[berkleeprick]

I know this is a common complaint, but I'm having an unusually difficult time solving this. I have a powerbook G4, and when I start it up I get the folder icon with the question mark and picasso finder icon flashing back and forth inside of it. So I assume that means it can't find a system folder or that the startup disk is unrecognizable or something along those lines. But Norton didn't do anything, Disk Utility didn't do anything, resetting the PRAM didn't do anything, etc. I know that the computer is heavily fragmented and was not well to begin with, but I'm unable to solve this in any way. I even tried to reinstall OSX and under the section of the installer where it asks your desired destination for installation, there were no disks listed. So, I'm not really sure how to do. ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated. I have internet access aside from my computer so I can receive replies. Thanks.

[Detrius]

What do you mean by "Disk Utility didn't do anything"? Boot into 9.1 or later and open the Apple System Profiler. Does the drive show up? Does the drive mount on the desktop? Did you try using the Startup Disk control panel to select the drive? Is the volume HFS or HFS+? If it is HFS, you can't install OS X on it.

[berkleeprick]

I did boot into 9 but I couldn't get into the control panel or prefs because I wasn't able to get to the desktop. I wound up just erasing the entire hard drive and installing Panther. I think I would have had to anyway- the system folders were definitely f-ed and the drive was totally unrecognizable.

Originally posted by Detrius:
What do you mean by "Disk Utility didn't do anything"? Boot into 9.1 or later and open the Apple System Profiler. Does the drive show up? Does the drive mount on the desktop? Did you try using the Startup Disk control panel to select the drive? Is the volume HFS or HFS+? If it is HFS, you can't install OS X on it.