Can't BOOT to Tiger

[cmikej]

I am a Mac n00bie and would like a little advice. I have a G4 AGP Graphics I bought used. It has a processor change/upgrade. The original 400 was replaced with a dual proc card from a Gigabit machine. It came with Jaguar, but I purchased Tiger, installed it, and for over a month have been enjoying it.

The problem came today. It would not respond/wake from sleep. I had to reset the machine. When it reset I only get to the BOOT screen that is white with grey apple logo and spinner. I get the apple BOOt chime before that screen as well, but after only a second it powers off.

I have no idea where to start. I put my Tiger DVD in the drive and tried restarting, but I am very new to OS X and am not sure how to set it to BOOT from DVD.

I would appreciate any advice/tips/help.

Thank you

 

[matthew24]

Press the 'C' (from CD drive) button while booting your Mac, this will allow a reinstall or a repair with 'Disk utilities'.

 

[LimeiBook86]

Sounds to me like it may be overheating...hmmm...

Did you try Safe Booting Mac OS X? Hold down the Shift key on startup until you see the loading Mac OS X screen with the letters 'Safe Boot' in red text. That might do the trick.

 

[cmikej]

Thanks for the help

Yeah, I thought at first it may be heating/power. I thought second possiblity could be a bad memory module (there are 4 with 1 being PC133 and others PC100).
I tried what Matthew24 suggested - pressing the "C" key while BOOTing. I was then able to run the Disk Utility. Apparently there was a sector error on the hard drive, and the only fix was to erase because the first aid could not or would not repair it.
I erased the drive, and was then able to see the drive as available for install ( it was a blank list before erasing). I reinstalled OS from DVD.

If it is a heating/power problem this will only be a temporary fix. I have priced some power supplies (about $240 from Welovemacs). I also reset the energy saver settings to not let the hard drive sleep whenever possible - an outside chance that had some role in the problem.

Thank you all for your help. I guess I just have to wait and see if the problem is fixed. If it happens again I guess I'll try replacing the power supply.

 

[mad jew]

Well, doesn't that mean it's a bad hard drive? Back everything up regardless, you may have to buy a new one.

In Disk Utility, is the drive's SMART status verified?

 

[cmikej]

Hard drive

Well, doesn't that mean it's a bad hard drive? Back everything up regardless, you may have to buy a new one.

In Disk Utility, is the drive's SMART status verified?

This is true. I should not rule that out as well. I took this as a suggestion to BOOT from the Tiger DVD again to run the Disk Utility. I ran the verification, and the drive has been SMART verified.

I will definitely be backing up all. The drive Journaled now as well. I also changed the setting in energy saver "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" to unchecked(just in case of some weird chance of that being a problem for the drive).

I'll have to keep a close watch for now. Thanks for your input.

 

[mad jew]

I also changed the setting in energy saver "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" to unchecked(just in case of some weird chance of that being a problem for the drive).

This will not be good for the drive as such but it may help you out since your problem only seems to occur when the thing sleeps. Sleeping the drive actually makes it live longer.

Nevertheless, keep an eye on the drive. If it starts clicking or if its SMART status becomes unverified, then go and buy a new one.