powerbook g4 start up problems and osx versions - please help!

K

kyra

Registered
Here's the deal.
I've moved to china for a year and brought my g4 powerbook with me. It worked fine in it's new surroundings for a week and then started making strange noises and frozeAfter that it wouldn't start past the apple logo. This happened once before when i first got it - over 3 now - and the technition at uni got her working by inserting the disk and holding down a key (i forget which)

i've tried the taking out the battery thing on the apple site and asked my parents to post the disk - they've sent me a software and a harware disk. the hardware disk wasn't recognised and when i started from the disk (option command shift and delete) i just got a picture of a file with a question mark and then strange lines over the apple

holding down option and clicking the disk rather then hardrive worked but the disk that came with my computer is an older version of osx. I'm now running 10.3 something i think and it asked me to install it. If i do this will
1. it work and
2. will i lose my work?

my boyfriend said he'll try to find me an osx disk that matches but i don't know if he'll be able to. Would installing a newer version of osx work?

Thanks in advance for your help
 
Starting from an OS X install disk you hold down only the "C" key to boot from a disk. If you can boot from the OS X install disk, let it run but don't start the installer. When the first install screen comes up, find the menu items and look for "Disk Utility". Run "Disk Utility" and test/repair the disk and "Repair Permissions". Then see if the Mac will boot.
 
thanks for your help,

when i run disk utility and click 'first aid', 'repair permissions' is not highlighted. i run repair and it says 'catalogue not found' and sometimes 'file %&' needs to be repaired'

anything i can do? I'm worried i've lost her for good
 
It looks like the hard drive might have went. You may want to find another hard drive ands try to get your data off that old drive with some kind of service.
 
Or just copy your files to an external hard drive or even another computer. Turn your comp into a firewire hard drive by restarting it and holding the T key. This is called "Target Mode".
 
Best bet is to burn all your personal files to DVD's and be done...I'm not sure if you can Target Mode your pesky mac and then connect that to a pc with firewire cable. You could network them via Ethernet or Crossover Cable, however.
 
aha?

i have a pesky mac, an old pc laptop and an ethernet cable - could you run me through how to do this?

Many thanks for your help!
 
Unfortunately, you can't connect your computers with just an ethernet cable. It has to either be a Crossover Cable (ethernet with twice as much cable inside the wrap) or you need a network for both computers to plug into (two ethernet cables) so you can network the computers.

Do you have a firewire cable?
 
Try this on the mac:

reboot while holding command key + S till you see a black screen with white text/type fsck -f to force a system check/type reboot when check is complete. This might get your system back into shape.

Let us know what happens. If it works, then immediately do a repair permissions: apps/utilities/disk utility/repair permissions.
 
Natobasso said:
Unfortunately, you can't connect your computers with just an ethernet cable. It has to either be a Crossover Cable (ethernet with twice as much cable inside the wrap) or you need a network for both computers to plug into (two ethernet cables) so you can network the computers.

Do you have a firewire cable?
Click to expand...

Not true, OS X will automatically detect when a regular ethernet cable is being used for a crossover cable:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42717

If you can start up, enable windows sharing and backup. Of course, if it's not working, that's not of much use..
 
As long as the mac supports crossover, it should. Only one computer needs to have the ability to "correct" the cable.
 
holding command s doesn't do anything :( i still go to the grey apple screen i can't get past

thanks anyway. i'll try to get hold of a firewire cable
 
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