System corrupt after power cut?

Hi all, my first post so please be gentle!

Ok I have just had a powercut. Actually 4 in about 1 minute. The mac started to reboot, then another cut, then power back on and it started rebooting, then off again then back on.

Luckily I had just saved all my afternoons work on a large FCP project.

But now it has come on and all I am getting is a white screen with the grey Apple logo, with a spinning "clock" thing under the logo. Now been like this for 40 minutes.

So what's happening? Can't here any sound from the hard drive. Is it rebuilding indexes or is it bad news.

Thanks in advance

well it boots up!!! that is good news!

first thing first turn the thing off...unplug it for a while and let it relax...
secondly go find your original disks that came with it, boot up from them and run the hardware tests to see if anything got fried.

this is the number one reason y ou should not have your computer restart in situations like this.

good luck let us know what your hardware results are

Thanks for the advice. I have turned it off and wil give it a go in an hour. So you think I should stick in leopard 10.5 and go from there? I don't want to format the hard drive under any circumstances.

First thing is hardware tests - check there's nothing physically wrong.

Then start on the software side . Formatting is last, last resort anyway, there are plenty of things to try before that, and other ways to get at your data if your hard drive is ok (and it sounds like it is).

You can call me gormless here but how do I do that?

I have just reset the PRAM, but it has made no difference. Still the grey apple logo and rotating cog.

Stick Install Disk 1 in, restart holding down D (I think) until it appears. Run test, see what happens.

What Mac do you have?

Intel Power mac. I have the install disks here but I can't open the superdrive. I hold down the open dvd button on the keyboard and nothing happens.

edit just managed to get it to open.

You mean the Mac Pro? Or a non-Intel Power Mac? Didn't know there was an Intel one. Is it tray loading or slot?

Anyways, tray loading should have a manual eject button, slot drive you need to hold down the mouse button on start up. You could also try holding down Option on start up and ejecting it with the start up manager, or "During startup, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F key combination to enter Open Firmware, type "eject cd" in lower case letters, then press return." (from Apple).

Let us know what it says next!

OK I have just run the test. no trouble found.

I know it's said that people do this far more often than they need to, but an archive and install would probably solve your problems.

Check this as well, can't find much more, sorry.

I can reboot holding down the option key and get HD icon up, but when I click on it I just get the grey apple icon and the spinning cog again. I think I will leave it on overnight and see what tomorrow brings. Either its rebuilding or I will have to do an archive and install.

Ok I am doing an archive and install. Soon find out if its all going to work.
Latest. Archive and install failed. It went through a check prodeedure on the disk, then just as it was about to start installing it failed.

I rebooted and tried again but it is not showing the option to archive and install, just whether I want to erase the whole hard drive and install. Yikes there's some very important stuf on the hard drive.

And now when I reboot the grey apple logo shows up with the moving cog underneath, but the mac turns itself off after about 30 seconds. Think I will leave it off overnight and see what mood it is in in the morning.

First step is zap the PRAM as set out in this link from Apple and hopefully you will get a boot and then do the Repair Disk after booting from the install DVD:-

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

As a quick side note as the other people on the forum seam to have things under control and I don't know what else to suggest unless what they have suggested doesn't work... but I have my mac pro plugged into one of these: http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=23#anchor1 and my monitors plugged into a smaller one so they don't take the power away from my system in this kind of scenario.