Help! My iBook won't even start up anymore

stillmot · Oct 23rd, 2005, 10:28 AM

I'm getting quite worried as my ibook all of a sudden will not start up and there is information on the hard drive that has not yet been backed up and is very valuable.

A couple days ago I started getting frequent kernal panis, as many as three per hour. After it happened about five times and I couldn't find any common activity that I was doing when it happened, I decided to remove the third party ram which had worked for months just fine. For the next day that seemed to work without a problem. I then put the 1 gig ram chip back in to see if the problem would come back. After about 6 hours, the kernel panics started again. After the second one, I took the ram out and the ibook would not start up anymore. When I turn it on, the apple shows up ith the grey screen but nothing else, not the progress circle or anything.

I have tried resetting the PRAM and couple times and that did nothing. I tried putting theram back in to see if it would start and nothing. I tried starting in safe mode but only got the apple and gre screen. I also tried selecting the startup disk, and after I selected TIger to startup with, the apple turned to a circle with a line through it, which must be some sort of error message? It was basically like a no parking sign without the P, but just that general circle with a line through it symbol.

What is the best way to try and backup this data first before I need to do anything else? Can I set the ibook up as an external drive somehow so I could copy the data off? If I can get the data off, is there anything to try except a reinstall of the OS? Lastly, would it be a clean install of the OS, or the one that saves my settings and installs overtop of the current OS?

I'm using a three month old ibook G4 1.33 12 with the latest OS and no weird hacks or anything abnormal about the machine except for that ram that was removed.

Please help, I'm in big trouble if I cannot get this data off.

MacDoc · Oct 23rd, 2005, 10:58 AM

Where are you??
I'd not do anything more - it's likely with all the restarts you've got some bad directory corruption.

stillmot · Oct 23rd, 2005, 11:04 AM

I'm in St Catharines. I will actually be passing by your place this evening but it will be much after your closed.

Wouldn't bad directories mean a clean install? Can I run the hard drive as an external still just to get the data off?

stillmot · Oct 24th, 2005, 12:16 AM

Any ideas at all qould greatly be appreciated.

I tried starting in target disk moe to recover the data and it says that the disc is not readable. Does that add anything new to whats going on here?

MacDoc · Oct 24th, 2005, 03:43 AM

You have severe damage and as I've said you could do more. I was around all evening.

stillmot · Oct 24th, 2005, 01:22 PM

I didn't receive your email until I returned home.

Can anybody recommend a good data recovery place around the GTA? Any idea on the cost to try and recover just the documents folder?

minnes · Oct 24th, 2005, 01:26 PM

well gee whiz stillmot, how about Macdoc????
or is that too obvious.

stillmot · Oct 24th, 2005, 04:07 PM

Yeah just a little.

I emailed macdoc to see what he could do, but in the meantime, I thought it would be good to see what is out there. I was also dreaming that there might be something in the St Catharines area. If anybody has any recommendations about a data recovery service that also offers a no recovery no fee policy, that would be great to know.

irfan · Oct 24th, 2005, 07:07 PM

I can also help you with this problem. I go between GTA and St. Catharines. I'm in GTA now and will be in St. Catharines during the weekend. Talk to MacDoc, if no go then let me know.