Dreaded Beach Ball

Question

I used migration assistant to copy files from old G5 powermac to new macbook. It took 15hrs to copy about 20gb which seemed to long. Then many of the files and settings I'd hoped would be copied were not. But ok, I can reistall/reconfigure as necessary although I could have done that without using Migration Assistant.
Anyway, the bigger problem is: the old G5 now won't launch OSX properly since disconnecing the firewire link - the dreaded beach ball appears and spins away infinitely. I can make no moves whatsoever.
Any ideas anyone?
G5  
G5   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

Thanks... ;-(
Seems like something to do with the way anything on .apple. will refer to urls... those links work, if on another site.
Underlying task:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411
Over-lapped extents
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25770
FSCK benign errors:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107250
Resolve startup issues; disk maintenance with "fsck" and Disk Utility:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure ;-((
Actually wise to try Data Recover II even before touching it with Disk Warrior, and see if it will find files you need.
Then, create some bootable backups, clone your drives, have a small drive that is only used for emergencies.
Create a disk image (sparseimage) if possible with SuperDuper as backup of small 20-40GB image of your emergency boot volume.
Pick up a WD Caviar SE16 or RE2 500GB $145-165. Very fast and near silent.
I'd recommend Intech Speedtools instead to map out bad sectors, test the integrity of a drive, and do some benchmarking. It also has a thorough (45 minute) SMART diagnostic test.
Even after using everything Disk Warrior 4 can do, TechTool Pro 4.5.2 is also useful to correct files and find things DW skips.