OK, I'm at my wits end. PLEASE help.

B&W G3 450. 256 RAM, OS 9.0.4

It all started the other day when I tried to copy some files I downloaded over to my OS X drive...
I kept getting

"The item '______' cannot be written, because it is in use. Do you want to continue?"

the item name was never the same twice and it was pulling the same thing when copying from
any disk to any disk. THEN Internet explorere bit the big one. It will launch, start to load a page,
and then it will find some spectacular way to crash... Total screen freeze, type 2, type 10,
address error, bus error, quitting the program from which it was launched (will crash the finder or
Drag Thing, depending), etc. I tried reinstalling it but, you guessed it, it installs by way of a disk
image and, as I said before, I cannot copy anything from one disk, image or otherwise, to
another disk.

Today I opened up a work file that I need to get finished and Photoshop gives me "Cold not
open '_____.jpg' because of a problem with the Macintosh Code Fragment Manager."

Huh? So I ran Norton. I ran Disk first aid. I ran Disk Warrior. I zapped the PRAM, I rebuilt the
desktop, and now I've even done an OS re-install. Which means that I'll need to update back to
9.0.4, but I digress (silly Software Update pannel and Mac PoET DSL).

But nothing has worked. All those problems persist. I don't know what to do... my wife and I
need this machine for work and I've tried everything I can think of! Please help.

Also of note... OS X crashes on boot now... a gray pixeleated screen (one pixle black, one white,
etc.) with a gray (actual gray pixels) section drawn accross the bottom... like it crashes while
trying to sync the screen. I don't care about that... I can re-install that anytime, but could the
problems be related?

Thanks,
Simon Stearns

[reader50]

It is possible that you just need to do a virus scan. We do not get as many viri as the Windoze world, but we do have a few.

Another possibility: the drivers on your HD could be hosed. Fire up Drive Setup, and select your drive. Under the "Functions" menu, choose "Update Driver". This will put down a fresh driver file on your HD.

Note that this answer assumes you are using an IDE or Apple-supplied SCSI drive. If you are using a 3rd party SCSI drive, the "Update Driver" option will be dimmed out. You would need to put down a fresh driver copy from whatever utility you used to format the drive originally.

Also, you should back up your files before fooling around with the HD drivers, messing up here could produce a lot of work for Norton. If you were to accidentally do a Low-Level Format (SCSI) or Zero All Data (IDE) you would lose all data on the drive. Even Norton could not get it back.

If all else fails, backup and do a full reformat of the drive. Including Low-Level Format (SCSI Drive) or Zero All Data (IDE Drive). These options are under Initialization Options in the menu bar. Reinstall. And if you install X on an IDE drive, make sure you install it only on a drive set to Master. Some experts suggest you should also make sure the Master drive is on the end connector of the IDE cable.

Hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by reader50 (edited 10-10-2000).]