Cannot Load Mac OS X, Hard Drive not found

Yesterday I went to turn back on the computer, and I was unable to login using my original password. I looked in the manual that came with my Powerbook G4, and followed the directions to reset my password. However, I was unable to reset the password, so I then decided it was time to just reinstall the OS X operating system, but was given an error that the software could not install. When I went to re-install the software again (restarted the computer with the Disk 1 inserted), the hard disk was no where to be found. I have no idea what to do (I'm still a relative newbie as far as Macs go), and I am only able to get to the Installation screen if I load my Disk 1, otherwise my computer will not do anything but display a blank screen with the little circular image in the middle.

I have done everything in the manual regarding re-installation, but there doesn't seem to be anything in there for my particular situation.

Any help on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

It's possible that you have a dead hard drive. I know I just replaced the drive on my PB G4.

The good news is hard drives are cheap ($70 for a 120 GB), the bad news is disassembly of the machine (1.67GHz FW800 model for me) was a bit tedious. I think earlier machines are easier.

If you boot the installer disk, can you go to the menu at the top and select Disk Utility. See if the machine even sees the hard drive anymore.

Scott

I can get to the disk utility, and it shows the HD, but it looks somewhat faded, and when I attempted to use the first aid option it said that there were errors and that it could not complete the task. I don't think the HD is dead, but it seems almost hidden and unusable. I think the other options in disk utility were to erase, partition and something else, but I have not tried any of these things yet.

etortiz said:

I can get to the disk utility, and it shows the HD, but it looks somewhat faded, and when I attempted to use the first aid option it said that there were errors and that it could not complete the task. I don't think the HD is dead, but it seems almost hidden and unusable. I think the other options in disk utility were to erase, partition and something else, but I have not tried any of these things yet.

Click to expand...

That sounds very much like a bad hard disk. I would suggest trying an erase. If that fails, it's time to start shopping for a new drive.

Haven't yet tried erase (sounds like a bad thing, but will probably give it a shot tonight).. I tried the /sbin/fsck -fy in single user mode, and got the following error message:
Checking Catalog File
disk OS3: I/O error
Invalid Key Length
(4, 3855)
** Volume Check failed
localhost:/root#

That is exactly what it said each time I tried running the process.. If anyone knows what this means, I would greatly appreciate it! (Still holding out hope that the HD isn't "dead")

etortiz said:

Haven't yet tried erase (sounds like a bad thing, but will probably give it a shot tonight).. I tried the /sbin/fsck -fy in single user mode, and got the following error message:
Checking Catalog File
disk OS3: I/O error
Invalid Key Length
(4, 3855)
** Volume Check failed
localhost:/root#

That is exactly what it said each time I tried running the process.. If anyone knows what this means, I would greatly appreciate it! (Still holding out hope that the HD isn't "dead")

Click to expand...

Well, Erase would wipe all of the data. If you have anything of importance on that drive, I would refrain from doing that. My recommendation would be to buy a replacement drive (I'm fairly confident at this point that you have a bad drive), install it and then hook that drive up externally to see if you can retrieve any of your old data from it.

Sorry to ask so many questions... But how would I hook the bad drive up externally to try and extract files? I'm kind of a new to this whole thing, so any and all help is appreciated.

Also, for the hard drive I was thinking about getting a Western Digital SATA drive.. Is this a good brand? Or should I look elsewhere.

Thanks

etortiz said:

Sorry to ask so many questions... But how would I hook the bad drive up externally to try and extract files? I'm kind of a new to this whole thing, so any and all help is appreciated.

Also, for the hard drive I was thinking about getting a Western Digital SATA drive.. Is this a good brand? Or should I look elsewhere.

Thanks

Click to expand...

You can either get an adapter that allows you to hook it up externally temporarily, or an external enclosure that allows you to use it as a full-time external hard disk.

Whether your drive uses PATA or SATA depends on the specific model of the notebook. I know that all Intel-powered MacBooks and MacBook Pros use SATA hard drives, but am not sure about the Powerbooks. I'd imagine that some of the newer models of Powerbook will. Do you know what CPU speed and screen size your Powerbook is?

As far as brand goes, I would highly recommend Seagate because they have that longest warranty in the business at 5 years (although Western Digital is not a bad brand, I think they're limited to 1 year).

It is a 1.5ghz 12 inch silver powerbook g4. I appreciate all your help with this.
Last question, is installation of the new hard drive difficult?? I.e. should I have a pro do it or is it something that I would be able to do on my own?

etortiz said:

It is a 1.5ghz 12 inch silver powerbook g4. I appreciate all your help with this.
Last question, is installation of the new hard drive difficult?? I.e. should I have a pro do it or is it something that I would be able to do on my own?

Click to expand...

Well, according to OWC (http://www.otherworldcomputing.com) and http://www.ifixit.com, your 12" Powerbook G4 1.5GHz uses a Parallel ATA (usually referred to just as "ATA") drive.

As far as doing the replacement goes, it depends on how handy you are in general. My experience is that Apple notebooks are a lot more finicky than your average notebook. I would recommend you take a look at the guide on http://www.ifixit.com to gauge your comfort level.

Thank you very much for all your help, I really appreciate it