From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@mac.com>

Date: May 17, 2008 11:18:36 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Sorta OT:  Powerbook G4 won't startup

Hi Tim, Another method is known as "zapping the pram" which involves holding down the command/option/P&R keys whilst you start up (difficult to manage all at once I know!) I`ve replaced a couple of hard disks in my Mac Mini, the first was an upgrade from 40 GB to 120 GB but the second, the repair guy told me I had a number of "bad patches" in the system. Mark Gaffney.

On 18/05/2008, at 2:38 AM, Tim wrote:

Okay, I've tried booting from the DVD (but it's the one for the Mini,

which is a wintel - still, shouldn't it be able to run disk utility?).

Anyway, the first time I started it up with the DVD, I immediately

got the "you need to restart" screen.  The second time, it spun up the

DVD and then shut down like before.

I'm trying Disk Utility from the mini now, booting the powerbook as a

target disk.

The DVD shows up in my finder on the mini, but the HD still does not.

When I run disk utility and try to repair the drive, I get this message:

Verify and Repair disk "Macintosh HD"

Checking HFS Plus volume.

Checking Extents Overflow file.

Checking Catalog file.

Invalid node structure

Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked

1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

Sound like the hard disk is bad?

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@...> wrote:

Hi Tim;

On 17-May-08, at 9:03 AM, Tim wrote:

Sorry for the OT post, but I'm stumped.

My powerbook G4 has "always" been a little troublesome.  It seems I've

had only 3 Macs between work and home use since 1984 that have had

puzzling, if infrequent, problems.

All three have periodically had the dreaded message "you need to

restart by holding down the power button for several seconds" come up.

This had been happening to me with the powerbook on about a weekly

basis, so I took it in to an Apple service store for repairs.  Problem

never went away, though it was less frequent.

2 nights ago, it happened again (after a few months of no problems).

I used to be able to restart the machine by holding down the power

button to turn it off, then restarting it.  It would take up to

several minutes to restart, but seemed to be okay after that.

It does a bunch of diagnostic stuff when this happens, like Ram

checking which takes longer time to re-boot.

But this time, when I restart the computer, I get the gray screen with

the apple logo and the spinning gizmo for about a minute or two, then

the computer shuts itself down.  No "folder with a question mark"

icon.  It just won't boot up at all.

I haven't tried putting a system disk in the DVD drive yet, but I have

tried starting it as a "target" drive with a firewire cable connected

to my mini so I could run disk utility on it.  When I do that, I get a

message that it can't be repaired.

It sounds like your Drive has died. The DVD re-boot will tell you

which it is as if it's the CPU / Motherboard, then you likely won't

be able to boot.

Also have Disk Utilities look at the drive and see what SMART status

indicates (should be verified). I had similar behavior when my drive

packed it in in my G4 Laptop, 3 months after I bought it.

The other possibility is the PRAM battery is bad / dying, which

causes all sorts of weird behavior too, like not finding startup disks.

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@...

www.outcastsoft.com

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