can't boot on internal HD any more

[pedrobot]

Hi all,

I have an ibook g4 OSX 10.3.9

The internal HD fails to boot. I get the gray screen with the apple but no spinning thing, and nothing happens.

On the other hand I can still boot from an external firewire HD and then I see the internal HD fine.

Any idea whats going on ?
Dont know if that will help, but this is how it started: I started having lots of error messages when trying to mount .dmg files.
So I thought, let's reboot and it should be fine.
And now the situation is as I described above.

If the OS on the internal HD is faulty, is it possible to reinstall it without erasing the content and other applications of the internal HD ?

[hayne]

When booted from an external drive (or from the Install CD), do "Repair Disk" (different from "Repair Disk Permissions"!) in Disk Utility to fix the filesystem on the internal drive.

[pedrobot]

Thanks Hayne,

Ive tried that (repair disk, not repair permissions) but it doesnt work. Disk utility says the disk looks ok.

Ive also tried following the troubleshooting guide but I cant even boot on the internal HD in single user mode. Stops at the gray secreen with the apple.

Also, dont know if it helps, but there is this: When I press alt at boot and choose the internal HD, it goes to the gray screen with the apple but then the apple is replaced with a forbidden sign. Seen that before ?

I also tried st else: Booting on external HD, then try to run fsck:
df tells me the disk I want to fsck is:
/dev/disks03

so:
sudo /sbin/fsck -y /dev/disks03

and I get:
** /dev/rdisk0s3
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG

LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? yes

SEARCH FOR ALTERNATE SUPER-BLOCK FAILED. YOU MUST USE THE
-b OPTION TO FSCK TO SPECIFY THE LOCATION OF AN ALTERNATE
SUPER-BLOCK TO SUPPLY NEEDED INFORMATION; SEE fsck(8).

:confused: :confused:

[pedrobot]

Hi,

foloowing the troubleshooting guide, repairing the permissions finally sortof cured the problem. It boots on the internal HD again.:D

There are some problems with some extensions though, such as PACE, which seem to fail. I dont even know what it is...
but well I guess I will search the forum for that stuff and if really it hasnt appeared before start a new thread.

Thanks

Pedrobot

[trevor]

PACE is a copy protection system used by several things, but most notably by Pro Tools. Nowadays it often involves a USB key that you have to plug in to your computer, but back in the olden days of Sound Designer II, it wrote special authorizations to your hard drive.

Do you have Pro Tools, or another app that requires a USB key, installed?

Trevor

[Hal Itosis]

I also tried st else: Booting on external HD, then try to run fsck:
df tells me the disk I want to fsck is:
/dev/disks03

so:
sudo /sbin/fsck -y /dev/disks03

and I get:
** /dev/rdisk0s3
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG

LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? yes

SEARCH FOR ALTERNATE SUPER-BLOCK FAILED. YOU MUST USE THE
-b OPTION TO FSCK TO SPECIFY THE LOCATION OF AN ALTERNATE
SUPER-BLOCK TO SUPPLY NEEDED INFORMATION; SEE fsck(8).

:confused:
I think when checking filesystems other than the "root", the fsck_hfs command
should be used instead of fsck, and rdisk0s3 instead of disk0s3. Something like...

sudo /sbin/fsck_hfs -fy /dev/rdisk0s3

Of course, if you were booted from an "external" HD... it is unlikely that
the internal HD was disk0 at that point. Maybe disk1 or something?

I dunno, maybe disk0 was right. (is 'order' determined by which bus it's on?)

-HI-