freezing ibook G4 OSX

[yatesk]

thanks for all the advice. i wonder if it's more likely a software issue or a hardware issue, though, and if i shouldn't reinstall the OS, should i get the HD checked? IJ Reilly, what do you suggest if it's a HD issue?

It definitely doesn't like me putting the disk in and pressing "c"--almost always freezes before I can get anywhere with it.

 

[Eniregnat]

It looks like a hardware issue if you can't boot from CD.

Remove what ever extra RAM you added, it's the only free trouble shooting technique I can say might help you. If the computer boots, then it's the RAM, but this is unlikely.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yup, hardware. I'd make an educated guess at bad RAM. I don't think you'd be able to boot even into Single User Mode if the motherboard was fried.

Removing all the RAM you can is another possible step. Should have suggested that earlier.

 

[yatesk]

last night i reset the NVRAM, zapped the PRAM, and it still froze upon reboot. should i just take it into a mac store and tell them i need a new hard drive?

 

[IJ Reilly]

last night i reset the NVRAM, zapped the PRAM, and it still froze upon reboot. should i just take it into a mac store and tell them i need a new hard drive?

Did you remove any RAM? I think you need authorized service, but I wouldn't tell them what you think is wrong. Just tell them what you tried to set it right.

 

[buckuxc]

similar problem

I believe I have a similar problem so I figure I should post to this thread.

I have an iBook G4 1.33mHz with 1.25GB RAM. Several weeks ago my hard drive failed and the iBook went back and forth in the mail a couple of times before finally being fixed. A few days ago my computer completely froze (the same thing happened before the hard drive failed) and I put it to sleep to see if that would solve the problem. When I woke it up, I grey bezel said I needed to restart the computer. Upon restart everything stopped at a bluish-grey screen with a tiny, Classic-style folder in the middle and an alternating Finder icon and question mark. I booted from the install disk and used Disk Utility, but Repair Disk failed. I tried using CMD + s to get into single-user mode to try fsck, but it went straight back to the finder/? thing.

Does anyone have any other options for me? I don't have AppleCare on it, so I need to determine it's not a hardware problem before I call Apple again.

Thanks.

sps

 

[IJ Reilly]

You need a disk repair utility, such as DiskWarrior. You probably don't have a hardware problem if you can boot to the install CD, particularly if Disk Utility reports a drive problem.

 

[buckuxc]

I don't have DiskWarrior...

And I just tried to use Target Disk Mode to get files off my iBook before possibly sending it to Apple (if nothing else works). The Host Mac said the disk "was not readable by this computer." It gave me the options Initialize, Ignore and Eject. Initialize led to Disk Utility. I ran repair disk and it gave me the same message as from within the Install CD Boot:

Verify and Repair disk “disk1s3”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

Without DiskWarrior, what do I do? Is this definitely a software problem? Wouldn't have Target Disk Mode worked if it was a software problem?

sps

 

[IJ Reilly]

Without DiskWarrior, what do I do? Is this definitely a software problem? Wouldn't have Target Disk Mode worked if it was a software problem?

No, it's definitely a hard disk problem. Target Disk Mode told you that -- if the drive was okay, then you would have been able to mount it on the host Mac. If you want to save the data on the hard drive, then you'll need a heavy-duty drive repair utility, like Disk Warrior. You're really out of options.