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TICKET ARCHIVE -> G4 powerbook will not open

jrosson - May 9, 2008 - 2:59 pm

Hello,

Our G4 Powerbook was operating normally for 4 years or so.

About 2 weeks ago, it refused to start.

Pressing the power button gives us a white screen, below which the whirling wheel of black slashes churns.

It's a 10.3.9, 80 GB HD with about 36 GB's free.

We tried Disc Warrior which indicated it rebuilt the directory, but to no avail.
We tried 'safe-boot' with no success.

Fortunately, we were able to start in 'target disc' mode and pull clear some critical (but not all) material.

Have been unable to google an answer.

Thank you for any help you can offer.. JR

Serenak - May 10, 2008 - 7:42 pm

Hello John

thanks for using macosx.com and I will do my best to advise and assist you.

OK, well not a huge amount to go on to start with here - but never mind, we will just have to work at it in stages if need be

Starting at the start - you have had the Mac for a good four years without issue and suddenly you have problems... my first instinct (as was yours it seems) is to check the HDD, DiskWarrior reported repairs - another sign of disk failure or damage, and you can't boot. You have successfully used Target Disk to recover as much as you can.

I agree with every single move you made so far - and you have grabbed what you can (good move again). If you have space somewhere I would do one more thing before trying to attack the problem - boot the disk in Target Mode again and if you have space somewhere use SuperDuper! (the demo mode will do here) or Carbon Copy Cloner and attempt to clone the disk (into a sparse image if you can't spare a whole HD to the task) - do be aware that if the disk is going bad then some of the cloned info is likely to be bad too... (I am sure you knew that, just being thorough) You can find SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner easy with Google... CCC is free and SD! demo mode will do for now

Right - assuming you have done all you can to safeguard the data my first port of call would be start up in Single User Mode (hold Apple-S on start up till you get a scary black screen of Unix stuff!)

Then use the command /sbin/fsck -fy (this helpfully usually appears just above the prompt, if it is not as I typed it copy what is on the screen... different versions of X have minor changes in the command though at a push just fsck -fy should do it)

This will run the tool that Disk Utility invokes from the GUI - if it makes repairs run the same command again till it is either not going to fix it or comes back "the disk (name) seems to be OK"

Type shutdown -r now (which means shutdown and restart now) and hit return

If the Mac boots then you have lift off, if it doesn't boot then the higher parts of the OS are corrupt or otherwise not working - consider starting from the Installer disk holding D this will invoke the Hardware Test (or you may have a separate Hardware Test Disk - usually silver/chrome with black print instead of OSX grey with white text) either way run it... If the hardware fails - then you know where the problem is - if it passes at least some nasty stuff is ruled out of the deal.

If it passed the HW test consider attempting an Archive and Install (preserving Users and Settings) to overwrite the OS (all your updates will get iced so if that fixes it be prepared to do some Software Updates...)

You do have to realise that all hardware has a mean time to failure... and in computers the weakest link is the HDD usually - I have known many Macs to go their whole working life without needing a new HDD, but many say that after 3 years "it isn't if but when" - getting the HDD replaced in an iBook or older PowerBook isn't the nicest thing - but new big HDDs are relatively cheap... cheaper than the other more remote possibilities anyway.

OK let's leave it there for now - come back and tell me what happens

jrosson - May 11, 2008 - 12:31 pm

Serenak -- thank you. Have tried some things you mention in interim ... will try others and get back to you Monday. Wanted to alert you I've received your response.
Best, JR

TechSupport - May 14, 2008 - 12:40 pm

We apologize for not being able to resolve the issue you asked of us. It is the absolute worst case scenario for us to do this. In our review of why this happens, it generally is related to either the particular issue being addressed or frequently, incomplete or incorrect information provided. We hope by moving your request to the public forums that you will be able to get a solution without leaving you empty handed.

Your ticket has been closed with our support team. Your request has just been posted to Mac OS X System & Mac Software and is available for your viewing at:

http://macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300477

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