Read-only system - how to get back to normal ?

Question

Two days ago, while I was trying to transfer data to an external hard-disk, my 12" iBook G4 suddenly turned down with no particular reason, and I cannot start it properly any longer.
As I have absolutely no technical knowledge, I have no clue what to do, and I hope I can get some valuable advice on this Forum.
I need this iBook - and most of all I do urgently need some data it contains -
but I am at the moment in Cambodia - where I could not find any Apple dealer up to now, except for iPod (probably not always original ones), which doesn't exactly make things easier...
This is what happens when I try to start the iBook:
at the begining, everything seems quite normal...Apple logo shows up, then this rotating thing for a short time...after that the screen turns black, leaving only on the left upper corner in white script the mention :/ root # or :/ root#.
It looks very much like on some computer screens I saw about 20 years ago, maybe with a slightly better quality.
Then there is not very much else to do, except that you can get the mention "Display all 872 possibilities? (y or no)" by pushing the Tab key for about 3 or 4 seconds.
If you agree, you get a list of many things (could be 872), which appear to be mostly function or system checks...all in the same white script on the black screen...some of these checks or things work, some don't...the iBook even gives the reason why some are not working: precisely because they cannot be shown in what is called "read-only system"...now, my problem is that I don't want this read-only system, as it is of absolutely no use to me, and I cannot read any information fom my HD that I need very urgently (and certainly before I go to a country where they have Apple dealers).
I have no idea if this is a common problem, I don't even know how serious it is.
The only thing I know for sure is that the iBook obviously is still living at the moment, but it is not working the way I need it to work.
I tried to restart it numerous times, including by using the Install disk, but nothing helps...maybe the problem there is that the iBook is not understanding I want it to use the Install CD as the starting disk, but I don't know how I can make me understood as long as the screen only shows this white script...
Anyway, I have no clue what to do, and I am hoping I can get some good advice on how to act before going to some PC dealer (it is already annoying enough that I have to use a PC in order to try to find out how to make my Apple product work properly).
Thanks very much for any input.

Answer 1

You do have the CDs with the system software, correct?
You don't say what operating system you are running, is it 10.3.x or 10.4.x?
If it is 10.3, then put the #1 CD in the computer, restart it and hold down the C key while it boots up.
When the installer window comes up, click on apple menu and select disk utility.
When that window opens, select your hard drive (rather than the CD) and click on repair hard drive.
When it is finished, quit disk utility and restart the computer. As it is restarting, you can hold down the F12 key to eject the CD. You should be back to normal. If it was a firewire drive you were copying data to, you might have lost the data if you didn't get to eject the disk before you lost access to it.
+You can and should repair the external drive you were copying data to also, although you can do that from the disk utility (in the Utility folder inside the Application folder) while booted from your laptop, in addition to doing it while booted from the #1 installer CD.+
You should continue making the backup of your data as soon as you get access to it, as you could be headed for a very unhappy situation if your hard drive crashes before you back it up. If you haven't lost a hard drive yet, you will. Everyone will at some time in their computing lifetime. Don't let it ruin your life, back it up now!