Chosen Solution
I concur, sounds like a bad hard drive. But to be absolutely 100% sure that it’s not something else, or that something else is also not wrong, you might want to connect your machine to another via firewire cable, power the remote computer up in target mode, and then boot the laptop in option mode, and select the remote computer’s drive. If the laptop works perfectly using the remote hard drive, then you can rest assured it’s the hard drive and that your computer itself is still fully functional.
You need a new hard drive - it has failed from old age. Input / output errors aka “bad sectors” are when the drive can no longer read certain parts of itself, the more and more this occurs, the machine slows down, until something important is no longer able to be read, like something required for booting, etc. as the OS attempts to move itself around to prevent “stepping on a landmind” (bad sector) it thrashes the Directory Structure - This inclues the B-tree, node, etc.. Simply put, you need a new harddrive, Install a clean OS on that new drive, and you will be all set.
Thanks very much for your replies, kind of confirmed what I had suspected about the hard drive having some pretty fatal problems. As for booting it from another computer via firewire - I have no idea how I would go about this. I don’t have another mac, only a PC, so would that still be possible? If you could point me in the direction of an ‘idiots’ guide to this process that would be much appreciated.. Also, if the HD on the PowerBook is no longer mounting.. is any kind of data retrieval possible? Thanks again!
Hi! Unfortunately the firewire procedure is only available using another Mac. If you took the computer to an Apple store, they might be willing to try it there (although “might” is the key word…sometimes they do things like that for free, and sometimes they charge you when the computer is out of warranty, etc.) I’m not too familiar with data recovery software, but one that was recommended by another person on this site was: http://www.prosofteng.com/ Another thing you can do is remove the hard drive from the computer and put it in an external enclosure like this one: [linked product missing or disabled: IF107-072-1] If you need a USB enclosure instead of firewire, they sell them on eBay very cheap, or at places like Fry’s and MicroCenter. Anyway, sometimes putting a drive in an external enclosure and connecting it that way or to another computer for some reason causes the drive to be accessible, at which point you can copy the data off, etc. If you but an enclosure, just make sure to get one that is standard ATA/IDE (not SATA). Anyway, good luck! It sounds fairly certain that the drive is dead, so if further troubleshooting is not possible, it’s probably pretty safe to go ahead and get another drive.
Ok thanks for your time and all the info. It’s not my sole computer and I do have most stuff backed up so I’ll probably give Data Rescue 3 a try in the new year when I have more time, but otherwise I’ll probably look at getting a new machine. Thanks again for your help - really appreciate it!
Find a friend with a mac and see if you can firewire/target connect your mac to his or hers. I have had Hd failures and sometimes have been able to save data. Replacing a hard drive is pretty simple in a G-4. I believe You just need that torq srewdriver to loosen the screws on the bottom of the computer. Take out the battery first.
