[drphoto]

I gave my sister my old G4 titanium laptop. They said they were having problems, so I went to check it out. Seems it can't find the startup folder, so I try to run good old Diskwarrier. It kept stalling out on the rebuild of the boot drive. Tried the OSX startup disk, but it can't find the hard drive.

Any suggestions? I have an external portable USB drive. Can I load the OS on it and boot from that?

The drive is a fairly new WD, not the original.

thanks

[Bemopti123]

I do not know, even though the HD might be new, it seems to me that there has been a failure.  Do you hear the drive clicking?  Whenever you give something out to someone else, there are too many variables to take into account.  Was the laptop dropped?    Do you have the original reboot disks that came with the laptop?  In all matters,  let us know what has happened.   

[Crimson]

Definitely sounds like a bad HD. You can try an external boot, but IIRC you need to do so with a fire-wire drive.

[WGH]

You might have to yank the drive out of the laptop and plug it into a Mac or PC tower using a 2.5" hard drive adapter to see what going on and run diagnostic tests. These adapters are available at almost all computer supply stores for less than $10.

If you are using a PC, then a copy of MacDrive will let you access the disk (5 day free trial).

[andrewbee]

Use the OSX startup disk to start up and from the utilities menu look for disk utility. Use disk utility to check if your HD is detected or not. If you do not see it then either the disk has failed or the logic bd. I have seen the HD bus fail only once so its more than likely the HD.

If you CAN see the HD in disk utility then keeping the restore disk in the computer perform an installation but use the "archive and install" option and save your user and network settings.

If this works then end of story. If you still have issues the HD is more than likely failing so replace it with a new one, they are cheap enough these days.

Andrew

[toocool4]

Depending on what is actually wrong with the Mac, you may be able to start it in target disk mode. If you have a second Mac boot-p the broken Mac by holding down the T button after you hear the chime. If successful you will see a firewire logo bouncing around the screen. You can now connect the broken Mac to your second Mac, the broken Mac will show up on the desktop of the second Mac as a hard drive. At this point you can attempt to fix the problem or at least get any data off it. You will need a fireware cable for this to work.
Or try to boot-up with the disk that came with like other people here have said.

Chris

[drphoto]

Good suggestion Chris, I forgot about that connection w/ firewire trick. Well, the drive mounted on my G5 tower desktop, and appears ok, but the laptop still won't boot. Might be a motherboard issue.

Anyone got an old G4 Mac they want to sell cheap? Just needs to run word processing and internet. Tower fine, doesn't need to be a notebook.

Thanks for all the help.

[toocool4]

No problem. Have you tried to zap the PRAM? On switch hold down Apple + Alt + P + R keys till you hear the start-up chine 3 times then release the keys. You may still need the CD or DVD that came with it to start it up. Some time they loose the boot drive and you need the CD to boot-up with then you can point it back at the hard drive.

One last thing since you managed to see the drive from your G5. while still in target disk mode get your G5 to boot from the hard drive inside the G4 laptop at least you'll know that the hard drive is okay. 

Failing all that have you tried to look on eBay?

Chris

[drphoto]

If I use the installer disk, it can't find the internal hard drive, nor can the disk utility. Odd, since I can mount the drive on the G5 via the target disk mode. The G5 wouldn't let me boot from that drive. Also PRAM zap did not solve anything.

[toocool4]

I think it's back to Apple or try eBay.

Chris