Computer stuck on empty, blue screen - is there a workaround?

My Powerbook 12" G4 crapped out on me and I'm having difficulty getting it back up and running. The short of it is the computer stalls on startup on a blue screen with a spinning wheel. I have tried all the suggestions on the document
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp1
but to no avail.
The only other information I have is from when I tried to use disk utility (on another computer, linked to the Powerbook by firewire with the Powerbook in Target disk mode)and it gave me the following information:
Verifying volume "Hard Drive"
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus Volume
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid Sibling link
The volume Hard Drive needs to be repaired
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair.
Since then, I haven't been able to use Disk Utility again. It gets caught doing nothing for an hour or so with no progress.
Can anyone help?

Okay. Now I'm stuck. When I don't have an answer of my own from experience, I do research for it. And what I found doesn't sound good. No pun intended, but when a hard drive fails, usually it comes with some telltale sound, but in other times, it doesn't.
Your symptom seems to be a failing drive (which may sound obvious to some, not including me until I did the research) due to looking up the "invalid sibling link" from your verification.
I never heard of that before nor have I seen it from my verify problems.
I was going to suggest you use TechTool (comes with AppleCare) or if you have access to it, DiskWarrior (my friend let me borrow it once) which tells more than Apple's Disk Utility.
Here's what the problem is straight from the horse's mouth:
http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-forma t=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=183&-Skip=96&-find
So it's good you have your data backed up. These are people with the same problem as yours from other Mac forums outside of Apple, and people have provided help and answers as well (most recent posting is at the bottom of list):
http://www.computing.net/mac/wwwboard/forum/2584.html
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-1020.html
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=micromat&Number=651219 &page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=31&fpart=
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888
Hope those resources help as I didn't have a direct answer for you in regard to "invalid sibling link" from your Disk Utility verification. But of course, as maybe some other people would have picked up on (or not), your hard drive is the issue, and I'm not quite sure at this point if it's hardware or software related (or both), due to the descriptions on how to fix it.
You should be able to repair it though, according to those links. Last/worst case scenario is to get a new hard drive. But see if you can borrow someone's DiskWarrior to diagnose and repair the problem. That should do it.

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see:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2235.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
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Computer stuck on empty, blue screen - is there a workaround?

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