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melloyellochelle · Nov 7, 2006, 05:40 AM

I have a G3 iBook that recently started acting strange. It got really slow after I upgraded to the newest iTunes and put Mozilla Firefox on it.
Then it stopped booting up all the way. Not sure if they are connected at all. Now when I try to turn it on, it goes to the apple screen, with the spinning wheel. After a long time it will go to a blank blue screen. Usually the touchpad works and I can see the pointer on the screen.
I called apple (I live in Turkey so I don't have the best resources) and they said it was most likely a software issue. So I should restart my computer with the Software Restore CD's? Or do I use the Mac OS X CD for my computer? And will doing any of this wipe my hard drive? That's my biggest concern at this point!
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Sherman Homan · Nov 7, 2006, 05:58 AM

Use the Mac OX CD, pop it in, restart, hold down the "c" key until you see the Apple logo. The Installer will launch, choose your language, before you run the installer, go to Utilities and select Disk Utility. Run both Repair Disk and Repair Permissions (not "Verify"!)
When they have run, Quit Disk Utility and run the System Installer. It will tell you at some point that you can't install. Click Options, choose Preserve Users and Settings and then you can re-install the system with out erasing anything.
Three leftover chores: one, you will have to run the System Updates to bring you back up to the correct version of your System. Two, you will have a folder called Previous Systems. Want for a couple of days, make sure you are not missing anything, then delete it. Three, depending on what part of the system broke, you may have to re-establish printers, Date and Time, etc.
Good luck!

melloyellochelle · Nov 7, 2006, 09:45 AM

Thanks so much! I think this is going to work, however, I'm stuck at one of the first steps!

When I go to Disk Utility and I run Repair Disk, I get this message in the progress box. And then it doesn't let me run Repair Permissions. It says:
Repairing Disk "".
Checking HFS Plus Volume
Invalid B-tree Node Size (in red)
Repair Complete

What should I do next? Should I just continue from here doing the next steps you said, or is something else wrong?
Thanks.

Big Mac · Nov 7, 2006, 09:49 AM

Sherman is wrong - you cannot repair permissions on your drive unless it's the boot drive. (Your problem isn't with permissions anyway.) You want to run Disk Utility or fsck. You should run it more than once until it no longer reports problems. Then restart normally and see if you're still having problems.

melloyellochelle · Nov 7, 2006, 10:52 AM

Ok, I've run disk utility a lot of times and restarted my computer. It's still reporting the same problem. When I restarted it showed a folder and question mark with the mac face blinking... then it booted to the install. Should I keep running disk utility here over and over again and hope it just stops saying "Invalid B-tree Node size" or is there something else I should do??

Big Mac · Nov 7, 2006, 11:05 AM

Oh, sorry, if it says it can't fix it after a number of tries, it can't. If Disk Utility can't fix the B-Tree problem you have two options. You can either get a copy of Alsoft's Disk Warrior (which should be able to correct the problem), or you can make sure your files are backed up (which should already be done) and reformat/restore your drive.

Sherman Homan · Nov 7, 2006, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Sherman is wrong - you cannot repair permissions on your drive unless it's the boot drive. (Your problem isn't with permissions anyway.) You want to run Disk Utility or fsck. You should run it more than once until it no longer reports problems. Then restart normally and see if you're still having problems.

Big Mac, if you are going to tell people that I am wrong about something in a public forum you should probably consider being right. The poster can not get to a start up screen. How is he going to run Disk Utilities from his boot drive? He can't boot. Hence my advice. Furthermore, there is no way that you know the original poster's problems are not related to permissions. His drive problems are deeper than that, but they could and probably do include permissions problems.

melloyellochelle · Nov 7, 2006, 11:27 AM

OK, my files aren't backed up though... and yes, I know, that's my fault. Are there any other ways to get my files backed up at this point - or is it too late?

Problem with alsoft is that I live in Turkey and don't have an effective way of getting it at this time.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Sherman Homan · Nov 7, 2006, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by melloyellochelle

OK, my files aren't backed up though... and yes, I know, that's my fault. Are there any other ways to get my files backed up at this point - or is it too late?

Problem with alsoft is that I live in Turkey and don't have an effective way of getting it at this time.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Big Mac is right, you need Disk Warrior or a good old fashion reformat...

How about a friend's Mac with a FireWire port and a FireWire cable? You should be able to boot your Mac in Target mode (restart with the "t" key held down) then your drive would be visible on your friend's Mac. Any one there you could do that with?

melloyellochelle · Nov 7, 2006, 12:20 PM

Thank you!
Yes I have a friend I can do that with here. He'll get back in town next week and i'll give it a go then. Thanks!

melloyellochelle · Dec 4, 2006, 08:39 AM

I'm hoping to have my hard drive backed up in the next day. After that, what is my next step? Should I restart the whole installation? Or is there something else I need to do?

Sherman Homan · Dec 4, 2006, 09:04 AM

Can you do the Firewire trick? If so, you can run Disk Utility on your hard drive's icon and see if that fixes things. If not, after your drive is backed up, pop in the Mac OS X CD, reformat, reinstall the system.
Now the fun part, reinstalling your backed up data. How did you do the backup? Were you able to get the whole drive? Just your User account? Is it on another hard drive? On a DVD?
Let us know!

melloyellochelle · Dec 4, 2006, 09:15 AM

Yeah I'm getting another Mac and doing the target disk mode start up and connecting through firewire. Don't know how much space is on the other mac, so we were going to put everything on the network here where we work. Then do the reinstall and then put everything back on from the network. Hoping that will work! Should be able to get the drive too, I think.

But if I have my computer connected to the other Mac, I can run Disk Utility through that Mac on my drive and that might fix everything? Should I back things up before running Disk Utility or just run it?

Thanks!

Sherman Homan · Dec 4, 2006, 09:39 AM

I think you got it nailed. I would try the Disk Utility trick under Firewire but I am not optimistic. Definitely do the backup first! Regardless of whatever is wrong, something is wrong, and fixing it may reveal other problems. Or not. It might recover perfectly. Or not. (!)

melloyellochelle · Dec 5, 2006, 08:40 AM

ok....

we started it up in firewire disk mode. The other computer gave a message that said something like "Unable to read disk that has been inserted." However, it did show up in the disk utility. That window got closed to do some other stuff. Now we realize we shouldn't have done that.

My hard disk is no longer showing up on the other computer. We've tried to restart both computers and try it over again. It still didn't show up. Anyway we can access it now? Any suggestions???

Sherman Homan · Dec 5, 2006, 08:59 AM

Uh oh.
Shut down both machines. Cold, dead, turned off, shut down. Restarting is not enough. Hop on your left foot, try again. If the drive shows up in the Finder, copy everything to another drive, immediately. If it doesn't, see if Disk Utility will repair it.
How about Disk Warrior and Tech Tools?

melloyellochelle · Dec 5, 2006, 09:33 AM

Thanks...

We shut down for awhile... tried again, and no luck.

My computer didn't show up in Disk Utility, or anywhere on the other computer that we could find.

We're going to try again tomorrow. Any further suggestions would be great.

How would Disk Warrior or Tech Tools help if my computer won't turn on or connect to another Mac?

I'm going to the States in two weeks... do you think there is any hope for it, or that a Mac store could back it up more easily?

Sorry for all the questions. Not sure what I should be thinking at this point... I keep eyeing the new MacBooks...