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Vincent_007 · Feb 4, 2003, 01:02 PM

Hi,

I had recently a big problem and I just want to know if somebody already experienced it in the past.

Last week, one of my g4's hard disk went down (Quicksilver 733Mhz). I had OS 9 and OS X on it and the disk had 3 partitions. All OSs were on the same partition. The problem was that I couldn't boot the machine. I was not able to boot neither in OS 9 or X. Furthermore, I had no luck with the AppleCare CD and the OS 9 CD. Disk First Aid was not seeing the hard disk at all and the HD was not even mounted on the desktop. Drive Setup was seeing the HD but with <Not Initialized> beside the name's device. Finally, Drive 10 didn't see any problem with the disk. All the partitions were fine and passed all tests. But during the boot process, I always had the blinking folder with the "?".

I had no choice and initialize the disk this morning but I'm just curious to know what happens. I never saw a problem as hard as this one before on any mac I own and even at my job. The disk have now OS 9 on it and I'm just waiting to see if it will happen again.

If you have any ideas or suggestions about a possible solution to this problem, don't hesitate.

--
Vincent

Macanoid · Feb 4, 2003, 02:13 PM

I would advise you to use diskwarrior - the only tool that's really useful in cases like these

dencamp · Feb 4, 2003, 02:22 PM

I'd second the disk warrior suggestion. It's brought 3 computers back to life for me.

Vincent_007 · Feb 4, 2003, 07:35 PM

Ok! I take that in note and I will try next time because I don't own diskwarrior personally but I will order it for my company.

Thank you!

awcopus · Feb 4, 2003, 11:28 PM

I'd also ask, why are you partitioning? What does partitioning do for you?

I recommend against partitioning in general, and doing so to your system disk in particular.

Keep your system and apps on one disc and install a separate drive to store your data.

Hope things work out for you.

BobK · Feb 5, 2003, 08:21 AM

I would not trust this disk at all. Go buy a new one! Drives die every day, even in MAC's!
With the amount of time it takes to reinstall everything, you are better off using a new disk and starting over.
The old disk will work fine for awhile, right when you start trusting it completley it WILL die! Causing you to SCREAM!!!!!!( you will scream "that a-hole on MACNN was right")

Vincent_007 · Feb 14, 2003, 12:08 PM

Hi,

I'm the one who start this thread and imagine what I happen this morning! Another hd fail!!! My company bought two G4 computer in February 2002. Two quicksilver 733. And two weekas ago, the hard disk of one of them fail and we had to initialized the disk. Now this hard drive is in an iMac and works great (for the moment). We replaced the old hard disk in the computer by a new 40G hard disk. Now the second G4 have the same problem. The symptoms are exactly the same. A blinking ? on startup. We ran Drive 10, Disk Warrior, and Techtool deluxe from the applecare CD and nothing works...Does somebody have already seen something similar?

beldar3000 · Feb 18, 2003, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by Vincent_007:
Hi,

I'm the one who start this thread and imagine what I happen this morning! Another hd fail!!! My company bought two G4 computer in February 2002. Two quicksilver 733. And two weekas ago, the hard disk of one of them fail and we had to initialized the disk. Now this hard drive is in an iMac and works great (for the moment). We replaced the old hard disk in the computer by a new 40G hard disk. Now the second G4 have the same problem. The symptoms are exactly the same. A blinking ? on startup. We ran Drive 10, Disk Warrior, and Techtool deluxe from the applecare CD and nothing works...Does somebody have already seen something similar?

There is what I would characterize as a rumor out there to the effect that Macs of that era with specifically IBM HDs were prone to failure. I got this from our IT guy who says he has seen perhaps 10 of these go down in the last months. Convinced me to add an additional HD to one of our lab machines of this config.

George

captain swing · Feb 19, 2003, 06:04 AM

what appears to be a hard drive problem is not always so.... do a careful check of your ram. os x is very demanding, and ram that runs fine with os 9 can be frightful running os x.

swing

Vincent_007 · Feb 19, 2003, 07:59 AM

Hi,

Hmm, ok...I believe you. But, in the computers it is the original RAM from Apple.

Anyway, I passed all the tests with Techtool Deluxe. It have checked the hardware around the HD. (CPU,Power,RAM,...) If you have other tools to check the RAM, and if you think it could be better than Techtool Deluxe, let me know.

Thanks in advance

captain swing · Feb 19, 2003, 10:05 AM

you can save youself a lot of time by becoming unhappy with tools now rather than waiting a few years

often tools don't show ram problems. i even ran MacTest Pro G4 and it showed no problems!

but clearly in my case the fault was faulty ram.

give it a try if just to rule it out. i wish i had done that months ago!

swing

Vincent_007 · Feb 19, 2003, 06:16 PM

Hi,

I know that it takes a lot of time but I rather like to use the hardware as much as possible until it's time to upgrade system...that way I can buy a lot more later. But when it's dead, it's dead...And despite the fact that it is not safe to keep an HD that failed once...We used to have a good backup system so there is no problem if we can get it back to work.

Actually, the problem that we have is probably caused by the electric system. We moved in some times ago and we never thought that the electricity could have been the problem since we lost the power on the 3rd floor last week. The electrician told us that it was a very old system. The manufacturer doesn't even exist anymore because of problem related to their 'braker panel'. The cable will burn before the panel power off the circuit. Duh! We were lucky...