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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Ibook Can't Find Hard Drive

tuscan hull - Aug 12, 2005 - 5:47 am

Please help! Think I've broken mother-in-laws ibook! Left it downloading a few song overnight, when I came back it had frozen on screen saver. It was plugged into mains. Couldn't deactivate screen saver and find desktop, so turned it off. When I re-booted it went straight to grey screen with flashing question mark/finder icon. Tried software restore, software re-install, resetting time management.

When trying software re-install and booting up from disc it follows the procedure until 'select destination' - there is no hard-drive icon showing in the menu - nothing to select.

tried booting up today and now its just a grey screen with spinning wheel in top left corner with strange noises.

the machine hasn't been dropped or mis-used.

its version 10.3.8? i think

bobw - Aug 12, 2005 - 3:15 pm

Hi Tim

Boot off the OS CD, after the Installer appears, go up to the Installer menu to Disk Utility. See if the disk is listed there.
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Bobw - Macosx.com Tech Support

tuscan hull - Aug 13, 2005 - 9:10 am

Hi Bob,

Thanks for replying,

I've tried your suggestion before but could never find the hard drive in select disc or volume. I thought I would give it another go though and surprisingly the hard drive showed up. I selected it and was able to verify disc permissions and then began to repair them..it got a little way in to this process and froze with the ibook emitting a regular clicking noise. Left it for a while but still no change so had to shut it down. Now when I try to boot from disc and go to disc utility the hard drive icon isn't there again.
When it was verifying previously it was reading capacity of harddrive, disc space left, number of files, etc.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

thanks...

bobw - Aug 13, 2005 - 9:37 am

Hi Tim

The clicking sound is from the hard drive and can indicate the hard drive being bad.

Try running 'FSCK';

To run fsck, you first need to start up your Mac in single-user mode. Here's how:

1. Restart your Mac.

2. Immediately press and hold the Command and "S" keys.

You'll see a bunch of text begin scrolling on your screen. In a few more seconds, you'll see the Unix command line prompt (#).

You're now in single-user mode.

Now that you're at the # prompt, here's how to run fsck:

1. Type: "fsck -f" (that's fsck-space-minus-f).

2. Press Return.

The fsck utility will blast some text onto your screen. If there's damage to your disk, you'll see a message that says:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

If you see this message--and this is extremely important-- repeat running fsck. It is normal to have to run fsck more than once -- the first run's repairs often uncover additional problems..

When fsck finally reports that no problems were found, and the # prompt reappears:

3. Type: "reboot" to restart,

or type "exit" to start up without rebooting.

4. Press Return.

Your Mac should proceed to start up normally to the login window or the Finder.

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Bobw - Macosx.com Tech Support

tuscan hull - Aug 13, 2005 - 12:46 pm

Cheers for this Bob,

I'm trying to start in single user mode but it's not letting me. Trying variations on timing: holding command and S before i turn on machine, after i turn it on, after the start up tone, etc. Just end up looking at a grey screen with apple logo everytime.

Am I in trouble??

bobw - Aug 13, 2005 - 12:55 pm

Tim

Yes, sounds like the drive is gone. Sorry.
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Bobw - Macosx.com Tech Support

tuscan hull - Aug 13, 2005 - 1:10 pm

cheers anyway