g4 will not boot up

[Simon Carlson-thies]

Before you panic:

try reseting the PMU… and if that doesn’t work try replacing the pram battery, if that doesn’t work boot your computer in target disk mode and get your files off onto another computer, and off to the repair shop for you..

Simon Carlson-Thies,
Digital Light Graphics And Animation

[Mike Hennessey]

Hi Simon, that was a bit over my head. Can you dumb it down for me?

FYI, I booted off of the system disk, opened disk utilities to verify/repair the disk and they failed. I have an

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

might also want to try disk warrior:

https://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

there are other technical solutions (fsck being the primary one), however when you can’t boot, you would typically boot to the command line and run a few utilities, but if you’re not comfortable doing that, then diskwarrior is a valid option in most cases…

sitruc

[Simon Carlson-thies]

give the disk warrior a try…

look at this link:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300552

to reset PMU
look here:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300341

to boot in target disk mode
look here:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

see if those work then I’ll see what I can do to walk you through replacing your pram battery…

Simon Carlson-Thies,
Digital Light Graphics And Animation

[Mike Hennessey]

I

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

[Mike Hennessey] “Assuming it does work can I just go on using the computer or do you recommend a clean install?”

well – i guess it depends – probably can’t hurt and apple offers a lot of tools to help with that…

sorry to not have a simple answer, but it’s sort of a personal decision based on what you find out was wrong…

sitruc

[Mike Hennessey]

I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I am at the tail end of a project that I would love to get out the door before I rebuild the computer. I guess I’ll check out the apple tools to see how easy it would be and then decide.

Should I still reset the PMU and replace the pram battery?

Thanks a ton for all of the help!!!

FYI, here is what DW had to say:

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

i’d say wait for the end of your project – unix is pretty good and staying fixed when you fix it – windows sorta always likes a reintall after a while, but unix is nicer about that…

if the box is running, there’s probably no need to deal with pram stuff – that’s sort of a first attempt that might help but if all is well it won’t do anything…

sitruc

[Mike Hennessey]

Cool. Thanks again for all your help.