boot and harddrive

I am finally trying to get my eMac running again.

I get the flashing question mark upon booting.

I have ran a hardware test and everything is fine.

I boot into the boot menu and have no options, unless I put in an install disc.

I have tried to boot from a restore disc, but it won't boot. I remembered that I installed 10.3 and booted with that disc, but it continues on, then gets stuck on a blue screen with the pinwheel spinning.

I got it to do a repair, but don't think it did anything...

Here is what the dialog states...

Repairing disk '''''.
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Repair completed.

If I try to install the software, I am asked to pick a location to perform the install, but don't have any options.

If I goto partition in disc utility, it tells me it will overwrite any data that is on the drive.

I don't want to lose what I have on my drive.

Is there anyway to save it?

I have read numerous people stating to use disc warrior...my question is how do I do this if I am not functioning?

Thanks for any help!

DiskWarrior may bring the drive back to life, but at $99 cheaper to purchase a new hard drive. DiskWarrior is bootable from the CD it comes on and you cannot repair a drive your are booted from alas. When you say booting from a restore disc, take it this is the disc which came with that eMac when new?

Correct.

I am using the restore discs that came with the eMac originally.

I am more interested in saving the data on the hard drive.

It looks as though I can partition the drive, but it states it will delete all contents.

I want to pull the data off the drive before I do that.

Is there an easy way without pulling the drive?

Sounds like the drive is crashing,the boot file is messed up. You may be able to access the drive as a slave or external drive. Try a USB universal drive adapter.

So I removed the hard drive and connected it to my Business Dell computer via an EDI to USB with power supply.

My laptop cannot recognize the hard drive in "my computer."

Device Manager sees the drive and says everything is fine...not yellow punctutation marks either.

Disk Manager says the drive is unallocated...does this mean it is toast and no data is left on it? I assume so. Only think it will let me do in Disk Manager is initialize it. If the data is gone, there is no need for me to initialize it, as I will be rebuilding my mac with that drive in place.

If there isn't any data on it, should I initialize it on the Dell before putting it back in the eMac to build it?

Thanks!

I just happen to use an old PC to nuke hard drives with. Then put it back in the Mac and reformat it again. If you hooked it up USB and theres nothing on the drive it could be crashed or someone else has erased it allready. If your willing to lose whats on it just go ahead and nuke it.

There is actually a ton of items on the harddrive I would like to keep...if they are still there...most importantly, about 2500 pictures.

I have learned that Windows systems will not recognize the drive because of Mac formating.

I am going to try to hook the drive up to another Mac and hopefully have some luck.

Thanks for the help!

Best,
J