Repair Disk is dulled out in Disk Utilities

I have a very old E Mac running version OS X version 10.1.5. My Mac is showing a flashing question mark so I have tried to repair it using the Install Disk provided with my E Mac. Unfortunately, when I insert my Mac OS X Install disk (which is for version 10.1.4) and press the C key at startup and click on Disk Utility the "Repair Disk" button is greyed out (although I am able to Verify the Disk.) How do I get round this problem? (I should add that I have had the flashing question mark once before, and I was able to repair my E Mac on that occasion as I was able at that time to click on the "Repair Disk" button. However, I can no longer do this.)


I have also tried using my OS 9 Install Disk, as I was using OS 9 the last time before the flashing question mark appeared. When I go into Disk Utility using that disk, I am able to click on the "Repair Disk" button but it lists errors that it says it is unable to repair.


Is there any thing else I can try so that I can start up My E Mac in OS X?

eMac, Mac OS X (10.1.x)

I was going to suggest Safe Boot, but it apparently doesn't work in 10.1.
When in Disk Utility, have you selected the OS X "Volume" before trying to repair - or can you?

Thanks for the reply gsahli. When I open Disk Utility from the OS X installation disk I have two volumes to chose from. There is a 38.16 GB Maxtor (the hard drive) and a 734.82 MB HL-DT- (the Mac OS X install). When I select the hard drive the verify button turns blue but the repair button remains greyed out. When the verify process is completed I get a message stating that the volume Macintosh hard drive needs to be repaired but I cannot do that as I cannot access the repair button!

Further update. I HAVE now managed to access the repair button, by highlighting the hard drive volume after completing the verify process. I got a message that the repair had completed successfully, but when I started the computer up again I still got the flashing question mark, so the repair does not seem to have worked. Is there any other thing I can try to get my E Mac working?

It's very likely the hard drive is failing or has already failed. You probably need to replace it. With a machine of that vintage, you don't want to spend a lot of $$ to do repairs. Go to the ifixit web site and take a look at the procedure for replacing the hard drive in your eMac. iFixit: The free repair manual

Thanks for the link chscag. I am not very computer savy so I doubt I would be able to attempt replacing the hard drive myself. In any case, in view of the age of my Mac I don't think replacing the hard drive is an option. Is there any other way you can suggest that I can access my files? (Unfortunately I have no back up).

The difficulty with recovering data from the drive is that it can not be accessed, which means that even data recovery software won't work. About the only thing you can try - is to remove the drive from the eMac and place it in an external USB carrier. You can then attach the drive to another Mac and try to access your data that way.

Getting into the insides of an eMac is not an easy task though, and that's what you would have to do to get at the drive.

Thanks for the information chscag. Your help is appreciated.