system crashed

S

sadstoryitis

Registered
i dunno why this happened.

I came back from a bar, sober and all, and there was my ibook g4 laying like a sleeping baby, but there was something different about it this time. nothing worked. hell froze over twice. so i thought this was something stupid just an error that ll go after a push of the power button.

but i am obviously wrong. all i get is a gray background and flashing folder that alternates between a "?" folder with a folder with the finder icon on it. i think i just wintessed the first crash of the macintosh in the history of mankind. the first.

I'm cool headed and all but i would like to have it back. and if you know how to do this, tell me.
 
I hear a lot about failing harddrives in iBook G4 models lately... I hope this is not the case with yours, so let's start with the usual... ->

1.) Boot the iBook from your system installation DVD. Go to Disk Utility (it's somewhere in the menus) and "repair volume" and "repair volume permissions" a couple of times each.

2.) If you at any time get your iBook to boot into your normal installed system, fire up Disk Utility and do 1.) again a couple of times.

3.) Hold down Cmd-Opt-P-R at boot time. You'll hear the startup chime again (at a lower volume, probably). Don't let go of the keys until you've heard the chime 3 or 4 times.

4.) If none of the steps work, boot from the DVD again and try re-installing the system. Cleanly. I.e.: You'll *erase* the drive. You hopefully have your important files "backupped" (backed up? up-backed? you know what I mean...).
 
fryke said:
I hear a lot about failing harddrives in iBook G4 models lately... I hope this is not the case with yours, so let's start with the usual... ->
Click to expand...

do you know why this is happening? The problem here is that I cant get to my system cds becasue they are at home and I'm stuck here hah. But im not worrying because i ll be home this weekend or i could ask my dad to get them.
 
Has the machine been dropped? It's possible that hard drive damage occurred if you've dropped the machine.

It's quite likely that it's the hard drive no matter what. A flashing ? indicates that the computer can't find a drive to boot from.

Furthermore, Apple often puts cheap drives in the consumer laptops like Fujitsu and Toshiba. These drives have a higher failure rate than Hitachi or Seagate drives.
 
no i did not drop it. and its histachi.

i tried option restartting it and still theres just two buttons, one restart and one arrow, and i tried pressing both, doesnt work at al.

so what should i do?
 
I'm having the same problem with the flashing question mark at startup. I've tried running disk utility with the system disk, but it can't find the hard drive. I've reset PRAM already as well. DiskWarrior also couldn't find the hard drive. Any ideas on what I should try next?
 
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