[baddaawg]

hi all. I have a mac mini g4 (1.5ghz) and my hd is no longer recognized on it. (the blinking os 9 blue folder of death. ) i installed (or tried to install) techtool pro 4 edrive on it and at the end of the process, the techtool pro screen said that there was an unexpected error (14) and i should run the drives and folders check in techtool pro. i did that and there wasn't a problem. of course, what i didn't realize was that ttp was checking the edrive and not the actual drive. well, after taking out the ttp cd, and restarting, no hd/system folder/etc. thankfully i had a 10.4 install dvd and ran that. the only place it could install the system was the edrive (6gb) and it couldn't see my regular hd. where is it, and can i get it back? (i have 386mb left on my hd/edrive and can't install anything else like games or other programs.)

[MichiganRich]

Where to begin.....

[seanc]

Well, it sounds to me like y our internal drive has failed, you'll most likely need to get it replaced. Just to be sure, run the Apple Hardware Test, it should be on the first disc or a separate disc of your restore CD set. Follow the instructions on the front of the disc to find out how to run it.

[darcybaston]

If the OS X install DVD won't install, while the installer is still displayed on your screen, go to the tools/utilities menu and launch Disk Utility. From there, check to see if the drive is at least mounted. If it is, check to see if it's reporting any data on it (click on it and look at summary info). If it is, check the partition information for anything fishy. Then try a 'verify disk'. If any errors come up, try 'repair disk'.

If the verify and repair fail, thank yourself for having made a backup of that drive at least 24 hours ago *cough*, and try formatting it. If the formatting goes ok, then quit Disk Utility and try the OS X installer again.