wiped the drive you might as well see if you can zero the drive to make sure you get rid of any corruption and also to test the health of the drive.
 
Thanks for clearing up the partition schemes. I tried cleaning the installation disk and zero-d the drive to try again, but it did the same thing so I've just dropped it off at the Apple store to get a new (and better) hard drive. So hopefully it should be sorted. Thanks for all your help!
 
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