Need disk repair help fast!

Question

My internal CD drive broke so I bought an external one. Problem is that the computer is in need of serious Norton repair and when using the Sony external CD/DVD drive to run the Norton disk the computer does not recognize the hard drive so I can't repair anything. In other words, I put in the Norton cd and it shows up just fine on the desktop but when Norton opens up and I am supposed to choose a disk to repair nothing shows up to choose from. Nothing at all, just a big blank space. The external drive works because I've burned from it although when I try to burn directly from, say iTunes, it goes to the origional disk drive which is broken so I have to use the toast light program to burn. Maybe there is someway I can make my external drive the default one? It is taking forever to load each program and I'm feeling doom with the way the computer has been acting lately and I really can't afford to be without it as I run my business from it. thanks
imac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
imac Mac OS X (10.2.x)
imac   Mac OS X (10.2.x)  

Answer 1

Hi again, Donna,
Happy to hear you got rid of Norton!
You say your Mac has not panicked since you got rid of Norton, right? If so, you may have already fixed the kernel panic problem. I have not had a single kernel panic since I uninstalled Norton years ago.
If you do experience another kernel panic, the advice about kernel panics that you got from mrtotes is about the best that most Mac users can do for themselves. As explained in those suggestions, kernel panics are often hardware related. Be sure to disconnect all external devices that are not absolutely necessary when checking for and attempting to solve kernel panics.
You should not need to take your Mac to an Apple Service Technician for kernel panics if you can fix it yourself with the advice you have already been given.
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Next issue: You mention that your Mac runs slow (the beach ball spins for a long time.)
If you multiple applications running, close all but one and see if the problem goes away. If so, you may just be working your Mac too hard. Run fewer apps at a time.
If you have any external devices, including your external CD/DVD drive, connected, unhook them all and check to see if the beach ball goes away. If so, one or more of your devices may be the source of the problem. You can find which by reconnecting only one at a time and then checking to find whether the beach ball comes back. If no one device causes the beach-ball to reappear, try connecting two at once to see if any of your external devices might be conflicting with each other.
Your Mac may need basic Mac OS X maintenance. You have already done a Safe Boot, (and perhaps a disk repair), so try a permissions repair next.
Unless you have set the slider for your computer to "Never" sleep in System Preferences > Energy Saver > Sleep, you should also force background maintenance tasks as explained in
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388
The article lists several equally effective ways you can do this, I personally use MacJanitor, which is free and very simple to use.
FileVault slows disk operation and adds processor tasks to your Mac. If you have enabled FileVault, turn it off (turning FileVault off can take a while) to see if your beach-ball problem goes away.
One other thing that can cause slow (beach-ball) operation is that your startup disk may be too full. Check free (Available) space with Finder > File > Get Info. If you do not have at least 10 GB of free space, try Increasing available space on your hard disk.
For more comprehensive suggestions on OS X Maintenance, see Gulliver's
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=122021
Let us know how it goes.
Jim
  Mac OS X (10.4.9)    G5 DP 1.8