eMac Won't Boot - Please Help

[sonofmof]

Hi Guys,

I was working on my eMac this weekend and we had a power cut, i think a surge too.

When the power stabilised I tried to reboot my eMac and it just stays on the apple screen with the rotating circle. I even left it on for over 30 mins to see if it would evetually boot.

I have also tried running the disk utility from my restore disk, but it says the drive cannot be repaired.

When i try to verify permissions it says, "lost connection with disk manager" or something like that.

any ideas what i can do ?

I am planning to replace the eMac shortly anyway but, it has all my data which i really dont wanna lose

Thanks for any help.

 

[mad jew]

Do you have access to another Mac? Can you use Target Disk Mode to get your data off it?

 

[Queso]

If you know anyone with a copy of DiskWarrior you may find it helps. Just make sure that if your eMac runs Tiger you use DiskWarrior 3.0.3 or later. Anything earlier than that will cause more problems than it fixes.

More info on DiskWarrior here - http://www.alsoft.com/

 

[sonofmof]

unfortunately I don't know another user with a Mac am trying to convert family members, but they have yet to see the light !!!

if i cannot get it fixed i'll have to hurry along my purchase of the mac mini and try then.

I'm getting withdrawal symtoms already.

 

[sonofmof]

still no joy with getting it to boot.

Does anyone think the damage could be localised to the HDD ? could it be possible to replace the HDD and then boot the old drive via usb caddie ??

any thoughts

 

[Queso]

Only one way to find out if the damage is HD only. Can you boot it from the OSX DVD? Insert the disk in the drive and hold down the C key whilst you boot the Mac.

 

[sonofmof]

cheers for the reply, as i said in my original post i can boot from the restore dvd

I have run disk utility and it cannot repair the drive and crashes when i try to repair permissions.

i hope a replacement disk will do the trick.

might try swapping it out later :-0

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, if you can do Target Disk Mode then mounting the drive in a USB case is probably just as good. Best of luck.

 

[Kingsly]

First, reset the PRAM

If THAT doesn't work, try:

Resetting the PMU.

Usually, for power spike issues, the PMU is the fix-all, but rule out the other one first.

Finally, I don't think this will help, but you can always try resetting the open firmware:
boot holding OPTION+APPLE+O+F
when gretted with the prompt type:
reset-nvram
Press Return
type:
reset-all
Press Return

Good luck.