iBook (dual usb) Hard Drive Question Mark at Startup

[fredimac]

Hi All,

I've been attempting to diagnose my friends ibook for a day or so now. The only disks / tools that have been at my disposal are the Apple TechTool and Norton Utilities.

I've gone back and forth with these repairing errors found on the drive.

At present this is where I'm at:

When I run Norton Disk Doctor, I get a message saying that there is no blessed drive, but there appears to be a system drive, but clicking fix does nothing. It just finishes, reporting a Major Error. If I run it again, I get the same thing.

I ran Norton Recover Lost / Initialized disk, and it finds no File Saver data, but asks if I want it to rebuild folders. I'm not sure, so I haven't told it to do so.

TechTool now reports that everything is fine, but I only see a lost and found folder inside the hard drive when I boot with TechTool.

How can I recover this drive?

Thanks in Advance,
Fred

 

[crazzyeddie]

It just needs an OS loaded onto it... Jaguar or Panther preferably. Unless he has data on there that he needs to keep, you should probably use OS X to erase the drive and install the OS clean.

 

[fredimac]

Saving data is the idea. Any recommendations?

 

[telecomm]

Have another Mac handy?

I had a similar problem due to what turned out to be bad RAM - I crashed when installing OS X, and got the dreaded question mark on restart.

Connect via firewire to another Mac if you can. With the iBook shut down and the other computer on, restart the iBook holding the "T" key (for "target disk mode"). An icon will appear on the desktop of the working computer, and the iBook will function as an external firewire drive. You'll be able to search folders and save data to the working Mac, then you can reinstall an OS on the iBook.

 

[TrenchMouth]

disk warrior

had this problem with my sisters iMac the other day, fixed in 15min with that prog. A guy at an Apple Store recommended it to us.

 

[TrenchMouth]

the reason that i recommend using this as a solution is because if there is ample damage to the disk it wont turn up even if you do connect to another comp with firewire, it just needs to be fixed.

 

[fredimac]

The drive showed up, but only displayed a lost & found folder with nothing significant in it.

I believe we're going to take previous advice, wipe it and install osx on it. Mem upgrade too.

thanks
Fred