Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> Problems with iBook G4

pjmlez - Feb 13, 2008 - 6:18 pm

My wife has an iBook G4 that isn't working properly. When you try to boot it up it will bring up the blue screen with the white box that says Mac OS X and a "loading bar". The bar stops at Starting network file system, and sometimes at login window starting . I am not familiar with Mac or anything Mac so I really don't know what im doing. AFter looking online i found some people with similar problems and they were booting the computer holding the apple -s keys to bring up a command promt. The other users advised to run fsck -yf multiple times to repair something. i do that and it brings up the same thing everytime no matter how many times i run it.

**checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalof file.
ASC::rWPM WARNING: could't find IOPlatformMonitor
Invalid sibling link
(4, 19008)
Invalid map node
(4, 0)
** Checking multi-linked files.
Orphaned indirect node iNode999607346
** Checking Catalog hierarchy
Missing thread record (id = 5362597)
Missing thread record (id = 5362600)
Missing thread record (id = 5362603)
Missing thread record (id = 5362606)
Missing thread record (id = 5361714)
Missing thread record (id = 5361717)
Missing thread record (id = 5361720)
Missing thread record (id = 5361723)
Missing thread record (id = 5361726)
** Volume check failed



If you could help me or lead me to the right path or tell me that it is shot and i should bury it either way is fine. i would prefer to be able to fix it.

Thank you
Philip j Mleziva

Serenak - Feb 15, 2008 - 6:00 am

Hello Phillip

thanks for choosing to use macosx.com and I will try to advise and assist you as best I can

OK straight away I can tell you that the Hard Drive is up the Swannee River... whether permanently or not I can't say but if fsck -fy isn't fixing it isn't good

You may have better luck by starting the Mac from the original installer disks (put the disk in the drive as you restart and hold down the C key) Once the Mac starts from that select your language then get the Disk Utility from the Menus... run Repair Disk... (this is the same as the fsck -fy but sometimes running it from the CD/DVD is better as the disk is not actually in use in any way.

If that doesn't come back with "the file system was modified" (or similar phrases) then the HDD is probably shot.. if it does say repairs were done repeat the repair until it says "no repairs necessary" or "the disk "hard drive name" appears to be OK" If it repairs the disk and the Mac still won't start up you may need to reinstall the system (choose the Archive and Install preserving users and settings if you possibly can...)

If it won't repair then the disk is most likely toast - there are stronger repair applications out there but unless there is seriously critical data on there you are probably better putting the $100 towards a new HDD

Unfortunately replacing the HDD in an iBook is pretty much a job for an Apple approved service tech (it can be done by enthusiastic amateurs ... I have done it for example ... but it is not for the faint hearted)

Whether the cost of replacing the HDD if necessary (and if it has gone bad once how much do you want to trust it?) is worthwhile is something only you can determine...

Sorry I can't really be much more positive - but I doubt the iBook is fubar... just the HDD



If the Mac was formerly