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iBook G4 freezes at Gray Apple

C

ChibiOne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 6, 2004
18
0
Monterrey, Mexico
Hello, all.
so here I was all nice and dandy minding my own business, working with my iBook G4 OS X Tiger when suddenly I started to get the Beachball. I restarted Tiger. Booted with no problems. Logged in and started working again, then, after a while, again, the Beachball.

Nothing responded, so I had to restart the machine.

The Apple chime. Then the Gray Apple with the "loading" wheel. Forever.

Hardware Test says everything's OK.
Tiger Install DVD's Disk Utility show the disk's SMART status as "verified", and it shows the number of folders, the correct capacity and space information. But when I try to repair the disk, I get the error: "cannot unmount". :confused:

Somehow, the machine won't boot neither in Safe Mode nor Single-User. All I get is the Gray Apple screen. I have removed the AirPort card and the extra RAM. No change.

I know my files are there, because I see them with the Install DVDs Terminal application; I can even cat the text files. And the machine will respond to ping requests from other machines.

My main priority right now is getting my files out of the iBook. Then, if nothing else works, I'd just reinstall Tiger (maybe after trying Archive option first).

Any ideas? Any help will be much appreciated. :(
 
Try zapping your PRAM.

Restart your computer and hold the Command+Option+P+R while it is booting. When you hear the startup sound for the fourth time the operation is complete, and you can release the key combination. Your Mac should boot normally after this.
 
faintember said:
Try zapping your PRAM.

Restart your computer and hold the Command+Option+P+R while it is booting. When you hear the startup sound for the fourth time the operation is complete, and you can release the key combination. Your Mac should boot normally after this.
Click to expand...

And if that doesn't work, it means your harddrive files are all jumbled up. It happened to me to. Using an external harddrive with diskwarrior, I rebuilt the harddrive and all was well.

That should be the case especially if it's not faulty RAM or anything of that nature.

Good luck.
 
Thank you for your suggestions, folks. I tried zapping the PRAM, but nothing. Since I don't have a firewire disk nor another Mac, I just had to take it to Apple Support. We'll see what happens.

Again, thank you folks.
 
There and back again...

Hello, folks.

So I took the book to Support. They were able to recover my files. Reformatting the drive brought things back to normal.

Yet...

Now, one week later... I left an open download on Azureus (BitTorrent client). Three hours later, I got back to witness the program finishing the download and checking the file. At this point, my problem returned. I now recall that this exact thing happened last week when I first posted my problem here.

Tried everything again, with no results. And when I insert my Tiger Install DVD, the volume does not appear (it doesn't seem to get mounted). To make matters worse, I lost my Apple Hardware Test CD.

A couple of quesions:
1) Are there any cases of Azureus breaking all hell lose on OS X Volumes?
2) Is there any way I can mount my volume from the Install DVD Terminal app? Or any other way?
3) I read you can mount another drive from another Mac (an iMac is available) via firewire. How can I do that? Is it safe? I don't want to break another system (especially considering it's my wife's!)
4) Will the Apple Hardawre Test CD of a newer iBook (the immediate next model) work on mine?
5) Is my HD finally dead? Should I just get a new hard drive altogether?

Any further help will be much appreciated, particularily because I don't want to waste more money taking it back to Support for the same problem... I'd rather buy a new drive (luckily for me, I backed up everything this time).

:confused:
 
ChibiOne said:
Hello, folks.

So I took the book to Support. They were able to recover my files. Reformatting the drive brought things back to normal.

Yet...

Now, one week later... I left an open download on Azureus (BitTorrent client). Three hours later, I got back to witness the program finishing the download and checking the file. At this point, my problem returned. I now recall that this exact thing happened last week when I first posted my problem here.

Tried everything again, with no results. And when I insert my Tiger Install DVD, the volume does not appear (it doesn't seem to get mounted). To make matters worse, I lost my Apple Hardware Test CD.

A couple of quesions:
1) Are there any cases of Azureus breaking all hell lose on OS X Volumes?
2) Is there any way I can mount my volume from the Install DVD Terminal app? Or any other way?
3) I read you can mount another drive from another Mac (an iMac is available) via firewire. How can I do that? Is it safe? I don't want to break another system (especially considering it's my wife's!)
4) Will the Apple Hardawre Test CD of a newer iBook (the immediate next model) work on mine?
5) Is my HD finally dead? Should I just get a new hard drive altogether?

Any further help will be much appreciated, particularily because I don't want to waste more money taking it back to Support for the same problem... I'd rather buy a new drive (luckily for me, I backed up everything this time).

:confused:
Click to expand...

1) I used to use Azureus all the time with my iBook 1.42ghz but it eats up a lot of system resources. Try using bittorrent osx next time, it does everything I need and it doesn't use so many resources.

Sorry I can't answer the other questions. I hope that your iBook gets fixed. :)
 
To boot into Target Disk Mode hold down "t" while booting the machine that you want to be the "target disk" (i.e., the one you want to show up as the HD). It should be safe, just dont copy anything from your iBook onto her computer.

The newer iBook AHT should work on yours.
If you HD was dead it would probably be making nasty grinding sounds or the like.
Here is a hint, if the bittorrent client seemed to cause the problem last time, i do not believe that i would use it anymore. My guess is that it is a software conflict with the program, or something that you downloaded.
<hint>do not put that program back on your computer!</hint>
 
Thanks for your replies, folks.

Muckyfingers... Yes, I was using BitTorrent OS X before. I just thought I'd try Azureus. You are right, it uses up a lot of resources.


faintember said:
To boot into Target Disk Mode hold down "t" while booting the machine that you want to be the "target disk" (i.e., the one you want to show up as the HD). It should be safe, just dont copy anything from your iBook onto her computer.
Click to expand...

Faintember... Thanks for the advice and the hint. Yes, I should know better. I just didn't really think an innocent client could be capable of causing such problems. One question, though: what good is it to be able to boot the iBook as a target if I can't copy anything from it onto the iMac? What about copying to an iPod? (It's 3 AM here, so maybe I'm just missing something :) )

Well, I was finally able to boot into single-user mode. I get the apparently dreaded "IOATAController device blocking bus." batch of messages, and a nice and dandy kernel panic, with the disk still clicking like crazy.
 
ChibiOne said:
problems. One question, though: what good is it to be able to boot the iBook as a target if I can't copy anything from it onto the iMac? What about copying to an iPod? (It's 3 AM here, so maybe I'm just missing something :) )
Click to expand...
Well if you can boot into Target disk mode then your HD still has a little life left in it. You already said you made a backup, so dont worry about copying anything over, unless it is a few files. I would not bother with copying anything that you downloaded via bittorrent.
Well, I was finally able to boot into single-user mode. I get the apparently dreaded "IOATAController device blocking bus." batch of messages, and a nice and dandy kernel panic, with the disk still clicking like crazy.
Click to expand...
Clicking like crazy....Sorry to say, but sounds like a failing HD.

Good luck with it man, and keep us updated.
 
Dead

Hi guys. Just to let you know the outcome of my problem.

It was a hardware problem: dead hard drive.

Solution: replacement.

Thank you all for your suggestions.
 
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