Powerbook not booting . . . hd problem?

Question

Powerbook not booting . . . hd problem?

Last night i downloaded some pics from my digital camera and shut it down as usual. This morning it wouldn't boot. I put it in target disk mode and connected to my other computer. It mounted as read only. I copied all data onto external harddrive. In disk utility all permissions were grayed out and only verify disk was availible. It wouldn't even start. I attempted to format but it returned "Operation timed out." I then booted from CD and attempted to restore from time machine. It showed disk at 232 gb available. It allegedly erases the disk and restores the system in around 30 seconds. After this the disk won't mount in TD mode but still shows up in time machine and fresh install. Both a restore and fresh install take less than a minute. Any thoughts? My first thought was HD but I really don't want to take it out to test it unnecessarily. Logic board maybe? Any ideas would be appreciated.

12" Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 1.5 1.25GB ram 250 hd

Posted on Jan 10, 2009 11:01 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 17, 2009 10:26 PM in response to sparky_odom_2005

Hello,

"it showed disk at 232 gb available" Does that mean 232GB free on the PBook hard disk or the external disk?

What size is the PBook hard drive? Original was 40 - 60GB. Is it possible when you dowloaded the pics to the PBook that perhaps there wasn't enough room on the disk??

If you can't get the PBook to boot from the restore disk and repair the drive with Disk Utility then you might want to take a look at: DiskWarrior

Carolyn 🙂

Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 20, 2009 12:57 PM in response to sparky_odom_2005

This post is mostly a note in case this happens to anyone else. The way I resolved it was by doing a fresh install using my original 10.5 disk. After booting I restored from backup all of my settings files and apps. The only way I could get the disk to format was by doing a erase and install. The disk utility from the disk would not erase. I'm not sure what the difference was but it worked. Hopefully this can help someone else.

Reply