Powerbook G4 wont boot

Hi im new to the threads and in need of some help, i have an older Powerbook G4 with a 1.25ghz processor, about a month ago i was going through and clearing out some old programs that i had and when i went to delete them it locked up so i had to do a force quit, after doing this the computer wont boot it just gets to the apple screen with the spinning thing and just sits there for about 5 mins then shuts off. i cant find my OS disk for it either but was able to find my ibook g4 install disc, which of course i cant load onto this computer, and put it in and went into disk utlities and ran the diagnostics and repairs and it found no problems said everything was fine and still wont boot, just wondering if anybody has any ideas on what the problem could be i have tried doing all of the resets and nothing worked, all of my saved programs, music, etc are still on the hard drive so i know the hard drive is fine im starting to wonder if i didnt delete something that was in a folder and didnt realize it, if anybody has any ideas on what the problem could be would be helpful, i also went into the terminal mode and it stopped booting when it got to the command

Load of /sbin/launchd, errno 2, trying /sbin/mach_init
Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2

and that is it, let me know what you guys think i should do from here, also i am in the navy and currently on deployment so i dont have the ability to just go to the store and pick up a new copy of osx so if i can get around this without reloading osx i would be very happy.

Have you tried a PRAM reset, or tried running FSCK? Both are worthy things to do, so try that and report back.

i did the pram reset and i cant do the fsck due to the fact that it stops booting so i never get to the input command it gets to the following and then just stops
Load of /sbin/launchd, errno 2, trying /sbin/mach_init
Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2

So restarting holding the apple and s keys down brings up that message? Just to be clear.

here is exactly what it says

standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
vm/page/bootstrap: 254133 free pages
mig/table/max/displ = 70
88 prelinked modules
copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
the regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

using 2621 buffer headers and 2621 cluster IO buffer headers
IOPCCard info: Intel PCIC probe: TI 1510 rev 00
Firewire (OHCI) Apple ID 31 built-in now active, GUID 000a95ff fedbd2b4; max speed s800.
ADB present:8c
IOBluetoothHCIController::start Idle Timer Stopped
Security auditing service present
BSM auditing present
disabled
rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: 9BA588E9-771A-3FA2-96A6-48ED9CC2341B
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
Got boot device = IOService;/MacRiSC2PE/pci@f4000000/AppleMacRiscPCI/ata-6@D/AppleKauaiATA/ATADeviceNUB@0/IOATABloctStorageDriver/IOATABlockStorageDevice/IOBlockStorageDriver/FUJITSU MHT2080AT Media/IOApplePartitionScheme/Apple_HFS_Untitled_1@3
BSD root: disk0s3, major 14, minor 2
Load of /sbin/launchd, errno 2, trying /sbin/mach_init
Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2

And that is exactly what it says has the prompt box after the last line but cant type anything into it, it is just a solid white box
dang it that was a lot of typing lol

i am attempting to do a checksum through disk utlity right now on disk0s3 and disk0 right now i will see if that does anything

well the checksum had no affect on my laptop so anybody have any ideas of where to go from here?

Ok. It seems that the OS is corrupt. The disk is ok according to disk utility, as you said, so the only option I can think of is to make a clean install.
As you don't have your OS disc this could be a problem, and of course, you will loose any data.
You could try disk warrior if you have access to it, it may be able to re-build the directory.

thats what i was afraid of hearing, i guess i will have to wait till i get back to teh states and get a copy of it before i will be able to get my mac up and going again, also when i was deleting some of those files there was only one that raised a ? mark to me and the files name was USR do you suppose that could be the problem deleting that file?

Very possibly,Yes. It only takes one system file and it's messed up I'm afraid.

On older OS X version would allow you to Archive and Install. This would allow you to install without trashing your files. Since that Powerbook likely shipped with 10.3 or 10.4 that's exactly what you could do. I don't think that 10.5 and 10.6 can do Archive installs.

Both Leopard and Snow Leopard allow for an "Archive and Install". Note, however, that you need the original install media to accomplish that. And also note that the OP does not have his install media with him.

Regards.

If i were to just buy a new copy of 10.4 when i pull into a port could i use that to fix the problem and save the data that is on the hard drive or do i need to run my hard drive in target mode to another mac save my files and delete the hard drive and reinstall osx? the only problem with me going into target mode is that only a couple of other people on the ship have macs and they have either macbooks or macbook pros and i know that the guy i work with that has a macbook pro doesnt have a firewire port is there another way to do the target mode on a newer mac that doesnt have the firewire port?

jcorkin said:

If i were to just buy a new copy of 10.4 when i pull into a port could i use that to fix the problem and save the data that is on the hard drive or do i need to run my hard drive in target mode to another mac save my files and delete the hard drive and reinstall osx? the only problem with me going into target mode is that only a couple of other people on the ship have macs and they have either macbooks or macbook pros and i know that the guy i work with that has a macbook pro doesnt have a firewire port is there another way to do the target mode on a newer mac that doesnt have the firewire port?

Click to expand...

If you archive and install with it, Yes, it should be ok, though there is never a guarantee that it will save everything.
There is no way of using target mode without firewire sadly.
Getting a new 10.4 disc will not be easy. eBay is the only place and they sell for good money because of the demand for non-intel compatable OS discs.