problem with HD, Tiger won't install

Hello there.

I got this PowerBook G4 15-inch from ebay and everything was working well till one day it stopped working and there was this kernel panic error on booting.

The install CD boots, lets me choose the installation language and start the installation, but when it asks on which device I would like to install Mac OS X it doesn't show me any device to choose and I can't get passed this.

Disk Uitility said the HD had reported a fatal error and that I should save all the data I could and replace it with a working one! The disk and partitions appear in red on the left column and I can't perform any action on them.

Now, since I needed to work with the computer I installed Ubuntu for ppc machines. It recognized the HD and the partitions, although all of them presented some kind of alert. I had to erase the entire disk and it is working ok, but I'd like to have Mac OS X back and I think if Ubuntu recognises and is able to install on the HD, Mac OS should too, shouldn't it?

Any suggestions? Thanks.

chascar said:

Hello there.

I got this PowerBook G4 15-inch from ebay and everything was working well till one day it stopped working and there was this kernel panic error on booting.

The install CD boots, lets me choose the installation language and start the installation, but when it asks on which device I would like to install Mac OS X it doesn't show me any device to choose and I can't get passed this.

Disk Uitility said the HD had reported a fatal error and that I should save all the data I could and replace it with a working one! The disk and partitions appear in red on the left column and I can't perform any action on them.

Now, since I needed to work with the computer I installed Ubuntu for ppc machines. It recognized the HD and the partitions, although all of them presented some kind of alert. I had to erase the entire disk and it is working ok, but I'd like to have Mac OS X back and I think if Ubuntu recognises and is able to install on the HD, Mac OS should too, shouldn't it?

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Click to expand...

G'day chascar and welcome to Mac-Forums.

Boy you've had some bad times with your PB G4. When you bought it from eBay, were you aware of the HD problems?

So, Mac OS X disc won't install but the Ubuntu disc will ... I would suggest you try booting from the OS X discs once again to see if your luck has changed. You never know it may work this time.

Post back with your results please.

Hi. I just retried.

I have to say that yesterday, fooling around the GNOME partition editor noticed there was this previous partition (hda1), which was reporting some error. It was very small, less than a 1MB, so I take it was the previous debootstrat partition or something like that. So I proceeded to erase it, thinking it might be the problem for installing Tiger. Unfortunately the operantion appears to have failed since there was an error or something. Now the Gnome partition editor doesn't recognise any partitions at all in the whole HD. But Ubuntu still works.

So now I'm trying with the Tiger cds again. But Iget the same problem. Step 3 (select destination) says: Select a destination volume to install the Mac OS X Software. But it lists no options. And Disk utility doesn't recognize either the HD partitions. The problem it reports (I hadn't noticed this before) is S.M.A.R.T. status: Failing. When you click on the divre it says:

This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility. If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and the replace it with a working drive.

I don't know if I said it but I run the Hardware Tests (short and extended) and they reported no errors.

I'm going to gather some info about the SMARTstatus thingy. Do you guys know anyway how much it would cost me, approximately, to buy a new HD and have it installed?

Not an answer to your problem, however the hda1 was most likely created by linux.

No, it wasn't, really. Linux created a new one when I told the installer to erase the entire disc. However it didn't erase that small partition.

It doesn't look good for your PowerBooks HD, chascar ... there's a chance it may stop spinning without any further warning.

Hopefully you can recover any important data and I'd advise backing it up without delay.

It's odd that Ubuntu is working without any hitch.

Here is a link to give you some idea of the cost of replacing the HD.

Powerbook G4 15in (Aluminum) Disassembly

Thanks. I'll give it a try.