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Mac os install fail

S

SCIENTIST29

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2012
39
0
I tried to re-install mac os 10.4 from a DVD after having trouble with my Powerbook g4 1.67(is extremely slow) and for some reason the hdd doesn't even show when I am supposed to chose a volume to install the OS on- the window is completely blank. I wanted to make a partition of the drive, because i thought that would perhaps appear, but I cant even do that. Everything is greyed out...I tried repairing permissions and disc utility says that the hdd is OK
Any ideas what to do??
Thanks
 
Weaselboy said:
Were you having problems before this install attempt that may have indicated a hard drive failing, because that is what this sounds like.
Click to expand...

Its a powerbook bought last week from ebay. It is really terribly slow, thats the only indication for me so far. wouldn't disk utility find something wrong during the verification? I also checked it with techtoolPro and also OK
 
SCIENTIST29 said:
Its a powerbook bought last week from ebay. It is really terribly slow, thats the only indication for me so far. wouldn't disk utility find something wrong during the verification? I also checked it with techtoolPro and also OK
Click to expand...

Yes... one would think. Let me back up... are using the DVD that came with that specific machine? The restore DVDs are unique to each model.
 
Weaselboy said:
Yes... one would think. Let me back up... are using the DVD that came with that specific machine? The restore DVDs are unique to each model.
Click to expand...

well no, i do have the original panther disc, but that crashes before i get to the choose volume window....
 
SCIENTIST29 said:
well no, i do have the original panther disc, but that crashes before i get to the choose volume window....
Click to expand...

I'm kind of out of ideas... if you can get a retail OS X DVD too boot and use Disk Util from there and it will not show the drive at all, that normally points to a bad drive.

Is the OS still on the drive to where you can run the machine off the HDD? Try a boot to single user mode by holding command-s at boot. Then run the command "fsck -fy" (without quotes) and see if any disk errors show up for you.
 
Weaselboy said:
I'm kind of out of ideas... if you can get a retail OS X DVD too boot and use Disk Util from there and it will not show the drive at all, that normally points to a bad drive.

Is the OS still on the drive to where you can run the machine off the HDD? Try a boot to single user mode by holding command-s at boot. Then run the command "fsck -fy" (without quotes) and see if any disk errors show up for you.
Click to expand...

I ran single user mode and entered the command and it says the hdd appears to be ok...
 
SCIENTIST29 said:
I ran single user mode and entered the command and it says the hdd appears to be ok...
Click to expand...

So the OS on the drive works fine and you just have troubles trying to run anything from DVD then? I wonder if the optical disk drive is bad? Do you have access to a cheap USB DVD drive you could try?
 
Weaselboy said:
So the OS on the drive works fine and you just have troubles trying to run anything from DVD then? I wonder if the optical disk drive is bad? Do you have access to a cheap USB DVD drive you could try?
Click to expand...

the OS works, but definately not fine, its really terribly slow- the reason i wanted a fresh instalation in the first place. The optical drive works normally, it is quite loud, but reads fine. strange clicking noises come periodically after about 5 minutes from around the hard drive. I could try connecting it to an emac via firewire next week and try the installation that way.
 
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