Powerbook corrupt software cannot retrieve data! Help!

Hi, Im pretty desparate at the moment- I have a very old Powerbook G4 which has given up the ghost. It has had no battery life for years and recently I pulled the power cord out by mistake causing instant shutdown. (This has happened many times but it always started up again) Now I cannot get past login stage as it says "username .... is unavailable"

After trying to reboot using my *very* old disk that originally came with the computer I had no joy, not even with master password etc. Took to Mac specialist who also said they cannot retrieve or backup any of my data as the software is corrupt. Help, is there anything I can do? I have just lost a lot of hard work and all of my software applications... is it really impossible to retrieve my data?

Thanks!!

Do you have access to another Mac at all? You could try Target Disk mode to try and access the HD and retrieve stuff, but I would doubt you will recover software.

Hi, thanks for reply, no I dont unfortunately. I will suggest the target disk mode to the apple fixit people, my friend also suggested that if I can reboot using the original disks I may be able to create a new user account as an admin and try to reset the other usernames and passwords? Has anyone tried this? I have no idea about this stuff :-S

Yes that is a possibility too, but tread carefully and read up on how first. Software corruption really shouldn't prevent them retrieving data anyway.
You could actually try a clean archive and install if it's just software you want to save, as this will generally preserve most applications you have, but it will erase data.

Thanks for the reply, they couldnt retrieve any data because of File Vault. Cannot access in target disk mode as I can't reset the master password to turn off file vault. I think I need to do a bit more research! I get to the master password login which I remember but then it asks to type in a new password and confirm it, then put in a memorable phrase for it. This is great- except it wont actually let me do it, on entering the new password it shakes it off and asks to do it again!? Very bizarre. Any thoughts?

I want to try everything to salvage the data before I give up and try just to get the software back! Thanks again...

Agh. File Vault is a nightmare to circumnavigate. I never use it at all.
Over to someone with more experience for now, but I'll see if I can find anything too.