desperate, help!

Joined
Mar 3, 2006
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I work at a print shop, and most of our clients want their things yesterday, it's easy to understand that sometimes we overlook and take for granted our computers. We need them too much for them to have downtime--including keeping them upgraded. Today is one such downtime.

I operate a lonely OS 9.1 G4. It has a slave drive for 95% of our client work--the main drive is used for operating systems, programs, printer setups--that sort of thing. I am more of a PC orientated person. It's what I learned on, but I do alright on a Mac; however, when it comes to repairs I'm at a standstill. Kind of like now, of which I'm writing now on a Dell computer I prefer not to mess with.

Yesterday, we had a file issue with QuarkExpress. It did not want to print a certain document because the file was of the "wrong type" and we found that it was somewhat corrupted. It did eventually print and we went on our way. A client change caused us to rework this file and reprint--at the last second of the day. It froze up again, but through previous experience we knew that if we would jsut leave it alone it would eventually print and things would be fine. So we left the Mac on and unattended for the night. This morning, upon a new work day however, the Mac is OFF and starts out by saying it has "problems" with the HD. It starts somewhat regularly, the only difference being the Finder is beeping at me near constantly telling me that there is a problem with the HD. I decide maybe it's best I restart and boot from the installation disk so I can maybe repair the problem.

So I do this and it says that the HD "cannot be read" upon trying to verify/repair. And also all of the sudden, it's decided the secondary drive is not verified and is not mounted. The interesting thing is I could open and explore the HD. It seemed to be acting just as normal--but for some reason it was "unreadable" and with "problems".

I decide to mock re-install to see if it even lists the HD. It says no. It lists a zip disk which is stuck in the drive at the time and nothing more. I try a second time about five minutes later after trying to verify/repair once more....and the secondary drive becomes mysteriously mounted and recognized again. Both the HD and secondary drive are listed. I cancel the operation and restart...thinking perhaps this is a fluke--and even if it isn't I could tolerate those nasty finder messages enough to get what HAS to be done today and it could find it's home in a repair shop this weekend.

But now it won't start, it gives me the wonderful virtual memory error. It wants me to turn the extensions off...and of course that is not going to work in a print shop.

So fed up, I boot from the disk again, doing a bit of exploring....and I find system folders on the HD are there but empty. I find this increasingly bizarre. I think well maybe I can drag some of the items necessary to get this thing running into their place from the install disk. No luck though of course, the HD is still not readable and apparently it's unwritable and locked too...which I found interesting since I'm looking at everything on it right as I do this.

Any ideas on what went wrong and/or how to fix them without losing valuable client data on the HD (like I said about 5% of the client data is on the HD--because it hasn't been moved back onto the secondary drive--they are in progress, new and yet to be filed--on the desktop).

Any information is valued. There are tons of jobs that need to be done today, tomorrow, and yes, even yesterday, that rest on this computer. I'm deperate.
 

Ric

Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
4,260
Reaction score
5
Hi there and welcome !

The chances are when you did the 'mock' install it sounds like it got further than you thought, hence the 'empty' System Folder.

If you can boot from the System CD's, have you got another external drive that you can plug in and copy off the 'client data'...

...then at least if the drive is on it's way out, you will have the data.

Then you will have to try and do a full reinstall.

It certainly sounds like the drive is on its way out... ;-(

regards

Ric
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top