MacOS XXXX!

[Karlos]

@Thread

Don't get me wrong, when it's working, OSX is fine. However, when it is not working it is the absolute pits!

[Monkey]

I use macs at work, being an Apple tech and all

What I would do is run a disk repair util on the drive like Disk Warrior or Nortons Disk Docotor. They can be booted from the CDs they came on on your G4 system. See what they have to say about the disk. If you dont have one of those apps connect the drive to a machine that has a good working copy os OS X on it and use the Repair Disk function from Disk Utility on it and see what that does.

If I was to make a wild guess at whats going on I would have to say the the hard drive is failing.

[danamania]

Wrong on both counts. Both the PC and amiga could still be booted at least. Of all the OS's I ever worked with, only MacOS X has refused to boot from any device just because there is a HD in the system that is having trouble.

I've had a 40MB scsi drive that did much as you explain, but on my Amiga. With it plugged in, the machine would lock up part way through booting. When it was unplugged, everything was fine. Not having any backups and without a way to get anything off it, I just put it aside.

Later, the same drive had the same effect on a powermac 8100. It would boot, but lock up when trying to query the scsi bus. That was enough of a hint to me that the drive was screwed up in an electronic sense, and I threw it

In any case, if you need data off the drive (or to satisfy curiosity - perhaps format/resurrect it) stick it in a PC and see if it can avoid the problems the mac is having. It may cause problems there, or may not.

[Lando]

I had a similar problem with my iMac G4.  I'd only had it two weeks when OS X stopped working.  It would boot, and I'd be presented with the backdrop picture and a mouse pointer and nothing else.  

I tried to boot from an OS X install CD, and it would not even recognise the CD inserted in the drive.  I thought maybe the CD was damaged, so I bought a new copy of OS X.  Still it wouldn't recognise the CD (on the screen where you can choose which drive to boot from, only the Hard drive was visible).  

After maybe 10 calls to Apple Support (who were pretty clueless) they sent a guy to collect it and it was back with me the day after, with a note saying they'd replaced the hard drive.  

Apparently the broken hard drive had also stopped the Mac from noticing there was a CD inserted.

So what use are disk repair tools that boot from CD if you can't boot from CD because your hard disk is faulty.

[StormLord]

I regenerated the problem with  bad disk causing the same effect and I found a solution.
you need to stick the problematic HD to an external Firewire case and boot from another internal HD or CD by holding C as the mac startup.
The other way around didn't worked. By sticking a good drive with an OSX on the firewire and the bad disk on the internal IDE the mac couldn't boot.
Try what I say and tell us the result.
I belive it will work on your mac also but I cannot guarantie that you will get your lost data.. anyways a test can't harm you more that 10-20 minutes loss.
Hope for the best! ;-)

[Karlos]

Thanks for the tips. I think we have a firewire drive housing someplace.

If not, do you know if it is possible to shove the drive in another Mac and start it up as a firewire drive (I remember doing this to transfer some data from an old iMac)?

[McNorris]

Yo Karlos!

Here's the one, two three:

1-If a Mac will boot with the drive connected then...

Alsoft's Diskwarrior has a patented system of rebuilding the b-tree. Use it and you might be able to simply bring it back to life in it's present form

2-If the Mac will boot with the drive connected, but doesn't/will not mount, or you don't want to get Diskwarrior, or behaves very erratically on reads/write then Data Rescue.

(http://www.prosofteng.com/)

This little number ($50 USD) has come through a couple of times for me and it's $40 cheaper than Diaskwarrior. It will not restore the drive in place, but you WILL recover "en mass." I was able to recover 90% of a 160GB drive than neither Apple's Disk first aid, nor Diskwarrior would repair. It is great.

3-If computer won't even boot and hardlocks the problem is hardware. Either the drive itself or one of the other components.

I've had this happen on a PC once. The computer wouldn't boot w/ the drive attached.

I also had a case where a sketchy firewire enclosure would cause the drive to mount sometimes and then not other times. This corrupted the b-tree, but with Data Rescue and a working firewire enclosure, I recovered almost everything, formatted the drive and it is still in service.

I have also dealt with various interface cards causeing system lockups w/ a certain drive (but perhaps not another).

So... A problem like  you are haveing is NOT the OS, but must be hardware.

Let me know if you would like any specific help. I've worked on Macs since my days when an A2000 was my prefered choice.

[neofree]

Mac's Blow chunks.  The One button mouse is the first turn off.  Not to mention not ergonomic.  The UI is "OK" but some things are backwards and configuration is so limited it's sickening.  Why is Mac preferred by graphics people?  I have no idea whatsoever.  An upgraded PC can do anything a Mac can do.  Don't like use Windows? Use Linux.  Mac needs to die.



Thanks,

Neofree

[Karlos]

@McNorris

Thanks for the heads up there. Reaing your post I'd have to say it's most like case (3). To recap

The machine will not boot when the drive is attached to either IDE chain and regardless of master/slave device configuration on either chain. It will not boot if there is already a functioning bootable hard drive present (and you are using the dodgy drive as a slave).

By "will not boot", I mean the machine stops with a message saying it must be restarted. You cannot boot from CD.

In short, having the drive attached to the system (via the IDE) is sufficient to render the system completely useless.

I've isolated the problem as far as the drive (or it's contents) having swapped it between several identical G4 systems.

I've yet to try that firewire idea, however.

[adz]

neofree wrote:
Mac's Blow chunks.  The One button mouse is the first turn off.  Not to mention not ergonomic.  The UI is "OK" but some things are backwards and configuration is so limited it's sickening.  Why is Mac preferred by graphics people?  I have no idea whatsoever.  An upgraded PC can do anything a Mac can do.  Don't like use Windows? Use Linux.  Mac needs to die.



Thanks,

Neofree

How on earth does that help Karlos solve the problem he is having?? Why even bother wasting valuable bandwidth with crap like that??? :-? :-? :-?

[Karlos]

@adz

Don't worry dude. I spent a good portion of the last 2 days badmouthing all things Mac and wasted some of this thread myself :lol:

Of all the problems to get lumbered with literally days after the network guy left. Sod's law I tell you!

Hmmm, maybe he saw it coming :-D

[adz]

@Karlos

Its all good, I just get a little peeved with crap like that, its not the first time I've had a go at someone for that and I'm sure it won't be the last. It would be all fine if this thread was titled "Macs are crap...have at it...", but its not.

Of all the problems to get lumbered with literally days after the network guy left. Sod's law I tell you!

Hmmm, maybe he saw it coming :-D

AU$10 says he saw the exact same message as you and after a few failed reset attempts hightailed it out of there :lol:

[neofree]

@Karlos

If he hadn't already hinted that he had simular feelings, I would have never said that.  I too have had to troubleshoot Mac's and was left wondering WHY???

Apologize if offended.

[Karlos]

@adz

Yeah, maybe he did. It was suspiciously soon after he left.

It actually happened during a routine saving of data from one of the eMacs to the server.

TBH, the machine that is being used as the server isn't up to the job IMHO - its just a basic G4 box and doesn't even have RAID. Asking for trouble there, methinks :-)

@neofree

Relax dude, no offense taken. Like I said, I was about ready to take a brick to the thing myself :lol:

[adz]

TBH, the machine that is being used as the server isn't up to the job IMHO - its just a basic G4 box and doesn't even have RAID. Asking for trouble there, methinks :-)

You gotta wonder where some peoples brains are to put so much faith into something with absolutly no redundancy, even though RAID wouldn't have helped in this case, you never know when a drive is gonna just up and die on you. People will never learn, I suppose thats good in a way, keeps me employed :-D

[Karlos]

@Adz

Are you sure raid wouldn't have helped? You'd have several other drives intact all with the same data on them ;-)