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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Powerbook running OSX 10.4.? not booting

Shawnberto - Mar 31, 2008 - 3:04 am

I installed one program yesterday, the amazon.com mp3 downloader, and upgraded itunes, the system worked fine. When I tried to start the computer today it would not start, there was a black screen and the hard drive made a few clicking noises occasionally, I left it like that for about 15 mins before I tried to restart it. I tried to start it in safe mode, but nothing happened. I tried to load it from my Tiger disc, but it will not do anything except go to the install screen. I was playing around and went to the install questions, and it told me there wasn't enough room on my hard drive, so I know it can see it still and there's data on it, but I can't figure out how to get my computer to start.

I'm running a Titanium Powerbook G4, and it's run without problems since I bought it new years ago. The update and installation were the only changes I made yesterday, well besides downloading a CD from Amazon.

Any idea about how to fix this?

DeltaMac - Mar 31, 2008 - 6:39 am

New and unusual mechanical noises from your hard drive are _never_ a good sign.
Boot to your system install disk again, Tiger is good.
At the next screen after choosing a language - then choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu at the top of the screen.
You should see your hard drive listed at least twice. One line for the manufacturer's info, and another line for your partition, which will have the name of your hard drive.
Do you see both? - or neither?
Click the line with the partition name, then click Repair Disk.

If the repair completes, you should back up your hard drive now. Do not delay.
Hard drives are quite cheap, so I wouldn't try to keep this drive working.
Get a good backup if you can, and then replace the drive.
- Dale

Shawnberto - Apr 1, 2008 - 12:58 pm

Thanks for the quick reply.

I don't think the noises are anything new, they just sound like the sound of a hard drive reading and whatnot, I probably never paid attention to it before because there were always other things going on at that point.

I did see both the partition and the manufacturer's information when I reached the Utilities menu, I clicked on repair disc, but it said there were no problems with it, but it still won't boot, just a black screen. Any other ideas what could be causing this?

I do plan to get a new and larger hard drive once this is resolved, just to be safe.

Shawnberto - Apr 1, 2008 - 2:06 pm

Dale-

The issue seems to have resolved itself while I was typing that last email. I had left the machine running while I was on my roomies PC and when I came back, the Mac was running again... Strange.

Thanks for you help.

Shawn

DeltaMac - Apr 1, 2008 - 2:49 pm

If your first boot was extra long, that may be nothing to worry about yet.
Go to your Applications/Utilities folder, and run Disk Utility. Repair your Disk Permissions, then shut down. (not just reboot). Let your PowerBook sit off for a minute or two, then reboot. You should be back to more of a normal boot. If you get that really long delay again, then you should consider (strongly) replacing your hard drive. That's what I suspect now. Yes, even if it passes testing. That doesn't really test drive response, as that seems quite slow now....
- Dale