My Prefered Start Up Disk Stop Working

Question

Here's my problem:
As of yesterday, my prefered start-up disk (on the Hard Drive "Bob") stop working as a start up disk. The smaller older Hard Drive "Michele" is the only one that works, and is dated back to June (thus being outdated with our Email, iTunes, Safari preferences, etc) There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with "Bob", I see it, and I can select it as my Start -Up, but it won't start from it.
When/How it started:
The Mac went to sleep, and couldn't be woken up (which I don't undestand becuz i set it never to go to sleep). After a 2 restarts with only an "Apple" logo with no spooling, we re-started holding "D" or "C"... thinking it would boot up on the OSX Disk ( I forget the start-up commands) anyhow, it started up on the older drive "Michele" which is NOT what I want.
What I've done so far:
I've gone to my preferences to choose my prefered Start up disk ("Bob") on both the current drive ("Michele") as well as the OSX DVD. That doesn't work. Everytime I restart, it restarts on the wrong Hard Drive. I've ran repairs using the Utilities prog (both from the current drive as well as the DVD) I've also reinstalled Tiger 10.4 onto "Bob" with the "archive" option.
Here's my configuration (as best I as can give)
"Michele" - Original HardDrive (30G) in it's original place
"Bob" - 250 Hard Drive (Internal) on a Controller Card (to allow the this old G4 to recognise a HD over 120G)
(irrelevant) another 160G HD(Internal) partitioned into 30 + 130 on the same controller card
ATI Radeon 9200
Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.
PPC G4 Dual 450 upgraded to Dual 1.3   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   ATI 9200 Radeon Card, CSCSI Controller Card for internal Hardrives

Answer 1

Actually, Disk Utility is more robust and has gotten better with each update. But you have to use it, even if that means using fsck from the command line in single user mode; or Applejack (but you have to install it when your drive is working).
the other thing is - keep your backup current, and keep a separate "emergency boot volume" that you can use.
Disk Warrior 4 is out now.
If the journal is shot and corrupt, you are not going to get a Safe boot to work or help, and you have to repair what is wrong.
I would zero the drive, or even do a 7-way write, to insure that there are not any bad blocks. Bad blocks within the partition table require reformat/repartition at the least.
Also, an Archive & Install when there is/was a corrupt drive or bad block may only mask the problem until later.
Lastly, don't use the boot drive while it is being updated. Boot from another drive and install the combo update, but don't use an active system being updated. And use the standalone downloads for the updates, you can save and use them later. *Using a system while it is being updated is pretty much asking for trouble on the next boot.