Recovering a damaged system folder

I was tasked with cleaning some files off a Mac Book Pro of unknown vintage. Things were going well until I fat-fingered something. That's all I think happened. Didn't drop it. Didn't kick it. Didn't drive any cars or monster trucks over it. Still hear the happy chime when it boots.
But it never makes past the chime and the wheel of wait.
I have booted while holding down P,R, Control and Command to clear PRAM. I was not rewarded with a second startup gong; just a black screen.
I have inserted the only OS X disk I possess, a real antique, Mac OS X 10.2.8, but it won't boot from that when I hold down C. I don't know if the drive will read, actually, only that it ejected my disk when requested.
And I have gotten it to show me a single, large and very detailed icon of hard disk, smack dab in the middle of the screen, symbolizing, I believe the location of the startup folder. Selecting it, however, merely takes me back to the wheel of wait.
I thank your for your suggestions, should any be provided.

Boot while holding down the command-r keys into the Lion Recovery Disk. From there you can use Disk Utility to Repair the disk and/or reinstall Lion OS.

Similar Messages

How do I do back to previous system folder after archive and install?

Did an archive and install (retaining my existing user account), only to discover it was unnecessary. (Turns out the problem was hardware-related.)
How do I go back to using my previous system folder?

FloydianSlip wrote:
Huh. Hardly seems to be worth "archiving" if you can't go back to the archive.
The purpose of an *Archive & Install* is to install a fresh, known-good copy of the OS, while preserving in the archive all the files from the previous copy of the installed OS that you might potentially need for some reason. (This is why it is called an Archive & Install.)
However, since any of these archived files might have been damaged in some way since they were installed or created, or in some way conflict with a freshly installed OS, they cannot be considered "known-good" without further testing & should not be reintroduced haphazardly into the "live" system.
The value of this install method should be obvious if you consider that if the OS is sufficiently damaged it will not run the computer, either at all or well enough to recover from whatever damage is done. Without this option, you would have to erase the existing startup disk completely (with the *Erase & Install* method), losing everything created or installed besides what is contained in the OS installer.
The closest equivalents to the kind of archive that you can "go back to" are cloning the entire drive or using the 'restore from Time Machine' option from the installer DVD's Utilities menu, assuming you use Time Machine.

How do I install all my old programs and data from an old system folder after I have reinstalled the same OSX system after a crash?

The system is OSX10.5.8 Leopard on a 2009 imac. A new system was installed from the installation disks and the original system saved to a folder.
I need to use my Adobe programs, rescue my email, i-tunes and iphoto data. The disk utility indicates that my Time Machine back-up disk is damaged and I don't want to take a risk of having Time Machine erase my hard drive and try to reinstall the exact system existing at the time of the crash. There was over 650 gb of stored files that I was copying and removing from the drive at the time it crashed. The total size of the original system file is still about 650 Gb.
I would prefer to go back in Time Machine and only rescue the programs as most of the files have been copied to external hard drives, but I can't access the back-up hard drive from the new version of the Time Machine. Or by I don't want the Time Mchine to start copying the new operating system which would include all the data in the old system file. Time Machine was working fine at the time of the crash.

No, the disk was backed up with time machine a few hours prior to the crash. I was unable to open the computer when I tried to restart it- got a grey screen with the spinning disk- after a few minutes the screen would go black and would reboot continuously, but not load any images or programs. I started the computer from the 10.5.4 installation disks and checked both the time machine external hard drive and the Imac internal drive with the disk utilities. Both showed as damaged --the internal drive and permissions were repaired, but the external drive (time machine back-up) was damaged and not repairable by disk utilities. I don't believe that the external drive for Time Machine was connected to the computer at the time of the crash as I was copying files to a different hard drive drive. And I was not having any problems with the TM back-up drive prior to the crash.
I accessed the Imac internal disk by firewire (as a target disk) and copied as many data files as I had room for on my external hard drives available. And I deleted quite a few files from the imac internal drive (mostly just jpegs, duplicate tifs, etc--nothing that was used by i-photos, i-tunes or the Mail program).
Then I installed a new OSX10.5.4 system from the installation disk and the old system was moved to a folder on the hard drive. I previousy had had the option to reinstall the complete system from Time Machine when I connected that drive and booted with the installation disks with the C key depressed. But it didn't seem like a good option because I was unsure of the condition of that external disk and whether it would be able to reinstall my data correctly, once it had erased my internal hard drive.
I'm considering buying some new external hard drives and backing up the present system to time Machine (so I'll still have my old data in the old system folder). And then I would try using the old Time Machine back-up to try to reinstall the sytem previous to the crash. That back-up would reinstall about 700gb of data and operating software and programs which sounds like a lengthy back-up. Since I have never used Time Machine to do a full reinstallation (I've only used it for individual files), I'm reluctant to do anything rash.
I'm a professional designer (with a deadline) but I can still use my Illustrator and Photoshop by opening them from the old system folder and saving the files to an external drive. So it's not neccessary to do anything hasty except to delete some of the excess art and document files that were causing the computer to run slowly and the Adobe programs to crash when I tried to save my work. I have quite a few books on tape in the i-tumes folder which is probably talking up tons of space but I don't where the i-tunes files live.
Thanks for any help. Peggy
Message was edited by: peggy toole

System Folder errors after I changed all permissions on HD to read & write

Hi,
Two things may have caused probs on my new 2010 iMac (Snow Leopard), and Applecare is shut so I would really appreciate some help as I have urgent work.
1) INCORRECT PERMISSIONS
I have been stupid. I clicked on Macintosh HD and changed all permissions to read & write because I wanted to be sure I could open and edit all documents on other computers.
I ran Disk Utility Repair Permissions from the install disc, but I am still getting system error messages, and my HP printer won't work.
The first message, in Repair Permissions, said: Warning: SUID file System/Library/Cores has been modified and will not be repaired. I have read a support doc on this which says no need to worry but I don't like it and would like to fix this.
More importantly, my HP printer won't work, displays error beside the document in print dialogue box.
Deleting the printer and readding it didn't work, so I downloaded new drivers and tried to install them, which is when I got the second system error message: System extension System/Library/Extensions/BJUSBLoad.kext was installed improperly and cannot be used. Please try reinstalling it or contact product's vendor for an update.
I checked the permissions on the file and they were still wrong despite Repair Permissions, allowing everyone to read & write. So I have now clicked on the entire System folder and changed the permissions to: System read & write, admin read only, everyone read only.
Will this fix it or do I need to do something else, such as check ownership, to make sure all permissions on the computer are now correct?
2) MEMORY STICK SHUT DOWN MY IMAC
Additionally (though I don't think this had anything to do with my problems), I inserted a Sandisk USB memory stick the other day and it immediately shut down the computer. When I inserted it into my Macbook it initially rejected it and gave me a message saying the device wanted too much power so it had ejected it to prevent damage to my computer. When I tried again it was OK. I totally reformatted the stick in case there was something harmful on it, but should I now bin the stick as faulty? Scared to use it again.
3) IS IT BEST TO REINSTALL ENTIRE SOFTWARE?
If I do a reinstall of all the software from the install disc, will it wipe out all my data, such as Mail, documents, bookmarks and other apps?
I would back-up, but if I try and back up files on my external drive it will automatically do a Time Machine back-up and I don't want to do that in case it backs-up all the corrupted files. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind starting again just to be sure all is well.
Expert advice would be very much appreciated.
Thank you
Sarah

Oh, silly really. I was in a hurry and working on docs that I needed to take to the office and open on another computer there.
But when I checked the permissions on the doc it said I could read & write but everyone else was read only.
I thought if I opened it on another machine I'd be stuck with read only access and not be able to work on there. I think I couldn't change it, so I thought to avoid any future problems like that I would change everything on machine!
Yikes. Won't do that again
Sarah

Restore from Time Machine backup doesn't install working system folder

A routine restart turned into a major problem this morning. I'm runnning 10.8.5. on a MacPro tower and a 480GB SSD for a boot disc. Been running fine for the past 2 years.
I restarted the machine and when I came back to it I was dropped into the Recovery / OSX Utilities screen. This was unexepected!
Tired restarting again, and it gave me the circle+line through icon ( / ) a couple of times and then the apple as it apparently located the Recovery partition.
Running Disk Utiliites "Repair" and "Repair Permisions" on the SSD came back with flying colors, so I assume it's not a hardware issue. That said, multiple reboots and nothing. I was basically dead in the water. I only have a boot USD stick, which just launches you into recovery mode.
Knowing that I was going to be out for a few hours and that I have regular Time Machine backups of my drive, I opted to perform a System Restore on the main SSD, using a backup from earlier this morning.
After 4+ hrs of "restoring", I optomistically rebooted the machine. It's still gave me the "system folder not found" icon, and booted into Recovery mode.
This time I quit the application and specifcially went to select the SSD as a Startup Disk and it's not even showing a 10.8.5 folder on the SSD!!
I just booted up my Mac Pro in target disk mode and plugged it into my MacBook Pro to examine the drives. I can see all 4 drives on my MacPro, including the boot SSD. My boot disk appears to contain all the files it had before, but won't boot! I can verify that the backups are the exact folder structure that I had before, so what's going on?
Should I:
Wipe the SSD again, and install OS X from my laptop? Can I do that through Target Disk mode? Or just do that through the Recover Tool?
Some people with similar issues were told to perform clean installs and use migration assistant to pull the files over. But I really would like to know why using Time Machine backups aren't doing what they are supposed to – the files are all there!
Is there something I can do to my restored SS
Obviously this is a desperate time for me, so any assistance is greatly appreciated.

So far, the closest to a solution has been that I've since reformatted the drive. Installed a fresh copy of 10.8, and now I'm trying to migrate over all my content from the Time Machine backup using the Migration Assistant. In an hour I'll find out if I just wasted the last 2 hrs.
I guess I have a "Quad Core", I have two many machines to keep all the specs straight. I've been using it for over two years. It's not an OS issue.
I'm still blowaway by the fact that I could actually just restore from a Time Machine backup. When connecting to the TM via the system utils, it should be handled like a byte-for-byte clone. I think that's a rather major failure on Apple's part, but not the last one of late.
I still am not confident enough in Mavericks to take that plunge.

Upload System folder to use Classic in OS 10.4.6?

Hello, I have recently upgraded my old iMacs (400MHz & 500 MHz) to OS 10.4.6 and they both seem to run fine, except one thing, they don't have Classic. I have Classic ablility on my iBook G4 which uses OS 10.3.7.
My question is there anyway to just download the "system folder" that Classic uses in my OS 10.3.7 and upload it onto both the computers in order to use CLassic?
This is important since I am going to by upgraded the two iBook to OS 10.4.6 and that would be great to have Classic without trying to install OS 9 then OS 10.4.6, to just use Classic, and that opens up another can of worms when trying to back up the new address book and emails, etc. But I hope there is a way. Help if you can, thanks.

I'm not sure if this is a "big discovery" or not but I actually did copy the system folder and applications (Mac OS 9) from my iBook G4 running OS 10.3.7 to my iMac G3 running OS 10.4.6. I buurned it onto a CD and to my amazement it works!
I went into Classic in preferences and it found the Macintosh HD (I had restarted a few times, while going through to each step)
I put the system folder and application of OS 9 in to the Macintosh HD just like they were on my iBook.
When it was in Classic and it found the folder, I started it up, it said something about needing to update the folder, and it wouldn't affect boot folder (or something of that nature), so I clicked OK and it started up and I was running Classic.
That is only the half of it. And I had called up a person in Tech Support at Apple earlier in the day and they told me I would need to "Install" off the original 2nd CD (additional software)and that would give me Classic. But I bypassed that and just took the folder from my iBook and put it onto OS 10.4.6.
I restarted.
The whole reason for me doing this stuff with classic was to be able to use my mother's "Mail" application (Outlook Express 5.02) and get her emails and address book back with all of her "groupings" (she has like 10,000 email addresses).
So what I did from there was to get the copy I made of my mother's stuff (I had made a copy of Microsoft User Data, Contact Export, and the Mail application). I then proceeded to swap out the Microsoft User Data That I had on the new OS 10.4.6 with that folder from the OS 9.2.1 and put the old one in documents with the new one on the desktop.
I went to Classic in System Pref. and started it up.
I then went into the Identities folder in the Microsoft User Data (old one), Main Identity, then Messeges (outlook express file). Clicked on it and it said something like "rewriting strings" or something along those lines. It said something about starting up the email again and I ignored all of it because at this point I could see that I successfully got my mother's mail back in classic.
I looked and saw that her address book was there with all her groups. (I should note that I already knew the mail would work because I checked by uploading the same files/folders onto my iBook with Classic's help).
But now I had an operational mail off of my iBook and back onto my mother's computer.
I then decided to press my luck and see if the computer could boot off the OS 9 system folder. I went into Start Up Disk in System Pref. and sure enough OS 10.4.6 was there along with the new OS 9.2.2 system folder. Hmm, should I try it will it work? The guy online I think said it wouldn't work and the "pot-head" guy in Apple Tech Support (he did sound stoned) said I won't be able to do any of this. F*ck it.
I restarted on OS 9.2.2.
It actually booted up and I was on the desktop and I went to see if I could actually use Outlook on this desktop and clicked on it, there was an erroe that said I needed to copy the identities folder from Users:my name: basically just get the identities folder, and move it to the outlook express folder. I did so by copying (option key).
I went back to the outlook express, clicked on it and started it up. It worked, it works, just like it did originally (I should note I already had the Mail set up in OS 10.4.6 to our ISP and it is a POP account, it was set up before I tried any of this). I sent myself an email to anotherr account and it worked.
I had talked on the phone with tech support people for at least a couple of hours, coming to the conclusion that I had improperly backed-up my data (emails,etc.) on both (my iMac G3 was running OS 10.2.8 and OS 9.2.1 before I zeroed and formatted it to OS 10.4.6) OS 10.2.8 and OS 9.2.1 and since I didn't have Classic in OS 10.4.6 I coudn't look and see what had and would have to reinstall from the original install CDs then upgrade to 9.2.2 and then "upgrade" to OS 10.4.6 to even have a chance of seeing what I had; and even though I told them what files I had they couldn't tell me if it was correct. My mother was freaking out on me, I won't go into details but she was extremely upset with me. I felt horrible I couldn't even load the stuff from OS 10.2.8.
I thought I had failed and resigned that it was lost. Then a couple of days later I thought "hmm, I see that my comp has Classic I wonder if it would work if I uplloaded it onto my comp" I found out that both of the back ups I made worked, and that I could import the stuff I had in OS 10.2.8 into my Mail (1.3.9) on OS 10.3.7 on my iBook G4.
I am absolutely ecstatic about the fact that Classic works beyond the bounds of what you guys and everyone else said. I would have wasted a lot of time reinstalling all the OSs onto the computers just to have CLassic and now that I'm upgrading four Macs in my house to OS 10.4.6, I can now have classic without absolutely taking HOURS to upload the installers and do damage control. But thanks to you guys who helped and actually I still need help with exporting and importing messages and exporting my address book in OS 9 but now it is easier and alleviates future problems with other systems (I think ). Thanks anyway.

I need to recover my old home folder that was protected via FileVault

Hello,
One day last year, my PowerBook G4 up and died on me... that it would boot up nicely but it would not get to the log in screen. I pretty much assumed that the PowerBook G4 was DOA and I bought a 15" MacBook Pro a week later. Now, I had a lot of important files in my home folder (i.e. scan of a Canadian visa, a large music library, etc) that I wish to restore.
I've purchased an enclosure last week and I put the hard disk that I extracted from the old mac into the new enclosure. I have been trying to recover the sparsebundle file which has my FileVault protected files because, even though the hard disk will mount and I can see my old Applications, Library and other folders, I can't find my home folder's sparsebundle. I was wondering, does anyone here know of any way that I can recover the old sparsebundle? Note that the hard disk has NOT been used since that happened and I have not changed the file structure on that hard disk (in other words, I have not been saving or deleting files or formatting the drive).
So, does anyone have any ideas? I know that PhotoRec doesn't exactly try to find sparsebundles (after all, sparsebundles don't have a header that they recognize, they only recognize these files) but it has been successful at pulling old Apple EULAs and old Apple TV ads from the hard disk (apparently, the former owner was a fellow Mac geek, who knew? ;-P ) as well as assets and icon sets from (mostly) old versions of Apple applications, a whole lot of plist and txt files that aren't my personal files... as House said, "a lot of apples, no candy bars". ;-P So I know files *can* be restored from this hard disk, I'm just looking for the candy bar in a sea of apples.
Specific details about the old computer:
12" PowerBook G4, 1GHz
160 GB hard disk
had the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5
the computer was updated regularly
All of my applications, the library and System folder seems to be intact.
No changes have been made to the hard disk since the loss, other than placing the hard disk in an enclosure.
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled)

Hi,
Your recurring payment didn't go through since Skype was not able to withdraw money from your PayPal account. It might be that credit card linked to your PayPal account expired.
I'm sorry to say that if subscription is not offered anymore then Skype can't attach it to your account anymore. You can use subscription until it's recurring, but if subscription is not offered anymore you can't sign up to it again.
Andre
If answer was helpful please mark it with Kudos and if issue is resolved mark it with solution. This will help other users find this answer more easily. Thanks in advance!

Missing Files After Deleting OS X System Folder from Disk

This is my first post; I'll try to be brief.
I got a new computer (G5 dual) and so wanted to "clean up" my G4 tower for my wife's use. I had three hard drives in the G4, one of which was an 80 GB drive with OS X (Tiger, I think) on it. Another drive had OS 9 on it.
I bought a 300 GB drive for the G4 and put Tiger on that drive. Then I moved OS 9 to the 80 GB drive. In the process, far as I can remember, I deleted only the OS X System Folder from the 80 GB drive (not any prominent folders that appear in "fancy" form on the left side of a Finder Window); so, one OS on each drive.
I deleted a number of files, and moved a number of files, in the process of doing my "clean up." Those files that I *moved* I can now find, no problem. But I left some files in the Movies folder (the "fancy" folder that is on the left side of a Finder Window in OS X) on the 80 GB, and those I now cannot find. My concern is that perhaps, in deleting the OS X System Folder from that drive I somehow either 1) also deleted the Movies Folder (inside the Home Folder inside the Users Folder) by the very act of deleting the System Folder (which seems unlikely to me) or 2) I managed to "hide" the Movies Folder by deleting the OS X System Folder.
I have far more available space on the 80 GB drive than I would expect to see, given the steps I had to take to get some files onto CDs, etc. (I needed all the space I could free up, as I recall). So, this suggests the missing files just might still be there. Spotlight can't see them; booting in OS 9 and using Sherlock doesn't reveal them....
Have I inadvertantly removed these files, or is there hope that they can be restored to life? A related question: If I did delete these files, is there a way to "un-delete" them at this stage?)
Many thanks for any thought anyone may have.
Bob ("rsimon")
G4 Tower (pre-mirror) Mac OS X (10.4.3) Also have G5 dual

If you did actually delete your valuable files, you want to stop using that computer as soon as possible. You'd have a good chance to recover deleted files, unless they're already overwritten by other data.
Boot your G4 in Firewire Target Disk Mode (hold down "T" at startup) and connect it to your new G5 using a Firewire cable.
The drives inside the G4 will mount as removable media, so you can browse them and try to find your movies folder. It should be located at
harddrive/user/username/movies.
You can use a utility like WhatSize to find large, (maybe hidden) files.
Post back, in case your data has disappeared and you need a file recovery tool.
Good luck.

Blinking system folder

Hi. I'm a IT tech at a high school and I came across a teacher's computer. The system folder was blinking with a question mark at start up, so I used Diskwarrior 4.0, and managed to repair permissions. I also rebuilt the directory, and the program said directory successfully rebuilt. When I restarted the computer it booted from the cd again. I ejected the cd and restarted, but the blinking system folder with a question mark came up again. I then used a 10.1 install cd's disk utility to repair permissions, and everything seemed ok, until I restarted the computer again, and I get a blinking folder with a question mark. I then used a 10.2 install cd's disk utility to repair permissions, but the repair button was phased out. (I guess it could not see the hard drive) and it gave me an error when I checked the files and folders option. I finally used the Diskwarrior 4.0 again, but when I tried to rebuild the directory for a second time it gave me this error:
'The directory of the disk "unknown disk" cannot be rebuilt. The original directory is too severely damaged. The disk was not modified. If you report this error, please mention the error code (2155,-57).'
Is there anyway to access the files on this hard drive or is it totally gone?
Would Diskwarrior 3.0 help?
If anyone can assist me in this matter, it would be greatly appreciated.
Btw, the computer is an imac G3 crt 500mhz indigo slotloading powerpc with a 10.2.8 operating system.
Thanks in advance,
Rayan

Try a new hard drive. Takeapart for swapping drives - slot load is a good pictorial if you have never replaced a drive in one of these machines.
'Bet it's a failed drive. It's showing all the usual exasperating symptoms.
David

Deleted Previous System Folder, No 10.5 Restart

Apparently I've done a bad, bad thing. I installed 10.5 with the the archive and install option which created the "previous system" folder. Later I recovered what I wanted from that folder and deleted it. Now when I attempt to start in Mac OS I get a folder icon with a "?" and it starts up in Boot Camp. I tried starting up using the Install DVD for 10.5, but the computer will not recognize the DVD either in start up or while running XP through boot camp.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

The library alias is just a bug that all of us are experiencing. It has been around for a while and no one knows if or when it will be fixed. It does no harm and if you remove it it will come back so just ignore it. You had it in there before but probably just didn't notice it.

Can you access a Leopard previous system folder after upgrading to Snow?

If I have a previous system folder from 10.5, can I copy to my machine running Snow Leopard and access files? I have it archived and want to upgrade a MacBook intel currently using Tiger to either Leopard or Snow Leopard and then access the files.
I see the previous system folder and user on the Tiger machine fine. It shows correct folder sizes, but files do not appear...assuming because it's 10.5.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Bryson

Long story...but basically was using 10.5 regularly, then had some major issues (couldn't even log in at all). Went to reinstall OS but my Leopard system disc was damaged. So went back to 10.4 (had old disc)and copied previous system folder to archive. Was going to buy and reinstall 10.5 but thought about going all the way to SL instead.

OS 9.2.2 system folder not recognised in tiger

Hi,
I'm a bit lost here. I'm trying to get Classic to run in OS X 10.4.11. which has no previous copy of OS9 on it. The OS X was a clean install.
I installed a copy of OS9.1 onto a USB dongle and then managed to boot the G3 through this and install OS 9.2.1 and then 9.2.2. It had to be installed on the dongle so that I could boot the iMac into OS9 and then install the updates.
Now, when I start Classic from System Preferences it will find the OS 9.2.2 system folder on the dongle and quite happily run, but it is obviously a lot slower than if the system folder was on the OS X HD.
So I copied the contents of the USB dongle to the root of the OS X HD and now it will not find the folder.
Do I need to do anything to enable the OS9 folder now it is on my hard disk. I thought maybe the disk is formatted differently if it is set up exclusively for OS X when carrying out a clean install.
Interestingly, the machine found my OS9.1 system folder on the HD and tried to run Classic from that, but it just hung on start-up which is a known error between OS 9.1 and Tiger - Hence why I updated from 9.1 to 9.2.2

Don't worry. I've managed to resolve it.
I restored my OS9.1 system folder and then copied the contents of the 9.2.2 folder into this. Classic picked it up and work fine.
The only problem is that now I have discovered that iMovie 2 is not supported in a Classic environment. That was the only reason I was attempting this anyway.
Oh well....

How to open local system folder from the browser

Hi All,
I'm working on some stuff, wherein the user downloads the files from internet to his local machine. I'm able to catch the path of the folder where user wants to download the file from SaveAs prompt. Now my requirement is , i want to provide a link button or
a button on the web page and assign this is folder path dynamically so that when the user clicks on it, it should open the local system folder where he has downloaded the files.
string myDocspath
=Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
string windir
= Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("WINDIR");
System.Diagnostics.Process prc
= new System.Diagnostics.Process();
prc.StartInfo.FileName = windir + @"\explorer.exe";
prc.StartInfo.Arguments = myDocspath;
prc.Start();
Work fine with local system, if i host the application in IIS , the above code snippet wont work
Thanks in advance,
Suraj Kumar
Software Engineer

Hello,
local resources is disabled in all modern browsers due to security restrictions.
if the reply help you mark it as your answer.
Free No OLE C#
Word, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint Component(Create,
Modify, Convert & Print)

System folder no longer recognized! Please Help!

Hello,
I'm usually able to handle all my mac related problems, but this time I'm stumped. I'm writing this from my old ibook, as my main iMac is now very sick.
Essentially, my system folder is not recognized anymore. I get the flashing "?" symbol at start-up. So I start with the Apple CD. Disk utilty diagnosis: no problem at all, all permissions alright.
I set the start-up folder to the one on my main HD and restart. It works.
But as soon as I have to restart again, same problem.
So I tried the old trick of resetting the start-up disk in the system prefs. No help.
(((I'm writing now because things went from bad to worse. After restarting with the CD 10 mins ago, I went to Disk Utility and discovered that the main HD is not even recognized. -- But while I was typing this, after another CD restart, the HD finally appeared in Disk Utility. Some problem were found and fixed. Restarting now.)))
So, can anyone offer some advice?
Thanks
Loa

Doesn't sound good. FIrst, back it up if you possibly can.
Then boot from your Leopard install disk (insert it, boot while holding the "C") key.
Once it starts, choose your language, then select Utilities from the top menubar, then +Disk Utilitiy+ and do a +Repair Disk.+
Then try again.

Where did my Previous System folder go?

I upgraded my G5 yesterday from 10.3.9 to 10.5. Everything works fine after the upgrade. But I can't find the Previous System folder that should be on my hard drive.
When I upgraded, I planned to do an Archive and Install and preserve user settings, but I never saw that menu in the installer (I missed the "Options" button, duh). After the upgrade all my user accounts and data were still on the G5, so I'm assuming the installer did an "Archive and Install -- Preserve User Settings" by default.
But I don't have a Previous System folder anywhere on my hard drive. Any ideas what happened?
BTW, I have a clone of my 10.3.9 system on an external hard drive. I am considering doing an Erase and Install on the 10.5.7 internal G5 volume and using Migration Assistant to pull my user accounts from the clone to the internal hard drive. But my 10.5.7 system isn't broken, so maybe I shouldn't try to fix it. :-D

But I don't have a Previous System folder anywhere on my hard drive. Any ideas what happened?
The default installation method preserves your user accounts, data, and applications, but deletes and/or overwrites the previous system files.
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Recovering a damaged system folder

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