Power Mac G4 won't start up, not from disk either

[angpeters]

Apologies if I'm in a strange place for this question, I'm a newbie.

I had the spinning beach ball today, nothing would force quit, so I shut down with the power button. When I tried to start up again, it got as far as the gray apple, but nothing else.

I started up from the Tiger CD, tried to install and it got stuck at Destination Disk. I made it to disk utility, tried to verify or repair, then got this error:

Verifying volume "diskOs9"
Checking HFS Plus Volume
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Catalog file entry not found for extent
The volume needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair.

Then a popup window: First Aid failed, Disk Utility stopped verifying "diskOs9" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

I AM STUCK. How do I proceed?

thanks in advance,
angela

 

[sash]

How do I proceed?
angela

Hi Angela,

Try to run fsck to begin with.

Restart your Mac and press ⌘-S while restarting to get in the Single User Mode.

In the Single User Mode (black screen):
Type /sbin/fsck -fy
Wait until the reparation process is completed (sometimes it automatically runs twice); the process may take a while, so don't interrupt it.
Type /sbin/mount -uw /
After it's done, type logout (or exit)

If that did not help, try to run latest DiskWarrior from a CD.

Disk utility is of little help in a really nasty situation.

If any of these two things have helped you, copy your data asap and buy a new drive, 'couse your drive could be near its final destination.

sash

 

[angpeters]

thanks, sash, for your advice. unfortunately, i lost patience and took it to a genius at a retail store. it was a corrupt file somewhere that was causing the freeze (he ran disk warrior), and my hard drive was ok. bought an external backup drive, backed up most of my old files (in the craziness, i lost all of my pictures )

so now, after 2 weeks, i'm at the tail end of restoring my system as it was before and cannot figure how to reinstall classic. i'm running tiger 10.4.11 and the restore cd that came with my ppc is 10.2.6. how do i get classic on this machine? i have some kids games and a couple of other apps that need classic.

if i boot from my tiger disks, and archive and install, will i get classic back? the disk we used to reinstall the system at the apple store was whatever they had on hand, not sure if it was the same as the one i own.

help!
angela

 

[sash]

Hi Angela,

You need OS 9 install disk in order to run Classic... That should be on your original restore CD, so you have no choice but to find this CD... Neither form of installing just OSX will also install OS 9, which is necessary to run Classic.

sash

PS -- here is some info you need: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1585?viewlocale=en_US

 

[angpeters]

thanks sash. so there are probably 2 cds, right? the one that says "power mac g4 software install and restore" then mentions osx on it, and also one that says os9? i have to dig around b/c it's been a long time since i've had to use that one, if at all.

thanks!
angela

 

[sash]

thanks sash.

You're welcome!

so there are probably 2 cds, right? the one that says "power mac g4 software install and restore" then mentions osx on it, and also one that says os9?

You know, to be honest, I simply can not recollect the exact setting: I'm not using Classic for years... I was looking for the disks from those times, and even couldn't find them.

sash