[erikaq]

i seem to have made a horrible mistake... i have a g4 450 on which i am running 10.4.10. i had run onyx and it diagnosed some hard drive problems and recommended restarting from a disk and running repairs. the only system disk i had was a system nine so i rebooted from it and ran norton. it found a problem it couldn't repair and ever since my computer will not reboot from the hard drive. it will reboot from system nine disks only. i have a 10.2 and a 10.1 (now) and attempted to reboot from them but the screen just displayed some crazy code i don't understand. i even managed to borrow a 10.4.6 but it's for a powerbook and likewise, the computer will not reboot from it. crazy code. is that because it's for a powerbook?

a mac repair person told me that i had damaged my 10.4 by attempting to run repairs from a system nine disk and all i needed to do was get a hold of a os 10.4 and run repairs from it and i would be fine again. but this powerbook disk will not work. is it because it's a powerbook disk? if i get a hold of a regular 10.4 disk will that fix this disaster? is there anything else i can do, anything i can grab on line, to get me out of this mess??? i am a freelance illustrator/designer with jobs on the table that i can not do without my machine... i'm in desperate shape, i feel like a fool and i urgently need someone's help.

any advice you could offer would be so much appreciated.

[Sherman Homan]

Norton ate your hard drive directory. Given that OS X didn't exist when System 9 was created, how could a System 9 disk fix an OS X error? Throw the Norton disk in the garbage, after you have broken it in half!
Your Mac repair guy is correct. Your PowerBook install disk won't work on a G4, you need to get the black 10.4 install disk which is a DVD. If your G4 450 only has a CD drive you need to get the 10.4 CD disks. Then you can boot the G4 off of the system disk and repair the directory. You may well have to reinstall 10.4. Good luck!

[reader50]

First, this post belongs in the Mac OS X forum, because it concerns the OS rather than the specific machine it's on. I've moved the thread accordingly.

Next, the problem is that you used Norton to do a repair. Doing it from OS 9 isn't important. Norton used to be a good utility, but ever since the OS 9 / OS X transition, Norton has gotten a rep for damaging disks rather than fixing them. Do yourself a favor and delete Norton.

Now, to fix your disk. Find your 10.4 Install DVD and boot from it. At the installer screen, check the Utilities menu. This will allow you to jump over to Disk Utility, Apple's basic disk formatting & repair utility. See if it can fix the disk up. If it can, great. You could also try Disk First Aid in OS 9, but it may have problems trying to fix your OS X disk. Or it may not, it depends on what formatting options you used on the OS X disk.

If Disk Utility can't fix it ... then things get more complicated. You have three options.

1. Further Repair. Pick up DiskWarrior by Alsoft. This will repair the disk structure. TechTool Pro by MicroMat will work too. Once the disk structure is fixed, try to boot. If it boots, fine. If not, then the OS got damaged too, and will need to be reinstalled from the install DVD. See option #2 below.

2. Reinstall the OS. Do this if the disk structure has been fixed, but the system still won't boot. In the Options page, choose to Archive And Install along with the checkbox to Preserve Users And Groups - this will keep your user folder, so your data will come through intact. When the install is completed, you should be able to boot into your system again and reach your data.

3. Format, then install. Do this only as a last resort, and try to get your data off first. All your data remaining on the disk will be lost. It would be cheaper to buy DiskWarrior, repair the disk, and (if need be) do an archive & install of the OS. But if you need the machine to be booting again right away, you are backed up, can't wait for DiskWarrior, or can't afford it, then you can do this option.

[analogika]

reader50's advice is good advice, and very comprehensive.

One more note about Norton: At around System 9.2, things started going weird, but they were okay. Under OS X, Norton definitely always caused more problems than it "solved". It very nearly completely destroyed one of my disks (it was later recovered completely with DiskWarrior).

Norton have removed all their Mac products (except AntiVirus, which is crap but at least not destructive) from the market several years ago, and with good reason.

[CharlesS]

Norton + OS X disk = dead OS X disk.

This happened to me once too, years ago. DiskWarrior should be able to fix it, but be forewarned that some of the information that keeps track of what folders your files are supposed to be in will likely have been irreparably eaten by Norton, so what you're going to end up with is a huge "Recovered Items" folder with a massive number of files in it. Needless to say, you're going to need to reinstall the OS. But at least you might be able to recover some data from the drive (although it might not be very well organized).

The moral: Never use Norton Disk Doctor Kevorkian on an OS X disk.