Calling all tech's. Boot Problem.

Hi All,

I am in need of a little help please for one or all of you guru's. This is a problem I have been trying to resolve myself for about a month now, I don't want to take my computer into the shop because it has sensitive information on it. I would really appreciate any information or advice as I think I have covered all bases.

Hardware - iMac G4

Problem: When turning on my iMac it chimes, goes to the grey/white screen with the apple symbol, about 5 - 10 seconds later the gear starts turning, it then hangs in this state for about 2 minutes with gear turning before turning off and starting all over again.

Suspected Problem: I have had similar problems before when using Target Disk mode to boot into a different partition as I am running a Windows partition seperatly, however by holding the keyboard Command or Option key I have been able to regain control and boot back into the Mac Partition which works fine. Therefore I suspect this is some kind of hard-disk failure.

Attempted Resolutions
I have tried all the command prompts I could find using the keyboard, i.e the PRAM reset, CD Boot, Target Disk Mode using external laptop etc. I think I tried at least 7 or 8 different key combinations with no success, it doesn't even acknowledge that I have given it any input.

The only thing that it did respond to was when I held down the mouse button it ejected the CD, other than that no input at all can be made.

I've tried plugging the keyboard into another computer to test it, it worked fine with full control as per normal.

I opened up the cover and had a look inside, couldn't see any abnormalities, I removed the battery for 10 minutes and re-installed it jut for good measure, as I remembered when I had a PC it used to reset a few things. I also vacuumed out any dust in the USB ports.

Any help appreciated.

It does sound like your hard disk died. Can you boot the machine with your original install media? If you can, use Disk Utility to verify the disk. Hope you've been keeping up with backups... ??

Regards.

No,

With the original CD in the drive it will not boot from it, I've tried holding down the C button whilst booting but it just won't pick it up. You can hear the CD running up normally however.

I haven't found the holding down C works. I just reinstalled OS X Tiger on an iMac G4 800MHz and i held down option, then pressed the power button to start up. Then i got to the screen to select the boot device and then I get to the on-screen interface to reinstall the OS or run any of the utilities on the disc.

rueffy said:

No,

With the original CD in the drive it will not boot from it, I've tried holding down the C button whilst booting but it just won't pick it up. You can hear the CD running up normally however.

Click to expand...

Try holding down the "OPTION" key instead. It should boot from the DVD that way. Let us know.

Regards.

Ok,

Thanks for everyone help so far, unfortunatly I couldn't get anywhere no control what so ever, so I purchased a replacement internal hard-drive and now it works fine. However a couple of new issues have arisen that I require more help with.

Before the great crash I had an external hard-drive which was storing a lot of backed up files etc, now when I try and open the Volume I get the error message "The Folder "volumename" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges". I've tried a few sudo commands in Terminal but it hasn't done anything, tried changing the permissions in the Info Page but they are all set to Custom and I can't alter them.

Secondly now that I have my system up and running and a spare hard-drive with all my important files next to it, is there anyway I can repair the permissions with it out of my hard-drive, i.e is there some kind of cable of something to get it talking with my now functional computer (long shot I know).

Appreciate any help with these new problems, thanks.

rueffy said:

Ok,

Secondly now that I have my system up and running and a spare hard-drive with all my important files next to it, is there anyway I can repair the permissions with it out of my hard-drive, i.e is there some kind of cable of something to get it talking with my now functional computer (long shot I know).

Appreciate any help with these new problems, thanks.

Click to expand...

I'm suspect the directory structure is messed up or yes the permissions.

You can get one of those usb hard drive adapter 'thingies' (they run like ~$30 (us)) hook the drive up and run disk utilities against the drive.

PPA USB 2.0 – 3 in 1 Drive Adaptor Kit, SATA / PATA (ATAPI / IDE) at TigerDirect.com

If DU is unable to fix the drive, you might need something stronger like Disk Warrior to correct the problems.

Mark