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Reformatted Hard Drive "flashing "?"and Smiley face Folder after OS reinstall"

Hello All,

I have acquired an ibook from my friends Mom but it had a bad Virus in it so thinking I knew what I was doing I reformatted the drive and installed the OSX disk that came with the laptop "there are two install disks 1 and 2 but only the first disk was installed it didn't ask for the second disk. When it rebooted I got a flashing folder with a "?" and a Smiley face. First off this is my first Mac I have owned so I'm lacking the acquired knowledge to pursue fixing this ibook.


So what should I do? I have searched on the Internet for some answers but with no out come. So I found the apple support communities and I'm praying that I can find good advice here to resolve this issue I am having. I also other disks that came with the laptop, 3 software restore disks and an Apple hardware test disk along with the 2 OSX install disks.


Any help given would be very appreciated if someone can guide me into the right direction with getting my ibook back to working condition. I can provide additional information if need.


Thank you for your time to read this.

Kind regards

Mike

iBook, Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Posted on May 1, 2011 8:45 AM

Reply
53 replies

May 1, 2011 10:22 AM in response to Ronda Wilson

Thank you for the reply. I am a PC man and I don't know anything about mac and one of my friends said it had a virus so I just took it upon myself to try to start fresh with it and well that's why I'm here :/


Ok the info you asked for,

The OSX install disks are Version 10.2.1 and the Pic is what was in it before I decided to ruin my ibook..User uploaded file

May 1, 2011 10:53 AM in response to MikesFirstMac

MikesFirstMac wrote:


If I try to reinstall the OS it goes all threw the necessary steps but when it begins to install I get an Error message.


The Installer has quit due to an unexpected error. (exit code 0)

Please restart your computer.


What happens after it tells you to restart the computer? Will it restart?


If not, try starting up from the Apple Hardware Test CD and run the extended test to check out the iBook's hardware. The hard drive is about 8 years old, so that could be suspect. Sometimes RAM fails, so removing the extra RAM and trying again may allow you to successfully install the OS. The Apple Hardware Test CD should tell you if there are problems with either the hard drive or the RAM.

May 1, 2011 10:58 AM in response to MikesFirstMac

Did you format the hard drive as Apple Partition Map, Extended, Journaled?


Choose Disk Utility from the Install CD in order to do that.


Then try Installing again.


If you've already formatted the drive correctly, then I'd suggest starting up from the Apple Hardware Test CD and running the extended test.


Edit: Okay. I see that you're ahead of me, but that's fine. No harm done.

May 1, 2011 11:41 AM in response to MikesFirstMac

If you hold down the trackpad button while starting up, the disc should pop out.


I would try reformatting again.


It's too bad you reformatted to begin with because a simple Erase and Install would have done.


If you still don't have any luck, I would suggest removing the extra RAM (link above) and try, anyway. The Apple Hardware Test doesn't always catch faulty RAM, so it's worth a shot.


I wouldn't worry about it not asking for the second install CD. It may be just printer drivers and other extras that aren't necessary. (I don't have experience with this particular set, but some are like that.)


Another possibility is that the Install CD is defective, but I really hope that's not the problem.


Good luck.

Reformatted Hard Drive "flashing "?"and Smiley face Folder after OS reinstall"

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