Tiger Help Needed BADLY!!!!!!

[bobx2001]

I am in serious need of some help getting tiger functioning again. yesterday i had spotlight randomly disappear from the top right of my screen (for all users), but it finder it kept on working. i tired repairing permissions and restarting, but that only made things worse. now all my folders icons are invisible and whenever i use spotlight in any application is crashed.

at that point i though it would be a smart idea to try and "archive and install" tiger on my system again. but that is not possible has the tiger installer cannot verify my powerbooks hard drive. i also tried using the disk utility in the tiger installer to see if that would help but it didn't.

i have also tried running disk warrior (version 3.0) and tech tool (version 3) off their cds while booting. tech tool just does not do anything at all on boot. and disk warrior gives me a kernel panic.

i am quiet certain that the permissions of my disk are beyond repair, so i will be needing to do a clean install. i would have already done that , but mac os x is choosing not to mount my external drives (that are Fat32).

i am in serious need of some suggestions. any help would be highly appreciated .

 

[Damrod]

I'm not sure if I understand right what exactly you want: Do you want an idea how you could fix you system without a re-install, or how to backup your system without using the external drives that do not mount?

If the latter is the case, I would try to burn the most important stuff on CDs or a DVD. Then wipe the drive clean (complete reformat) and then clean install over it if disk permissions can not be repaired etc

 

[bobx2001]

i contacted apple tech support, i will be going to the store on monday to see if the latest version of tech tool can help.

there is the possibility that my powerbook has a faulty hard drive and i think it is likely, i will found out when i go to the apple store i guess.