Desperately Seeking Genius: iBook G4 won't go past gray screen w/ apple...

Hi AppleHeads. I am looking for some assistance from a nice mac genius. I am trying to fix my sister's computer and am not sure exactly what to do here. Her laptop is an iBook g4 with 1.33GHz Power PC, G4 processor, 512 MB and 40 GB hard drive. She had noticed her computer getting really slow and crashing frequently. She ran some updates this morning and then the computer crashed. Now, it will not turn on past a gray screen with the apple logo. I attempted to trouble-shoot the issue using the guide the computer came with and also ran the Apple Hardware Test. Everything passed -- see the results below. What is my next option? I would like to try and save all of the data as she has not backed up recently (tsk tsk). I'm sure a lot of people post this kind of request, so if there is a solution out there that you know of, please share the information or links. I know that one option is to wipe out the computer and reinstall Mac OS X but I'd like to only do that as a last resort until I can pull the files. Thanks!
Apple Hardware Test - Extended Test results:
Extended Test
AirPort Passed
Logic Board Passed
Mass Storage Passed
Memory Passed
Model Device found
Video RAM Passed
AirPort Passed
Logic Board Passed
Mass Storage Passed
Memory Passed
Model Device found
Video RAM Passed

Hi Doley and welcome to Apple Discussions,
is an iBook g4 with 1.33GHz Power PC, G4 processor, 512 MB and 40 GB hard drive. She had noticed her computer getting really slow and crashing frequently.
Was she aware of how full the hard drive was? That can often lead to problems.
Uh oh just noticed this:
Mac OS X (10.0.x)
Is that right?
the 14.1" 1.33 ran Mac OS X 10.3
the 12.1" 1.33 Mac OS X 10.4
Saving Data:
Does she have the original install disks?
See if it can boot from them or an appropriate installer for the size.
If so then save to an external drive or another Mac in target mode.
If her iBook will go into target mode it would then act like a big expensive external hard drive:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
After saving data:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
or use disk utility. Depends on what OSshe was running.
She ran some updates this morning and then the computer crashed.
If it happened while the computer was updating after downloading them that would really mess up the OS.
If that's the case it might take a program like Data Rescue II to retrieve data off that hard drive.
Richard

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<hr>
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Won't boot past gray screen

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thunderable and fantast1cdan
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thunderable
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!http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT8uGcDJDrUrECaelR5ash9yA3zuGBakhxrJ9TjfjO_uoCmKQ&t=1&usg=_5RiQv2QkO7UuPLUpiige1MVxdb0=!
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I have booted off my Leopard install disk with both option and c, repaired the hard drive a number of times, with there being no errors whatsoever. I have tried repairing permissions, but everything seems to freeze up, except the mouse.
For some reason my computer will not boot into safe mode, either, and holding cmd & s at startup doesn't get me to the stage where I can enter commands with the keyboard.
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I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could assist me with this unfortunate dilemma. It's such a shame that my computer has been fantastic for so long and now decides to play up. (Maybe it's just Apple trying to get me to buy a new 2.4Ghz aluminium Macbook sooner than I was planning...)
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Hi ds,
Sorry to hear you're having such trouble!
Unfortunately, the best thing you can do at this point is reinstall Leopard (and then attempt to install the combo updater, too). If you don't have a backup of your machine, you could boot it into Target Disk Mode (by holding down T at startup) and then attach it via FireWire to another computer to salvage your files.
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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. There are a few other things you could try first; you could, for example, manually download the relevant combo updater from Apple's website and attempt to install it to your damaged machine while it's in Target Disk Mode. If you have a copy of Disk Warrior, that too is certainly worth a shot (and in some cases may be the saving grace). In my experience, though, a failure of this magnitude isn't easy to resolve.
Hope that helps.
—Hazy

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