[NSalvatore]

Evening!
This is my first post on Apple Nova and unfortun. it has to be becuase there is an issue!

I am not very Tech savy and this is my first Mac, and issue with my Mac...any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Equipment: IMac G5, 20", 250GB, 1 GB Ram, Bluetooth Keyboard/Mouse, Airport Express Basestation, Panther 10.3 OS.

Issue: I have had the CPU since March, never so much a hicup of a problem. Today, my wife was going on Safari to check her email, and the Apple froze. She restarted the system....From there, the CPU booth back to the grey back drop screen with the Apple Icon and a thinking "timer" underneth as it rotates in a clock wise motion. Normally this is when the screen would prompt the user to decide whose account to log on. Instead, it goes to a black screen, almost like DOS mode. It says at the top right hand corner:

disk0s3: I/0 error.
localhost:/root#

You cannot type in any commands. Also the fan is on consistantly in the G5 when this is on going.

Done thus far:
Called Apple Care. They had me go through a specific restart holding down Apple, option and a few other keys (sorry I cant remember). Nothing worked.
Then, they asked me to instal "Instal Disk 1" and do the same thing. As this came up, the OSX installer, they had me go to Disk Setup. They wanted me to run a test to diagnose the errors that could be on going. This test was supose to take 5 minutes. It took 60. Once it finally completed, I was instruceted to "repair disk", after clicking this, within 3-4 minutes, a prompt came up saying the HD could not be repaired.

What was suggested:
Apple Care suggested that I go out and buy a External HD (yes I know, I should have had one already), get all the files off the Mac. They reinstal the OS, followed by 3rd party software (wife had dreamweaver etc) and then other files, music, photos etc.

My questions:
1.Is there anyway around doing the above? Does anyone know of another fix? I hate to say it but those at apple care where not very helpful and I think i might be in better hands of those here.
2. What caused this? I have never had so much as a single tiny issue with the Mac and all the sudden BAM! Apple Care again, had no idea or explanation.

Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated. After this issue is resolved I hope to become part of the community in a beneficial way! Heck of a first post!

Thanks Guys!

[rasmits]

You should take it to the nearest Apple Store, or Authorized Repair Center. There's no reason why you should have to pay for all of that stuff to do it yourself when you have Apple(doesn't)Care.

PS: I'm sorry this is your experience with your first Mac, but it just so happens that you bought an iMac G5, notorious for frequent and painful errors. I know this, because I have one.

[Paul]

If there is a problem with the hard drive (and it sounds like there is) Apple has a service that will attempt to back up everything off of your drive and replace it for a $50 fee. But this is only usually done when the machine needs to be taken into service and the hard drive is still readable, if there is significant damage it may not be possible for Apple to retrieve the data.

What is on the machine that you would like to salvage?

[NSalvatore]

Well from what I was told they suggested going to the local Mac Genus and give them a Ex. HD that I PURCHASE, they will move the info for me, give me the HD back (with content on it, and the CPU) so I can come back home and reinstall the OSX. I have had the Mac for 7 months, and have apple care through 3 years. I am being told that this back up done by the local mac store would be free.

So your saying I shouldnt have to buy the HD either?

My Brother in law is a CPU Engineer...but a Windows guy. I know he has a PC so if I buy the Ex HD I will just go to him...not all the way to the apple store.

I am hoping someone has seen this before so i dont have to do either.

[NSalvatore]

Originally Posted by Paul If there is a problem with the hard drive (and it sounds like there is) Apple has a service that will attempt to back up everything off of your drive and replace it for a $50 fee. But this is only usually done when the machine needs to be taken into service and the hard drive is still readable, if there is significant damage it may not be possible for Apple to retrieve the data. What is on the machine that you would like to salvage?

Actually now that you say it...nothing huge...I mean just the hastle of redownloading music, reinstalling files (dreamweaver) Drivers (Espon C86), my wife has some documents on there....

Reguarding music....If my IPOD has all my music on it, when i reconnect it to the PC, will the music reverse upload into Itunes?

[Paul]

well, you should have a back up solution in place anyway, and an external hard drive is as good as any. If you do go to your brother in law make sure he uses a properly formatted drive because macs use the HFS+ file system and PC's can't read it without special software. If you do end up buying an external hard drive it shouldn't be too hard to set it up with your mac, the problem will be getting the data off the drive; unless your brother in law knows about macs, you will be much better off going to the genius bar.

[Paul]

you have an iPod?!

guess what, you can use the iPod as an external Hard Drive to get whatever data you want off the computer...

the music will NOT re-upload into iTunes, but there are some utilities that will do that for you fairly easily. How big is the iPod? Is all of your music on the iPod? How much free space is left on the iPod?

If you want to back up less than 700 MB of data it should be possible to talk the guys at the Genius Bar into letting you burn a CD of that data in the store before wiping the drive and (hopefully) fixing the problem.

[NSalvatore]

Originally Posted by Paul you have an iPod?! guess what, you can use the iPod as an external Hard Drive to get whatever data you want off the computer... the music will NOT re-upload into iTunes, but there are some utilities that will do that for you fairly easily. How big is the iPod? Is all of your music on the iPod? How much free space is left on the iPod? If you want to back up less than 700 MB of data it should be possible to talk the guys at the Genius Bar into letting you burn a CD of that data in the store before wiping the drive and (hopefully) fixing the problem.

I do, but its a 4GB Mini. I have about 2GB left. I think just about all the music is on there. So what do you suggest?

[Paul]

You have all the music on the mini and it sounds like you only need to back up a small handful of files (you should have the original installers for everything else) from the iMac. I would take the iMac into the Genius Bar, explain your issue and ask them to move the files from your broken hard drive to your mini. Then, hopefully they will be able to reinstall Panther and fix the hard drive problem... but there is a chance that the hard drive will be irreparable and they should send out your iMac to get a new hard drive.

You will need to download a utility to get your music off your mini... MAKE SURE you don't "sync" the iPod with any computers until you get the music off of it...

[NSalvatore]

Alright, so DO NOT Hook the Mini back to the Mac until I have this utlity once this is take care off? Check.

A few questions:
What Utility do you recomend for the IPod above?

What the hell caused this? Crap, at least with my old PC's, when something was going wrong I had a clue.

If I can re download the music files (Acquistion), and the files are not critical....would you say just reinstal the damn OS, and set it up with the other disks, drivers (Bluetooth, Espon, Dreamweaver, Canon Digital) etc like a new CPU set up? And forget the rest of all this fluff?

[Paul]

You could try that... You'd have to wipe the drive by booting off the install CD and going to disk utility and erasing the drive. You would then run a check disk like you did before to make sure the hard drive is still good.

So, these music files aren't legal? You could probably get them back again without much trouble then...

I haven't used a utility to get music off the iPod, but I'll do a quick search and see. Edit: here is one that should work, but there are MANY more out there that all do the same thing, find one you like.

As for what caused this, hard drive/directory corruption is a pretty unavoidable problem for computers nowadays. Thats why it is important to have backups...

[NSalvatore]

Thanks Paul....

I think I might just do that. And I obviously will know if the HD is good or not after that, if it isnt, then it has to go in anyway!

That said...what causes hard drive/directory coruption? Something I did? Virus? Manufacturer error? SOmeone hacked? What is it? What causes it?
Thanks.

[Koodari]

Originally Posted by Paul So, these music files aren't legal?

Is that a polite deduction to make? He didn't say anything about legality, only that it's downloaded, and there is some legal music out there for download.

[NSalvatore]

To be fair, some is some isnt. Alot of my library is me putting in CD's I own and DLing them to itunes to have them handy while the CD's are in my car for example....

But back to what I mentioned...can anyone explain how and why this happened? See my post just before this. I baffled.

[AsLan^]

The problem sounds more serious than the hard drive, I thought that if the hard drive was bad you get the system folder icon with a flashing question mark. I've never heard of anything dropping you into a root shell.

As for getting an external harddrive, that's a silly idea (for this problem, not a bad idea to get one for backups in the future). You'll still need another mac to connect your harddrive and your damaged mac to (in target disk mode), which means if you really only need to save some documents and whatnot you are much better off just copying them to the mac that you would need anyway, then as previously suggested, burning a CD.

If you have an Apple store close, can't you just drop it off there, rescue the data and be on your merry way ? I really can't see why you would want to go through the install process, especially if it turns out to be not a bad hard drive (a bad hard drive would require Apple to replace it anyway).... what did S.M.A.R.T say in the diagnostic tools ?

[NSalvatore]

Guys,
One other question...Its now Monday and Iam just going to bring this thing to the local Apple Store and have a Mac Genius got to work...That said, something interesting has changed now....

As you see in my first post....as I mentioned after the Grey Apple Screen... I got this message as the screen went black...
disk0s3: I/0 error.
localhost:/root#...

Now, on Monday, when I turn the Mac on, I never get past the grey apple screen. Why would that happen?