Reinstall OS hangup: Install disk can't find hard drive

Hi all,
I'm trying to reinstall OS X.3 on my daughter's iBook G4. I had it running ok but Safari wasn't working so I decided to do a clean install of the OS.
Somewhere along the line the internal HD disappeared from the install disk's radar, so to speak. If you're familiar with the install sequence, I can pin-point where things go wrong. Right after the window concerning software agreement--where you check "I agree"--the next window instantly opens asking where to install the software. The problem is the window does not show any drive to select. It's all just white space.
The reason I have to keep trying to reinstall the OS is that if I allow the computer to boot itself, it will display the prohibitory sign (circle with diagonal line) and that's as far as it goes. I have tried using the original install CD, another Panther disk, a Tiger disk and TechTool Pro 4. I've also been able to bring up Apple's own Disk Utility but it can't repair the disk--something is wrong with the allocation section of the volume structure, it reports.
Here's another clue: The battery will no longer hold a charge. This created a bad situation during my first attempt to reinstall the OS, because the power cable accidentally got pulled out and there was apparently no power in the battery so everything grounded to a halt. I haven't been able to get the computer to boot up since.
I realize I may have to erase her drive in order to get up and going again, but, failing to heed Daddy's past warnings to Backup! Backup! Backup! she has no way to restore her data. This is, of course, tragic.
Any ideas? Any lifelines to throw out?
Thanks for reading this rather lengthy post. Help, as always would be most appreciated.
Ddale53
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4)
Powerbook G3 Pismo FW Mac OS X (10.3)
Powerbook G3 Pismo FW Mac OS X (10.3)

You need to reformat the drive before reinstalling the OS or do an Archive install. It wont let you install the OS because there is a newer version installed (is it upgraded to 10.3.9?).
From the sounds of things you'll want to do an archive install. Go down to options (it will show up on the bottom of the installer window where the drives show up). Then click on it and select archive install and away you go.

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So here's the story. I bought a 12" powerbook from a friend. It's old but i liked the machine. So we booted it up at his place and it worked. I took it home and then it wouldn't find the hard drive. I used an OS X install DVD but it couldn't find the HDD for it's life. So I thought it was a bad drive, i called it in for an RMA and used a old 30gb hard drive from an old Pismo i had laying around. it worked fine and a week later I got the RMA drive from WD. I put the new drive in the laptop, fired up OS X install, but the disk utility couldn't fine the HDD!!! So I said whatever, i put the old 30gb drive in but the machine couldn't find that one either!
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Hello there,
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After some research I found out about the nice TargetDiskMode which I used to save all my important data with my MacBook.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
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`

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Hi All,
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does the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard drive return an OK verification?
Does anything show up during hard drive tests that indicate that your iMac's hard drive maybe failing?.
How many applications do you run simultaneously in the background while working in another application?
Do you run any antivirus software on your Mac? Antivirus software can slow down the normal operation of OS X.
Do you run any "crapware" like Mackeeper or any other type of so called hard drive "cleaning" apps?
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Correct and reliable Mac RAM can be purchased from online Mac RAM sources Crucial memory or OWC (macsales.com).
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/6400DDR2S6GP/

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A while ago my laptop (macbook pro 2011, 13") stared to lag, so i turned it off using the power button. When i truned it back on all that appeared was a white screen and a folder with a question mark on it. After doing what i call research i found that it was my hard drive that was not working. So.... i bought a new one (scorpio black 750gb 7200rpm) and put it in. when i trun it on, same thing happens. So then my dad takes it in and the say that they will fix it for $230, take my old hard drive out (which was my new on because it was sill in there) and put in a new on that was only 500gb and 5400rpm. They also told my dad that why it did not work with the new drive was because it has to have so special software already on it so that it could find the disk and use it to boot. So basicly i could not use any hard drive that was not installed by apple. Earlyer on when i was doing my so called research, i found may people that had said that they put in this hard drive (scorpio black 750gb 7200rpm) and it worked fine for them. So i thought that there must be a way to fix it. So i borrowed an external hard drive, installed osx and booted my lap top off of it. It worked fine! but i did not want to carry around an external hard drive with me every where so i thought that i could now open disk utility and find the new drive that was in the computer, NOPE! was not there. so i took the hard drive out and put it in the casing for the external hard drive, pluged that into my other computer, found it there in disk utility and made it a bootable drive with GUID. Opened up my laptop put it back in and....... still did not work! took the hard drive that i had used in the external hard drive to boot up before, i put it in my laptop and same thing happened. So long story short my computer can not find my hard drive and it is not the hard drive that it broken! SOME ONE PLEASE HELP!!!

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It could be that your hard drive IS dead or it could be something as simple as a faulty SATA cable - hard to diagnose from a distance (and I'm quite surprised that an AASP would be baffled by something that MAY be something simple).
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Macbook can't find hard drive

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I actually used my own hard drive to boot OSX on his mac. I replaced his drive with mine, on his macbook. Everything worked perfectly fine that way so I'm pretty sure it's a hardware issue. Thing is, when the hard drive was in my own macbook i couldn't even reinstall OS X or repair anything as the macbook simply could not find a drive to repair or install OS X on.
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Can't find hard drive to restore a backup

My iMac wouldn't boot. All it would do is come up to a utility screen. So, I opted to restore from a backup (I use Time Machine that does backups to an external drive connected to the fire-wire port). I select the date of the backup that I wanted to restore and went to the next screen. When it got to the next screen where you needed to select a desination drive... it didn't find any in the system (there was np drive to select). I assumed the hard drive died so I bought a new one. I put that in this evening and when I trid to boot the machine and restore from a backup to the new internal drive... the same thing happened. It did not recognize the new hard drive I just installed.
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yorm13 wrote:
My iMac wouldn't boot. All it would do is come up to a utility screen.
What do you mean "utility screen"?
So, I opted to restore from a backup (I use Time Machine that does backups to an external drive connected to the fire-wire port). I select the date of the backup that I wanted to restore and went to the next screen. When it got to the next screen where you needed to select a desination drive... it didn't find any in the system (there was np drive to select)
What were you booting from to even attempt this?
I assumed the hard drive died so I bought a new one. I put that in this evening and when I trid to boot the machine and restore from a backup to the new internal drive... the same thing happened. It did not recognize the new hard drive I just installed.
I replaced a 500 GB Western Digital hard drive with a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive.
Assuming you installed it correctly (including the sensor cable) then new drives need to be formatted with Disk Utility.
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Hi,
I just bought a Airport Extreme and set it up to access the internet. However I am having trouble sharing my external hard drive. I followed the instructions in the manuals but can't see or find my "shared" hard drive on my Mac Air or PC?? I have open Finder but there is now shared drop down menu?
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thepescador wrote:
This set up was suggested to me by an Apple Store employee when I was shopping for my AirPort Extreme and that same employee seemed to indicate that this was how they actually performed their backups at the Apple Store, so obviosuly I was surprised to find information online that states it is not officially supported.
Yes, unfortunately we've had a number of reports of similar statements by folks at the Apple stores.
As Tesserax says, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That's probably why Apple doesn't support it. See Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
In my case, it worked flawlessly for about 3 months, then every couple of days the backups would come up corrupted. Once, +Disk Utility+ was able to fix it; another time, +Disk Warrior+ could. The other times, the only solution was to erase and start over. Since then, it's worked well, although very slowly on occasion. And that's all with exactly the same hardware, in exactly the same locations. (And the disk is a Seagate Free Agent Pro, too.)
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Reinstall OS hangup: Install disk can't find hard drive

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