Hi I posted this earlier at: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/330939/
i was advised to post here.
so heres my problem:
my ibookg4 suddenly is having quite a bizarre problem today. no problems till yesterday night.
1. i was running firefox and safari today along with ms-word and preview. the word file open was huge (~20mb, had lots of figures/pictures in it). and at some point during doing this, i wanted to save the word document that was open. and thats when for the first time, the 'spinning wheel' came on... subsequently, the computer become amazingly slow, like it would take 5 minutes to save the word document, displaying the " spinning wheel " all the while.
2. closing the word document and quitting word took like 8 minutes. i force quit all the program then.
3. i rebooted the machine a couple of times and also did a filevault scan. i tried to go into the disk utility and tried to check for repair disks... but no avail.. the wheel kept spinning...
4. i tried resetting pram (
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449)
when the machine started up, a question mark blinked on the screen alternating with a folder symbol.
5. the i tried inserting a diagnostic disc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
it took something to the tune of 4 hours for the disk utility to try and recognise the hard disk. however in the end it gave an error: " error on mass storage" : cache and modem was fine. the 'repair file' did not start up and the harddrive did not show up on booting, only the cd did.
6. upon trying to reinstall the OS, the "target" to install the OS was not found.
any ideas what is the problem? what do you guys suggest, how should I go about fixing it.
i was advised to post here.
so heres my problem:
my ibookg4 suddenly is having quite a bizarre problem today. no problems till yesterday night.
1. i was running firefox and safari today along with ms-word and preview. the word file open was huge (~20mb, had lots of figures/pictures in it). and at some point during doing this, i wanted to save the word document that was open. and thats when for the first time, the 'spinning wheel' came on... subsequently, the computer become amazingly slow, like it would take 5 minutes to save the word document, displaying the " spinning wheel " all the while.
2. closing the word document and quitting word took like 8 minutes. i force quit all the program then.
3. i rebooted the machine a couple of times and also did a filevault scan. i tried to go into the disk utility and tried to check for repair disks... but no avail.. the wheel kept spinning...
4. i tried resetting pram (
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449)
when the machine started up, a question mark blinked on the screen alternating with a folder symbol.
5. the i tried inserting a diagnostic disc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
it took something to the tune of 4 hours for the disk utility to try and recognise the hard disk. however in the end it gave an error: " error on mass storage" : cache and modem was fine. the 'repair file' did not start up and the harddrive did not show up on booting, only the cd did.
6. upon trying to reinstall the OS, the "target" to install the OS was not found.
any ideas what is the problem? what do you guys suggest, how should I go about fixing it.
