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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Powerbook G4 Fails to Boot

n17man - Oct 29, 2005 - 5:01 pm

My hard disk has crashed. However, the PowerBook G4 continues the boot-sequence to a grey screen with the grey Apple Logo. Nothing else. Have tried all the usual remedies, including trying to startup from a firewire hard disk. Nothing. Install CD works but I can't get into the system. Assuming worse case scenario what are my chances of hard disk data recovery. Disk Utilities sees the hard disk but can't repair it.

I have a limited Backup on iDisk. Nothing else.

Donal

Ryan1524 - Oct 29, 2005 - 9:05 pm

Hi Donal,

I recently experienced the exact same thing. I wonder if this is a widespread problem on Powerbooks. I was going to suggest you to boot into target-disk mode, but you said you tried this already. There seems to be very little hope of recovering your data. All I can suggest is for you to run fsck in single-user mode, PRAM Reset, PMU reset, and disk repair from the boot disk.

If none of the above works, then I'm afraid your data is irrecoverable.
Just send it to Apple for HDD replacement.

Link for Detailed instructions on self-repair: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...m=106464#symp1

Good luck.
~Ryan

n17man - Oct 30, 2005 - 3:20 am

Thanks, Ryan. I was afraid this might be the case. To use fcsk I need to have access to Terminal. I was hunting around last night for a control sequence that would permit direct access to Terminal so I could run some Unix commands. I recall reading somewhere that this is possible. I am resigned to having lost all the data. I guess it's time to shrink-wrap the PowerBook and ship it to Apple. I am presuming that the hard disk is not user-replaceable.

Donal

Ryan1524 - Oct 30, 2005 - 12:34 pm

The in the guide I sent you before, they explained a way to do FSCK under Single-user mode, which is basically the most basic machine interface that our macs can enter, similar to a PC's DOS, i think. Basically it's a command prompt interface, and if you read the instructions thoroughly, or simply search over to the part where they discuss the FSCK repair attempt, there are instructions on how to enter the single-user mode.

My system briefly alllowed me to re-enter the OS after the first fsck, in which time I backed up everything from my HDD.


Single-User Mode:

Steps to Enter Single-User or Verbose Mode
1. Shut down the computer if it is on.
2. Press the power button to start the computer.
3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and one of the following:
the "s" key for single-user mode.
the "v" key for verbose mode.
4. To exit single-user mode type: reboot
5. Press Return.

the rest of the instructions for fsck is on the apple link i sent you the first time. ( http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...m=106464#symp1 )

Best of luck.
~Ryan