How did this go so wrong? And eat so much time?

[Massnegro]

Hi all, in response to a previous post about my G4’s erratic behaviour (the machine hangs and is a bit flaky at shutting down and on the suggestions here that I replace the system HD, so I decided to bite the bullet, and replace it this weekend with a brand new 320 GBWD Caviar Blue.


First Attempt.

Booted from OSX Leopard disc, formatted HD and loaded Leopard got to the welcome page, no problems. Then I reloaded my time machine backup, again no problems. Started up machine and tried to run iTunes, however, iTunes would not start, giving me an error message that my library had been created on a later version of iTunes.

Doh, I realised then that of course that I would need to run the system update tool.

Ran the update tool, 6 updates found including a system update, so I started the download, 3 hours latter, got to the “restart the machine” dialogue, and restarted…Then it hung, left it for twenty min’s no joy so did a reboot via the power button.

However, now on start-up I’m back to the welcome page, yet when I’m prompted to load from time machine it just hangs, a reboot just traps me in this infinite loop.

Second attempt


Booted from OSX Leopard disc, formatted HD and loaded Leopard got to the welcome page, no problems. Then I reloaded my time machine backup, again no problems.

Ran the update tool, 6 updates found including a system update, so I started the download, 3 hours latter, got to the “restart the machine” dialogue, and restarted…Then it hung, left it for twenty min’s no joy so did a reboot via the power button.

However, now on start-up I find I’m back to the OSX welcome page, yet when I’m prompted to load from time machine it just hangs, a reboot just traps me in this infinite loop.


Third Attempt

Booted from OSX Leopard disc, (did not reformat HD) and loaded Leopard got to the welcome page, no problems, yet when I’m prompted to load from time machine it just hangs, a reboot just traps me in this infinite loop.
Nor can I just ignore and start again and still traped when it takes me back to first part of welcome dialogue.



Fourth Attempt

Booted from OSX Leopard disc, formatted HD and loaded Leopard got to the welcome page, no problems. Then I reloaded my time machine backup, again no problems. Ran the update tool, 6 updates found including a system update, so I started the download, 3 hours latter, got to the “restart the machine” dialogue, and restarted…Then it hung, left it for twenty min’s no joy so did a reboot via the power button.

However, now on start-up I’m back to the welcome page, yet when I’m prompted to load from time machine it just hangs, a reboot just traps me in this infinite loop.

You can see a pattern here, but with three hours for each update download it’s beginning to eat my weekend.

Fifth Attempt.

Booted from OSX Leopard disc, formatted HD and loaded Leopard got to the welcome page, no problems. Then I re-loaded my time machine backup (the backup was on a SATA disc attached via a Firmtek controller so I had to remove after backup was reloaded, see below), again no problems.

At this point I removed all my PCI devices:

1. SeriTek/1S2: Internal FT-ST1S2 SATA card
2. Five port USB 2 card (with bluetooth USB controler on internal USB)
3. Airport extreme compatible PCI

Ran the update tool, 6 updates found including a system update, so I started the download, 3 hours latter, got to the “restart the machine” dialogue, and restarted…

Bingo no problems…

But, if I’ve had no drives mounted it shuts down OK, yet if I’ve had a NAS or USB stick attached (but ejected) its still flaky.

Any Ideas…


Andy

 

[BlueRevolution]

Evidently the system hard drive wasn't the (only) problem. What you did should've worked the first time.

 

[Massnegro]

Evidently the system hard drive wasn't the (only) problem. What you did should've worked the first time.

Now this only (what I thought was a HD problem) only started just after I fitted the SATA PCI adapter, but what could be up with it...

 

[ARF900]

Maybe its time you just suck it up and get a new computer.

 

[Massnegro]

Maybe its time you just suck it up and get a new computer.

No chance, I love my G4, and I'm not going to write it off over this issue, yet nor would I feel happy dumping it on the pre-owned market...