hard disk failing after triying to install 10.4

Frankv · Jun 11th, 2006, 09:45 AM

15" lcd flatpanel g4 800 mhz imac 768 meg ram superdrive model. 4 years old. (came with 256 ram i installed kensington 512 ram back in 2004).
no usb devices were connected at time of problem.
i ran disk utility and verified/repaired disk and repaired the permissions prior. 10.39 was up to date.

was on 10.39 tried loading 10.4 and failure to install message try again came up.
tried again but this time the install disk did not see the hard drive.

booted with c key down and it found sys 9.2.2 and but not the 10.39

used original hardware disk to see if it would help and then tried starting using the option key and it saw system 9.2.2 so i started with that and backed everything up to a portable usb drive.

restarted again in sys 9 and tried to erase and install with the 10.4 disk. it failed again. now i cant see sys 9 and when in disk utilities the drive shows as not mounted and with a s.m.a.r.t failing message.

after using hardware disk again it saw the drive and i tried to erase and load 10.4 but something again went wrong and now i cant see the drive again.

i tried apple s start and fsck command but it wont work on unmounted drive.

i dont have disk warrior ...would it help ?

are there unix commands that i can use to try and mount the disk if i start in apple s?

also if the drive is bad is it expensive to replace.. could i use a external firewire drive instead....?

i'm wsihfully hoping that all this trouble happened because the 10.4 dvd install ran into a corrupted peice of software or a bad sector and that all that his needed is to somehow erase the drive and load 10.4.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. i am willing to purchase new if i have to but i sure would like to get a little more time on this machine even if i could use an external hard drive ect.

Frank

monokitty · Jun 11th, 2006, 12:19 PM

The hard drive has failed from a mechanical failure - hardware failure - which means it must be replaced; no software tools or reformatting can fix a mechnically broken hard drive. We know it has a hardware failure because of the SMART failure notice. You can boot and run the unit off a Fireware external, but I wouldn't do it myself personally for a long amount of time. New hard drives are fairly cheap, but the labour may run you up to an hour. I wouldn't do it yourself unless you've worked inside your iMac before. Also, the attempt to install 10.4 did NOT make your hard drive fail - it was just the last straw the failing drive needed - attempting to install something so big. Your hard drive has probably been failing for quite some time now - slowly but surely.

Frankv · Jun 11th, 2006, 02:19 PM

ok thanks Lars.

Curious about the firewire comment. Are they not robust enough?

Frank

salmanm_786@hotmail.com · Jun 11th, 2006, 07:10 PM

As a temp solution external fire wire is great...remember you cant use USB Externals....
However remember you are limited too 400MBPS...Trust me you will notice the Diff.
I was humoured by a man, in a simmular sittuation who decided to make up for the slowness he will get a sata enclosure and hard drive... no, You are as slow as your weakest link

Frankv · Jun 11th, 2006, 09:54 PM

ok understood thanks for the reply.

frank