New HD or try Disk Warrior?

R

Rainwater

Guest
On the advice of some article I read on tuning a Mac, I ran a disk check. Although the computer (Powerbook G4) seemed to be running fine, disk errors were noted and it said to repair the disk.

I ran the disk repair utility from my OS X disk. It reported 'keys out of order' then eventually 'underlying process failed on exit' or something similar. Then the computer would not reboot - could not find my boot drive I guess. My Mac HD does not show up when I try to select a boot drive. I ran the repair disk utility a couple of times (as recommended) and even ran the /sbin/fsck -fy stuff a few times. Still get error messages and the computer is still dead.

I've had problems with OS's before, but I've never had one commit suicide while trying to repair some sort of error.

From what I read, my next step is to purchase and try Disk Warrior - for ~$100 with no guarantee of success. Is this correct or or there other repair attempts I should try - like maybe reinstalling the OS?? Obviously I would like to preserve the data on the machine.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

- Rainwater
 
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Try resetting your Parameter RAM (PRAM).
You can also try booting from your install/restore discs.


It could also be that the drive was on its way out, anyway.
Just a coincidence that running a disk repair happened at the same time the drive decided to tank.
 
OP
R

Rainwater

Guest
Thanks, D3. I did a PRAM reset but that didn't seem to help. If I try to boot to the MAC drive icon from the install disk, I just get the silver screen, spinning gear, then it shuts down.

The machine is only about 1-1/2 years old and has only seen light duty in my home, so I wouldn't think the disk should have died yet - although it does happen. (I'm posting this from my trusty Wintel PC.)

I just can't help but believe there is something very simple that's gone awry here, with an easy fix. Sure would hate to have to replace the drive and start over with loading apps, getting wireless printing/internet to work again, trying to recover itunes, my ipod, etc.

- Rainwater
 
OP
R

Rainwater

Guest
After running disk repair to repair a drive, my Powerbook G4 will no longer boot or find the installed disk drive. (I'm not sure what was wrong with the drive, but 'verify' said there was a problem although the computer seemed to be running fine).

I tried all of the advice here - ran disk repair 2-3 times, tried fsck, reset PRAM (whatever that is), even attempted to reinstall OS X but it can not find the disk drive and I can't get the volume to mount.

I'm wondering - should I try Disk Warrior or simply replace the drive? The only message I get when running repair is keys out of order and repairing the B-tree (?) then underlying process failed ... Does this sound like something DW could repair? I would hate to spend $100 on DW then have buy a new drive anyway. I really don't have any 'mission critical' stuff on this computer, but it would be a pain to get it set back up with a new drive.

Anyone had a similar experience? Should I just jump to a new drive and forget about attempting a repair?

Any guidance/experience you can provide would be appreciated.

- Rainwater
 
OP
R

Rainwater

Guest
Well, for what it's worth in case anyone has similar issues, I decided to buy Disk Warrior and give it a try. It seems to have taken care of things and my 'disk verify' results show no issues.
 

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