crashing, bomb icon, hard drive loud sounds, norton "unexpected errors" then quits?

bluesigns

my colleague's g4 [400mhz 384mb ram]

had been crashing more and more over the past few days [wrapping up for a deadine with no time to spare] and now it won't reboot at all !





i don't ever remember seeing the cursor turn into a bomb before... but that's what happens as it is trying to boot up.



she got going by booting from the CD with Norton.

Norton starts doing it's thing and then the hard drive starts making loud noises and then an errror message comes up saying "experienced unexpected errors" and either quits or crashes.



she has gotten it to boot once or twice and is backing up what she can of the 90% full 20gig hard drive by burning CDs.

and is starting to ditch what she can after it's backed up.



the plan right now is.... back up & ditch, back up & ditch, back up & ditch, back up & ditch, back up & ditch...until the drive is a bit more empty.



jump in any time please...

josephg

Do you get a warning that says "bus error"? Cuz if you do...



I had the same symptoms on my iMac 400. Freezing upon startup, it would then display a bomb and "unexpected error. bus error"



Turned out to be bad RAM. I took out one chips, and it booted up fine. I've since learned that "bus error" means a hardware problem, often bad RAM.



Also, if you have another Firewire Mac around, you can back up the harddrive via Firewire target disk mode:



--Connect the Macs via Firewire.

--Boot up the good Mac.

--Start up the troubled Mac with the 'T' key depressed until the Firewire logo flashes on screen. Its HD should show now also up on the good Mac's desktop and you can copy files from it.



Hope you get this resolved!

bluesigns

that's great. thanks for the input.



i just sent off an email to her about the "bus error" thing and wether she's recently installed ram. i will find out tomorrow i suppose.





i've never done "Firewire target disk mode" but that sounds like the solution for a fast mass back up to my superdrive.

and also sounds like a good way to backup my powerbook to the superdrive too.





cool. thank you.





hmm,

the only thing that is dangling in my mind is...

what if she is experiencing some wicked-assed virus? and i do the Firewire-target-disc-mode thing?

safety? vs. likelihood?

josephg

Unfortunately, bad RAM it isn't always newly installed RAM. I've had RAM go bad unexpectedly after several months. So check all the memory chips.



Yeah, firewire target disk mode is great. I've been able to archive disks with hosed Systems that way, since the computer doesn't need to boot up with its System Software.



I don't know much about viruses. As a spoiled Mac user, I don't worry much about them, even if they might be a real threat.





Good luck!

bluesigns

thank you very much for your input.

no matter what happens, i will definitely be putting TDM to the test.



i had her unplug all periferals and try booting again and it worked.

she's been backing up files to CD all day.

tomorrow is clean-up time if will wake up in the morning.

bluesigns

low tech solution:



remove all peripherals from box and continue trying to boot until it does.



first time it boots,

throw away everything that is replaceable...everything.



then, if it still hasn't crashed, try backing up non-replaceable files.



back up as much as you can and keep throwing away everything that has already been backed up.



run norton. defrag.



if it chokes on a file - make sure to make note of it.



go back and throw away the "choke" file.

try again. if it chokes again...make note of the file , throw it away, try again, make note , throw, try again,make note...etc.



repeat until clean.



thank you