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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Powerbook won't turn on

oneyoungjen - May 25, 2006 - 12:12 am

I had to force quit my powerbook G4 12 inch. When I turned it back on it only goes to the gray apple screen and no further. The wheel at the bottom continues to spin, but does not start up. I have tried to restart numerous times, but nothing works.

frozendice - May 25, 2006 - 12:18 am

How long did you give it? These machines are pretty robust, they usually can repair any damage. They are probably running through startup scripts that check the HD for damage and are repairing any found. DON'T keep shutting it off. I've personally and known other people who have had to leave their macs just sitting and working for up to an hour. Boot it up, give it a good half hour and see if that fixes it. Hopefully you're only over reacting. I've been there too before.

oneyoungjen - May 25, 2006 - 12:42 am

I did leave it for a long time the other night. I have been looking on your website for things to do and tried restarting it holding down command S. Then tried fsck -yf. The computer says the Volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired... am I doomed?

frozendice - May 25, 2006 - 1:28 am

When you turn it on, listen very carefully. Do you hear clicking, scraping, or any noises you didn't hear before? This could be a sign of a broken hard drive. This isn't too likely though, but it's just a good idea to see if it's a lost cause before doing much else. Since it said that the drive couldn't be repaired it was talking about the permissions, the startup info, etc. This still likely means your data is intact and you can recover it by setting your mac into target mode, and hooking up via firewire to a PC or another mac at which time your HD will show up as an external drive and they can copy stuff off it. You then need to reinstall OS X.

If you're still intrested in attempting a repair job try fsuck -fy < F ADDED, since it's a journaling system. If that doesn't work I suggest going out and buying DiskWarrior, I can't find the cost for the CD version, which is the one you need because you only have a single disk. It's somewhere between $30 and $70.

REFRENCE:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archiv...p/t-50151.html