[HvyMtlMdns]

Within 24 hours, I have had two of my machines (first the 1 year old MacMini, then the 3 year old G4 PB 17) crash and is now unable to boot. Yesterday, I ran Disk Utility and TechTool Deluxe to search for problems on the Mini and nothing was found. I decided to do an archive and install of 10.5. Five minutes into the process, I get an error saying that the installation cannot proceed because it cannot place certain files on the volume. Now there is no operating system and I can't install a new one. It is under warranty and I was planning on taking it in for repair.

Then, this morning, the same thing happens to my PB (which is under warranty until Saturday!). First it won't boot, then I and the IT guy ran Disk Utility, Tech Tool Deluxe and Disk Warrior ( a few minor issues, but nothing that would impede booting). So we try the Archive and Install option and the same thing occurs a few minutes into the installation.

I now have two machines that suffered the same problem within 24 hours in almost the exact same manner. I'm trying to look for commonalities between the two machines and have identified the following:

Same OS was installed on both - 10.5.5 (Family Pack Original Disk)
both use the 2.5" notebook drives (though different sizes)
both are connected to the same wireless/wired network at home (behind many, many firewalls)
Twice a day, the Documents folders are synched between the two machines (Chronosync)

Good news is that 99% of the files are backed up on two separate external hard drives and a third computer.

Questions:
1. Is this an OS problem?
2. Could this be some virus (though I run virus programs regularly)?
3. Could a file common to both machines (via sync process) be causing problems with the OS booting?
4. Coincidence?
5. Are there any other reasons why this might be happening, SW or HW (in general, and for both machines)?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[Big Mac]

It's not a virus. I don't know why people jump to that conclusion when there are no OS X viruses in the wild. A Windows reflex, I guess. It sounds like it's a problem with the installer DVD. Usually problems like that are due to bad OS discs, and it's pretty conclusive if the same error is occurring on both of your Macs.

[HvyMtlMdns]

I thought that was a possibility too, but we tried a second install disc from my employer's IT department. As for the virus, I didn't put a lot stock in that option, but at this point I'm just trying to find an answer or narrow down the possibilities. IT is going to try to boot up off an external FW drive so I can retrieve the small amount of non-backed up data before trying to reformat the hard drive. Oh another symptom? - Both IT and I tried to Verify / Repair permissions and were unable to do so because of a problem "exiting". Not sure what this is or why it is happening (occurred when booted from OS X install disk and occurred on both machines).

[JKT]

Is it possible that both machines suffered a power surge at the same time? It seems unlikely given that one is a laptop, but it could explain the problem if there is no other unifying link between them.

[ibook_steve]

Hard drives die. It's a common fact of life with the technology that has bitten me a few times in the last few months, sometimes 2 in a short span of time. I once read an article about hard drive technology calling them "little boxes of magic" and stated how it's amazing that such an old technology (at least 20 if not almost 30 years) can still work as reliably as it (usually) does. Your problem is probably just an unfortunate coincidence.

Steve

[romeosc]

If you can boot from external drive, Back up all files, format and reinstall OSX.

You probably hosed the OSX installation while reinstalling OSX.