old 12" g4 alu, with a long an flaky history, running 10.4.11
probably should note that I'm a die-hard os9 user who still finds x
plain evil and alien :-)

got the powerbook for free some 2 years ago with the message :"it
needs a new hd"

however, I needed to use it, and ignored all the flakyness

like: for a long time it needed to be booted some 2-3 times to get all
the way, ot sometimes it booted right away, but then needed a couple
of reboots some 5 or so minutes later - because it frooze or just
plain shut down for no apparent reason

sometimes during 1st boot it would just freeze up, others it gave me a
black screen full of gibberish (well at least to me)

past the boot problems otherwise it actually ran like a charm, except
the fans sounded horrible and the disk utillity tool claimed the drive
was bad. also it seemed a bit confused about the amount of ram inside,
reporting differently from time to time. but alas, it ran and gave no
signs of a bad drive

and, at some point during the last year it eventually gave up on
harrassing me at start up

but then, yesterday... it got slooooow when browsing a particular site
and started spinning the beach ball whenever I clicked some link and
also when idle

I rebooted

the grey screen with the apple logo came on, the circle of small
"sticks" started running, and then nothing...
I waited for like 10 minutes or so, but nothing happened - rebooted

repeated like above, reboot again, and this time it got a bit further,
a bit faster. now hanging at an empty blue screen. after the next
reboot, I got a mouse arrow on the blue screen, alternating with the
running circle of "sticks"

had it sit that way for an hour or so, but it didn't get any further

gave up an booted it from a leopard disk. in the disk utillity was the
icon for the name for the toshiba drive in red types, and below
another similar icon with the desktop name for the drive in black
types (what's up here?)
and the message that the drive is bad and that I should backup and
replace - backup to where... duh! and all buttons was greyed out -
nothing to do here...?

tried creating an image an figured it might be possible to store it on
another mac on the network, but no such luck - even though the other
mac turned up fine, I wasn't given the possibillity to chose a
destination on it and the save button remained greyed out...

shut down and go to bed I said to myself... duh! shut down and
everything else in the apple menu greyed out... Well, I managed, but
why oh why do I have to poke around in all and every menu to find out
how to do something as simple...?

today I booted it from a tiger disk. now both the drive names are in
red, but clicking on the desktop drive name lets me choose between
"first aid", "erase", "raid" and "restore (or something similar,
danish system)". however all buttons below are greyed out, no matter
what I choose from the above.

getting info for the disk claims it's repairable and that everything
but s.m.a.r.t. is good...

long story, I know and sorry, just seemed it was all important somehow

bottom line problem and question:
well obviously I don't have a recent backup, but it's really not that
important as there's nothing vital on the drive, just a big bunch
bookmarks and downloads that would be nice to not have to go look for
again

is there any hope to get this drive up running for just a short while
to get the stuff off of it, and what's the best bet for at method to
try

tia

/tina

-- 
You received this message because you are a member of G-Books, a group for 
those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books).
The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette 
guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To leave this group, send email to [email protected]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books

Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/

Reply via email to