Help! Powerbook Shut down and Permissions!

[RandyJS]

Hey guys!

I seem to be having trouble with my 17" powerbook G4 1 gig RAM with reparing my permissions. I ran disk utility because my Microsoft Word and Keynote applications were not responding when I was running them.

I tried force quitting but that didnt work, so I went to repair my permissions, and the status bar gets to a certain point, and won't move any farther!

When I try to shut down, i get to the final screen with the little cirlce thing that spins around, and it will never turn off, so i need to hold the power button to turn it off. When I turn it back on, it makes a weird grinding kind of noise, and takes more time to boot up.

What can I do to solve these problems? Is there a program out there that will "fix" it? I have my 80 gig HD almost full (3 gigs left) so I do not want to completely WIPE everything out... I have all of the latest updates for OS X.

Thanks for your help,
Randy

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

Hey guys!

Randy

Back up all your stuff now, before you do anything else. Might be slow, but copy your stuff off the HD.

i am a relative newbie (12 mths) but I have noticed that OSX gets agitated when free disk space gets low (I see problems at <10gig on an 80gig HD)

Other than that i have absolutely no idea - the other kind people on MR will - I hope - have some ideas.

 

[Mechcozmo]

1. Is your hard drive showing up as "SMART: Verified" in Disk Utility?
2. OS X HATES having less than 3 GB of space available. It likes a minimum of 5 GB of space, and preferably 8 GB or more. Under 3 GB and wacky things start to happen.

 

[RandyJS]

1. Is your hard drive showing up as "SMART: Verified" in Disk Utility?
2. OS X HATES having less than 3 GB of space available. It likes a minimum of 5 GB of space, and preferably 8 GB or more. Under 3 GB and wacky things start to happen.

Yes, it is showing up "SMART" verified...

I have started backing things up just in case i need to do something to my HD! PS. I plan on using my 40 GIG iPod Photo to transfer 1/2 of my HD! lol...

 

[Mechcozmo]

Yes, it is showing up "SMART" verified...

I have started backing things up just in case i need to do something to my HD! PS. I plan on using my 40 GIG iPod Photo to transfer 1/2 of my HD! lol...

It probably has to do with wayyy too little space on disk. Transfer some stuff to your iPod and get them off of the main disk (at least above 10 GB free) and see what happens. Shoot for a minimum of 8 GB free.

 

[yellow]

Forever spinning spoked wheels could indicate a problem with your hard drive, not just a lack of free space. You should try booting from your Installer CD/DVD and run Disk Repair. Failing that, talk to DiskWarrior my friend, and as noted by others, back up in case the disk goes belly up.