[Tetsuya]

I have an older Dual-2Ghz G5 (the original run) that has served well for many years.

Just yesterday it locked up while the screen saver was active - i figured it was a kernel panick (rare but it happens) and rebooted the machine.

It refused to boot into OSX. It just sits at the grey screen with the dark grey apple and the spinny-wheel forever, and eventually, the fans spin up to top speed.

It can sit this way for hours.

I put the Hardware Test CD in and ran the short test, and it came back clean (im running the in-depth test now).

And this isnt just the drive - it wont boot from the Install CD either (i was going to check the drive for damage) - it does exactly the same thing when booting from an external drive or the CD.

Anyone have any ideas?

[the Battle Cat]

My 2.7Gh G5 has just recovered from the same thing. I couldn't boot from the HD or the DVD drive. I just kept trying and finally got my Tech Tool Pro CD to boot the computer. I did all the repairs I could in the app and it finally came back up on the HD. There were still starting problems though, so I bought the latest version of Diskwarrior and ran that. It's been problem free ever since. Good luck, don't give up on it.

[Tetsuya]

i threw the drive into my Pro; it comes back saying "Invalid B-tree node size" when i try to verify/repair it.

so, im guessing TechTools and Diskwarrior are my next step.

is Diskwarrior updated for Intel Machines yet?

[the Battle Cat]

Yes, the latest version of Diskwarrior is Universal. Although my hard disk was repaired and seemed fine, I thought it best to get a new hard disk after that. But I needed to recover my data first and the latest version of Diskwarrior worked wonders. (An older version failed to boot up!)

[Tetsuya]

the Battle Cat, on July 2nd 2009, 07:11 AM, said:

Yes, the latest version of Diskwarrior is Universal. Although my hard disk was repaired and seemed fine, I thought it best to get a new hard disk after that. But I needed to recover my data first and the latest version of Diskwarrior worked wonders. (An older version failed to boot up!)

yeah i just bought and am downloading it right now. I need to retrieve the data from the disk; a new disk is on order from NewEgg already.

[Tetsuya]

even Diskwarrior appears to be no match for the disk; it hangs on step 5 of re-building the directory. The entire application freezes.

[the Battle Cat]

Tech Tool Pro has pulled my fat out of the fire before when Diskwarrior couldn't. And vice versa, but if you really want to get that data back then I'd get Tech Tool Pro too in case it can save your disk. Running multiple utilities on a disk can sometimes pull it out of the ditch where only one couldn't. It took both of these utilities to get my disk back. First Tech Tool made the disk recognizable and then Diskwarrior finally brought it back to life. Tech Tool is more than just a disk utility, it can trouble shoot your entire computer system.

And before you get Tech Tool, run Diskwarrior on the disk again. Then again, third times a charm.

[Quicksilver]

Reset your PRAM (command-option-P-R during startup, and hold it until you hear the startup "bong" three times). Later, if you can, try pulling out as much memory as you can to see if that fixes the problem.

Doesn't sound like this is disk related if your system won't boot from the CD or the hard drive.

[Frost]

Quicksilver, on July 2nd 2009, 08:42 PM, said:

Doesn't sound like this is disk related if your system won't boot from the CD or the hard drive.

Yeah, that's the big indicator there.

This sounds like a hardware problem, and not with a drive. I saw the exact same thing on my cousin's PowerBook 17" about a month and a half ago, shortly before its moboard gave up the ghost.

If you can get to your data at all, back it up.

[Tetsuya]

Quicksilver, on July 2nd 2009, 06:42 PM, said:

Reset your PRAM (command-option-P-R during startup, and hold it until you hear the startup "bong" three times). Later, if you can, try pulling out as much memory as you can to see if that fixes the problem.

Doesn't sound like this is disk related if your system won't boot from the CD or the hard drive.

read some of the previous posts; the disk is deader than a doornail. I also got the G5 up and running froma Firewire external that i have around with 10.4.11 on it.

Diskwarrior is having serious issues even figuring out what is wrong with the disk, i think the data i had on there may be gone gone (mostly downloaded TV shows). Annoying.

edit: the disk is now in my Pro so Diskwarrior can work on it more easily. It wont mount and Diskwarrior is having a coniption.
most recent edit: four hours in, Diskwarrior is saying "Speed Reduced by Disk Error: 584" - the number has been growing slowly but steadily.

even more recent edit: 8 hours later, Diskwarrior mounted a temporary image and warned me to get my crap off the disc asap. I'm impressed.

[teflon]

yup, disk warrior can do some damned impressive things sometimes.
One word of warning, though, when I had to recover a HDD using diskwarrior, there were still a number of files which were broken, a few of them video. So youll want to go through all those video files and double check to see that they a)run b)are the right size for the file and c)dont glitch half way through

[the Battle Cat]

Quicksilver, on July 2nd 2009, 06:42 PM, said:

Doesn't sound like this is disk related if your system won't boot from the CD or the hard drive.

Frost, on July 2nd 2009, 06:46 PM, said:

Yeah, that's the big indicator there.

This sounds like a hardware problem, and not with a drive. I saw the exact same thing on my cousin's PowerBook 17" about a month and a half ago, shortly before its moboard gave up the ghost.

And ordinarily I would agree, but I just suffered the exact same problem on my G5 as he did so I chimed in. My problem was my hard drive was so discombobulated that the entire computer was a basket case. Finally fixed the hard disk, copied the data onto a new disk and all the problems are gone. My DVD drive is now working normally and can easily boot my computer again like nothing happened.