Wont boot with internal drive installed

I have a 17" PBG4 that will not boot up when an internal drive is installed in it. I have tried 2 known good drives.
Trying to boot normally just produces a white screen. Holding down the "Option" key when booting gets me into the boot loader, but it proceeds to crash and never displays any boot volumes.
If I remove the internal drive, and attach a firewire drive with a bootable partition, i can boot the computer just fine from the boot loader.
I suspect it must be either the cable that connects the drive to the logic board, or the logic board itself...
If anyone has any experience with this, it would be most appreciated!

my drive died so badly in my 15" that it did this, wouldn't even boot when it was installed, not even from the optical drive...
speaking of that, tried unhooking that & then plug in the external drive? the PATA bus for the HDD & slot drive was shared on these too, I think, similar to the ibooks. maybe not, but worth a try.
otherwise, start with the cable. if that doesn't work then it's the logic.
also, try the usual reset PMU & PRAM voodoo.

Similar Messages

IBook G4 fails to boot with internal HD installed, works when removed

The short version: My iBook started failing to boot via any method (gray screen) and the boot menu (Option during startup) would freeze. Replaced HD, things were better. Six months into new HD, nearly the same symptoms appear again. Removed HD, now running off different HD via FireWire.
The long version–
Back in late 2008-12, my iBook started failing to boot up. Usually it would refuse to boot from any source. Booting the internal disk (10.4.11) would get to a gray screen without any logo and stay there. Holding down Option, the boot menu would come up, but it would usually freeze before it displayed any volumes. Booting from CD (AHT, or OS install disc) would fail in nearly the same way as booting from the internal drive. Target Disk Mode would start, but once the other machine tried to access the drive, the FireWire logo would stop moving and the drive would never show up on the other computer. Very rarely, the machine would get a bit further through one of the boot mechanisms, but it usually froze while booting or just after login.
This machine has gone through three logic boards in the past, so I suspected that was the problem again. I took it to a local Genius Bar and the Genius explained that it was probably the hard drive. He said that sometimes, depending on the way the drive fails, it can "take out" other parts of the system due to drawing too much current, etc.
I was a bit skeptical, but it was going to be much cheaper to replace the HD myself than it would be to send it in for a MLB replacement. So I ordered a new HD (80G) and a USB-to-ATA/SATA adapter. I hoped that I would be able to use the adapter to savlage a bit more data off the drive (it originally failed right before a backup!).
After extracting the HD (40G), I connected it to the USB adapter and was able to access the drive just fine. I used another machine to run another backup from the recently removed HD (40G) to one of my FireWire backup drives and proceeded to put the iBook back together with the new HD (80G).
Once it was all back together, the new HD worked fine. I was able to restore the recent backup from my FireWire drive to the internal, and it worked fine. The only oddity I noticed was that the new drive was apparently trying to sleep several times a minute. I used smartctl (installed via MacPorts) to adjust the power management setting on the drive, and that seemed to help. I also started running smartd (also via MacPorts) to better monitor the new drive.
Recently, a bit more than six months after the new HD was installed, the new HD started showing errors in the system.log. I never found any errors in the logs after the previous HD failed (even though I could look through the logs just fine with the drive attached through the ATA-USB adapter).
Jul 2 18:04:40 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 2 18:33:43 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 0 to 30\n
Jul 3 02:03:42 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 30 to 31\n
Jul 3 03:03:42 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 31 to 32\n
Jul 6 23:33:42 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 32 to 33\n
Jul 7 00:33:42 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 33 to 34\n
Jul 7 12:42:24 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 34 to 36\n
Jul 7 13:17:59 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
+same error message a bit faster than one every 3 seconds+
Jul 7 13:23:00 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 13:33:44 Blinky smartd\[217]: Device: disk0, ATA error count increased from 36 to 615\n
Jul 7 21:17:05 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:12 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:12 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:12 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:15 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:18 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:21 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:23 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:17:29 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:18:17 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:19:21 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
Jul 7 21:19:23 Blinky kernel\[0]: disk0s3: I/O error.
I did not notice the errors until the afternoon of the 7th when the problem became evident. The events around 13:00 happened when I was trying to run a backup. The first backup failed in an odd way (when I came back to check on it later that evening, SuperDuper! seemed to have quit running). So I restarted the backup and started looking around in the logs. That is when I noticed the kernel I/O error messages. When I asked smartctl to query the drive, it showed that many errors had been occurring and it displayed the drive's log of the last five or so errors (alas, I did not save this output). Meanwhile the re-run of SuperDuper! was having problems again. It seemed to have hung (no SDAgent or SDCopy processes were running, but the main UI was still there). Since the backup was not getting anywhere, I decided to shutdown for a while and try again later.
When I did try again later, I was back in the situation of six months ago. It would not boot at all (no internal, no FireWire, no CD/DVD, boot menu hangs, Target Disk Mode hangs). So, I opened up the system, removed the HD and put it back together without an internal HD. The machine is now able to boot and run from FireWire. Again, the (6 month old, 80G) HD "works fine" via the USB adapter. If SMART were available through the USB adapter, I could check to see if the drive is continuing to have problems. I used SuperDuper! to copy the HD to a volume on my FireWire drive which is how I an now running the system.
Has anyone had any similar problems? Any idea why my iBook seems to be killing/rejecting hard drives? (I say killing because, while the drive is connected internally, it certainly seems to be dying. I say rejecting because once the drive is out of the system, both the drive and the system seem to "recover".) I have read messages there where others report success having their iBook MLB resoldered ("reball"). Has anyone experienced substantially similar issues that were solved with a resolder repair?
Thanks!

I was able to test my “failing” ATA drives in a G4 Mac mini (I had to take the mini apart because its drive had finally failed). I was able to successfully boot the Mac mini with either of my iBook drives installed. Once booted, +Disk Utility+ said that each one's SMART Status was Verified. I used smartctl to pull the full SMART info while I had them installed in the Mac mini.
Since the drives were still “good”, I think this emphasizes that the problem is with the ATA interface on my iBook's logic board. Maybe it is broken, or maybe it just needs to be resoldered. For now I am happy just booting off an external Firewire drive.
BTW, I ended up installing the 6 month old 80G drive in the mini. It has been working OK for 10 days now. As long as it continues to operate normally in the mini, it will serve as evidence that my iBook's HD ATA controller is borked. I just hope the ATA controller is more capable of accepting its fallibility than was HAL.
There is a minor problem with the 80G in the mini in that I am unable to use hdapm to change the aggressive head unloading that the drive suffers. I was able to adjust it with hdapm while it was in my iBook. I am able to adjust it with hdparm under Linux on the mini. Luckily the change I made while booted in Linux "sticks" after rebooting back into Mac OS X (I hear it will be lost if the drive is completely powered off though).

USB External Drive Boot with Internal Drive DEAD

Can I boot from an external USB drive on my iMac when I know that my internal (250 GB) drive is dead?
I have run a diagnostic on the computer and everything but the internal drive is fine.
Thanks for the help.
Kevin

Answer is 'definitely'.
I'm doing it myself for the same reason. BUT, I greatly prefer Firewire 800 if that option is available to you (If not, you could always buy a cheap {=> quality but Fugly Firewire 800 case ....}
I would ALSO like to be able to 'tell the iMac' that it doesn't have an internal drive so that it powers the drive down and 'rests' it....(or never powers it up) I really don't like the idea of all those electrons and Quarks being pumped into a electro-mech device which may well have friction/heat problems... I wonder if I can get the back off the Mac and unplug/sever the power to it... {until I can get around to a permanent fix, of course...}
{It won't let me 'eject" or "dismount" the drive.}
As always: the ONE really big disadvantage of the otherwise magnificent iMacs, MacBooks etc... Us tech heads can't really get at them...

Laptop wont boot with new memory installed please help

Hi I am trying to upgrade my laptop memory to two gigs When putting in the I gig modules in each slot the laptop will not boot. When I put in the original 256 memory module in slot one and the 1 gig in slot two I get it to boot and it only recognizes the 1 gig slot. Even with belarc it shows only slot one with 1042.
Sys TOSHIBA Satellite A105 PSAA2U-01T018B
Enclosure Type: Other Processor a Main Circuit Board b 1.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron M
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded Board: ATI SB450 Rev0.4b
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD 2.30 09/30/08 Drives Memory Modules c,d 59.75 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
39.74 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-L462C [CD-ROM drive]
FUJITSU MHV2060BH [Hard drive] (60.01 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy 896 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'M1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'M2' is Emptytem Serial Number:
Enclosure Type: Other Processor a Main Circuit Board b 1.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron M
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded

Satellite A105-S101
When putting in the I gig modules in each slot the laptop will not boot. When I put in the original 256 memory module in slot one and the 1 gig in slot two I get it to boot and it only recognizes the 1 gig slot.
That sort of thing is typical of incompatible modules. Turns out that unless you order your add-on memory from Toshiba or buy memory made by Kingston, you'll likely as not have that difficulty.
-Jerry

PC wont boot with X-Fi instal

When I was building my new PC, I installed my new X-Fi Fatalty card and attempted to boot, I got the old "lights on but nobodys home" business. So I took out the card, and tried again. PC booted fine, went on to install Windows, necessary updates, all drivers for everything I had. Great! So then I went to put my X-Fi back in, tried to boot and it went back to "lights on, nobody home". Eventually after restarting my PC more than enough times, it FINALLY started up, got into Windows and it wasnt detected. At all. Nothing.
I assume this is a hardware issue, but is anyone else having these problems?
My spec is below
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
2Gb Crucial Ballistix RAM
WD 50Gb Raptor
Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 Motherboard
GeForce 7950GX2 Gfx

pavlf wrote:
take immortalz' advice, I did! You'll waste hours of your life trying to get that card to work.
Right said...there seems to be a batch of "bad" X-Fi cards out there (allegedly, a firmware problem) which will just cause them to turn your b0x into a non-functional piece of buggy (or was that buggered?) hardware.
Solutions include forgetting the X-Fi completely, or trying another sample, hoping you get a "good" one this time.

KT4AV will not boot with SATA card installed and no SATA drive

I put a Promise brand SATA II card in a KT4AV motherboard. There is an IDE drive and a DVD drive hooked up to the IDE1 port on the motherboard. That IDE drive has Windows XP Pro SP2 loaded on it.
If I have a SATA drive plugged into the card, the machine works fine. If I remove the STAT drive and leave the card in, I cannot boot to Windows. If I remove the card, it works fine. The only time there is a problem is when the SATA card is plugged in and there is no drive on the SATA card.
As one possible solution, I tried to boot to a Windows CD to reload Windows. It will not even allow me to reload from the CD, it says there is a file missing from the CD. If the SATA drive is hooked up, it will work fine on the CD. Also, I tried multiple CDs and they all give the same message. Because it makes a difference whether the SATA drive is connected or not, I do not believe the CD is the problem.
I have tried looking on Promise's web site for a FAQ or an updated BIOS or for other information about this problem and I found nothing. I have e-mailed them and they did not reply yet.
There is no reason to think this is the fault of the motherboard, but I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas about this problem. Because of the symptoms, I believe it also cannot be the CPU, memory, PSU, video card, etc. Sorry if that makes this post off topic.

Quote from: HenryW on 16-March-07, 02:56:44
Have you tried to disable card in Device Manager when you don't use it? What is the model number of the card you are using?
It is a SATA 300 TX2, which means that it has two SATA ports and one IDE port. I have never used the IDE port, only one SATA.
I have never tried to disable it, but I could try, just to see what it did. It sure would be a lot more work to disable and enable it so that isn't a good long term solution. Among other things, it would mean that I would have to boot up in order to remove the SATA drive. Since it won't boot with the drive removed, it will require more planning.
Will post the results once I have tried. Still no reply from Promise :-(

2010 13" MBP Wont boot from internal. Will boot from external

This is fairly long winded, I will try to be as clear as i can.
Last week my 13" MBP refused to boot after running out of battery during sleep.
I have done the following to the original drive:
Booted from Lion Recovery, repaired, verified, and repaired/verified permissions.
Booted from Snow Leopard DVD, done the above.
Used Disk Utility on another Mac, done the above.
The drive still will not boot from the internal cable.
I can see the drive when attached internally, but cannot do any of the above actions as it is "unable to unmount"
I can boot from the drive if I use a USB external adaptor.
I bought a new hard drive....
I have done all the same on the new HDD with additionaly installing fresh Lion / Snow Leopard to the new drive whilst its in the internal position (Leopard from the DVD originating with my laptop, Lion from Lion Recovery whilst the other drive was on USB) but still having the same problem when it comes to booting - i.e. wont boot from internal. will boot from external USB.
Ideally I would like to end up with a lean install of lion, on the new hdd, booting from inside the laptop.
Please help, this is driving me mad.

I think you have solved your own problem. If you have two different HD's and they both do not work once connected, but do when placed in an external enclosure, then I would think it has something to do with the connection.
Slap the old drive back in the machine, and take it to the genius bar, and have them diagnose it. Hopefully they will have an answer for you. If not, bring the other drive too inside he external enclosure, and show them that it boots via the external.
Then, lay the whammy on them, and tell them that the original drive works inside the enclosure too.
Would be interesting to know what the actual issue is, and the resolution as well...

Bizarre problem with internal drive

I have a 15" G4 PPC 1ghz Powerbook with 1gb SDRAM. A couple of years ago the hard drive failed. I bought another and replaced it, only to find that there seemed to be a problem with the new one as well. To cut a long story short: I needed a working machine, so mothballed it and bought a new one. for various reasons I'd now like to get it going. So...
Yesterday, I started it up. As expected it couldn't find it's own drive and just gave me the grey screen with the file/question mark icon. I shut it down and plugged in an external firewire enclosure containing a working 60gb drive with a full bootable OS installed (for brevity I'll call this Drive 1 from now on).
I started it again and it booted from Drive 1. It worked fine. I then shut it down, opened it up and replaced the internal Drive with Drive 1. I put everything back in place (being careful to make sure the drive was properly connected) and hit the on button. Again the file/question mark icon. I tried booting whilst holding down the "c" key. Didn't help.
So, I then plugged in another Firewire bootable drive (Drive 2). It booted from Drive 2 no problem. So, at this point I'm thinking, "Well, I've probably damaged the hard drive connecting cable - better get a new one". Never-the-less I thought I'd run a few test. And this is where it gets slightly bizarre:
I stuck in the Apple Hardware test disk, shut the machine down, removed Drive 2, started it again then ran a full hardware check, it told me: Airport - passed, logic Board - passed, mass storage - passed, memory - passed, modem - passed, video ram - passed. As there was no other Drive present this means it was detecting and okay-ing Drive 1, right?
I shut it down replaced the firewire Drive 2. Re-booted. Then opened "About this Mac". Under ATA it clearly shows a FUBITSU 55.89GB Drive. Which is Drive 1. (Drive 2 comes up under "Firewire" as SMARTDISK CORP).
The details given for Drive 1 are as follows:
Capacity: 55.89 GB
Model: FUBITSU EHT2060AT
Revision: 0124
Serial Number: FN4****B55
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk1
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
Low Power Polling: No
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: Unknown
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
I also looked in Disk Utility. In the column on the left, at the top it shows Drive 2 with the Firewire icon. As per usual, it shows twice, once a the top with the manufacturer's name and again underneath with the name I gave it when I formatted it. If you click on either, it offers you all the usual options for Verifying and Repairing Permissions.
Underneath that is a listing for the Drive 1 with the Internal Drive icon. This it shows only once - the listing with the manufacturer's name. If I highlight it the verify/repair options are all greyed out and unavailable.
The last thing I can think of that may be of any help is that if I open carbon copy cloner it only only shows Drive 2 and doesn't pick up the internal.
Could it be a partially damaged cable? Meaning the machine sees the drive but can't use it? Any ideas would be most welcome.
ET
<Edited by Moderator>

Hi does sound like the cable but did you try running the hardware test CD with the internal drive installed and did it report it? These you could try while waiting on a new ribbon cable.
Also in the system profile was the internal drive selected as boot drive, you can set this using the OS X installer disk by booting from it.
Long shot, is your PRAM battery good? If not that might be the problem, does your date and time stay correct or does it need to be reset on bootup? If it's dead the PowerBook might not be seeing the internal drive or perhaps as I've seen on some PowerBooks it takes a few seconds to a minute for the PowerBook to go down the list and find the bootable drive so guess the final question was were you waiting long enough?
Kevin
<Edited by Moderator>

THE SITE BOOTED WITH INTERNAL DEFAULT SETTINGS

Hi,
I can not connect to system with following error message :
CHECK APPSERVER LOGS. THE SITE BOOTED WITH INTERNAL DEFAULT SETTINGS, BECAUSE OF: bea.jolt.ServiceException: Invalid Session
And when I verify the status of AS :
Prog Name Queue Name Grp Name ID RqDone Load Done Current Service---------      ---------- --------      -- ------ --------- ---------------
BBL            52606       sgsiaxf+       0 162748   8137400 ( IDLE )
PSWATCHSRV     WATCH       WATCH          1      0         0 ( IDLE )
PSAPPSRV       APPQ        APPSRV         1      4       200 ( IDLE SHUTDOWN )
PSAPPSRV       APPQ        APPSRV         2      2       100 ( IDLE SHUTDOWN )
PSSAMSRV       SAMQ        APPSRV       100      0         0 ( IDLE SHUTDOWN )What does it mean ? Would it be enough (may be ) to stop-restart AS ?
Thanks.

Nicolas,
SQL> select oprid, acctlock from psoprdefn where oprid='PTWEBSERVER';
OPRID                                                                                        ACCTLOCK
PTWEBSERVER                                                                                         0but in TUXLOG I have :
LIBTUX_CAT:577: ERROR: Unable to register because the slot is already owned by another process
What is slot here and how to make it free ?
Thank you.

Error with OCI8 driver installing sendmail/javamail

Hi to All,
From Dos window I run the command:
loadjava -user sys/pwd@name_db -resolve -synonym activation.jar
This is the first step in order to install a Sendmail package based on javamail, but I have this error:
=============================
Java.exe error
Impossible to find the enterpoint kpufhndl0 of procedure in the library of dynamic link OCI.dll (Sorry, this is a translation of italian language)
OK
=============================
After I click on OK and this is the next response:
Error while connecting with OCI8 driver to namedb:oracle.aurora.server.tools.loadjava.ToolsException: The JDBC OCI8 Driver is not installed properly, use -thin to try the JDBC Thin Driver: C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\oradb10g\BIN\ocijdbc10.dll: Impossible to find the specified procedure.
exiting: could not open connection
After, I have used the command:
loadjava -thin C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\oradb10g\BIN\ocijdbc10.dll
This is the result:
SQL error while connecting with driver to default database: Listener refused the connection with the following error:
ORA-12505, TNS: listener does not currently know of SID given in connect descriptor
The connection descriptor used by the client was:
localhost:1521: orcl
exiting: could not open connection
But the connection descriptor that I use is eg COSFI, not orcl.
Other applications works fine with my descriptor.
Someone can help me in order to resolve this problem ?
Thank You and Best Regards.
Gaetano
Message was edited by:
NICK048

Gaetano,
I see you took my advice when I replied to your Error with OCI8 driver installing sendmail/javamail.
However, it doesn't look like you studied the Oracle documentation for loadjava because the command you posted doesn't look right at all.
Please refer to the Java Developer's Guide for the correct syntax and usage of the loadjava command.
Good Luck,
Avi.

Installing OS X on HDD enclosure when MBP wont boot from internal HDD

Macbook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010)
Original question was this (Macbook Pro 17" Wont start up/ Install OS X)
The guy told me to get an enclosure, Connect it to my MBP and install OS X .... Sounded pretty easy (It wasn't)
When i boot up my MBP it doesn't recognise the enclosure at all? When i hold C to boot from my OS X disk it gives me the same error (http://cnet4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2010/01/29/e8ec4a91-fdba-11e2-8c7c-d4ae52e62bc c/96a6baa6398cfcfbbf90ea5d99e3ccf3/ProhibitorySign.png)
I've paid alot of money to try get the problem sorted but nothing has worked yet :/
Wondering is it possible to install OS X on the HDD using windows?? As i do not have a 2nd mac system ....
HELP!!!!!!

OK, since you can't boot from your old drive in the enclosure, do you have the set of gray discs that shipped with your computer? You need to use Disc One from that set, boot whilst holding down the C key (or the option key for the Startup Manager and select the DVD to boot from) an install the system that came with those original discs. If you don't have the discs, you can order a model-specific set from Apple for about $20USD + shipping and taxes.
So once you start up with the disc, you'll need to erase the new internal drive (provided that there's NOT a problem with the internal SATA cable) and install the system that was originally installed on your machine. Then you begin the upgrade process.
Make sense?
Clinton
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

Mac Mini will not read dvd data disk ie osx install disk with internal drive but will read dvd movies

As title said , cant get internal drive to read data dvd's havent tried cd's. I also tried to use an external drive with no luck with any disks. system info shows the drive though. So i guess i have 2 issues. any ideas will help thank you

If the drive can read a movie DVD then the problem must be that the OS DVD is either dirty or badly scratched. Look at the shiny side. If it has finger prints clean it with a lint free cloth. If it has scratches you can call Apple for a replacement disc for a nominal charge.

PC wont boot with X-Fi Fatal1ty card instal

ok, so my pc refuses to boot when this card is installed. im running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Bit
on a ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard, with 2 gigs of 800Mhz Crucial ram, and i have a GeForce 8800GT installed and nothing else. when i get the loading screen of vista on startup. the loading bar startes to fade in, then i BSOD and pc restarts its self. tried booting in safe mode, it loads all the drivers stops when trying to load crcdisk.sys and then BSOD and restarts its self. i've tried everything in my bios. onboard audio isnt installed when i do this and its set to disabled in the bios. i even tried with it enabled and onboard audio card not installed. and with the card installed disabled and enabled. it just dosnt want to work. i have the latest bios. i even tried reflashing it. no clue whats going on. person told me its possible its my PSU but i have a 700W PSU. if any knows please help

If possible, you might want to try the card on another computer. This should tell you if the card is faulty or if there's something else that needs work on your current system.
If you are unable to test the card on another computer or if the card does work on another system, you might want to contact support and providing the system information so that they can assist you. Be sure to run the system information utility only after you have installed the sound card on the system in question.
The article below further explains on the Creative System Information Tool.
http://us.creative.com/support/kb/ar...p?l=3&sid=2964

Problem with internal drive or a s/w bug that can be swatted?

Dear ones,
Recently I was greeted with a "persistent grey screen" upon startup. A restore using TimeMachine was unavailable according to Disk Utility. I ran an Extended Hardware Test. No problem indicated.
<rant>Two years of slow response and waiting for TimeMachine backups—what a waste of time—I bought a separate disk just for TimeMachine—what a waste of money. </rant>
I ran Disk Utility Permissions Repair from the SL install disk.
I ran Disk Utility Repair Disk from the SL install disk.
The error messages were:
"Unused node is not erased."
"Node = 192"
"Invalid key length"
I made a quick back-up using Disk Utilities—Restore to a newly-formatted disk which failed.
My internal 120GB "disk could not be validated."
I made a CCClone and a SuperDupe as best I could on a freshly formatted and partitioned outboard drive.
I formatted a second outboard fw800 hard drive and Installed SL on it, updated it and used Migration Assistant to move the files to the fresh boot disk.
Just before the migration finished, the screen turned dark grey and a multi-language alert appeared in white letters "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button until it turns off, then press the power button again." This has happened a few times on my wife's computer but this was a first for me.
I redid everything.
I ran Disk Utilities on the fresh drive and got a repeat of the original error message on my internal drive when I tried to repair the disk.
"Unused node is not erased."
"Node = 192"
"Invalid key length."
It seems as though the problem has migrated to the second boot drive.
Running Disk Utility returns the message, "Disk Utility Can't Repair The Disk…" for either the clone copy or the dupe copy.
I have followed all the steps in the order suggested in the link http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 without success.
I don't know whether to get a copy of something like Disk Genius, Drive Warrior, or a new drive. They're all about the same price.
Anyone got any ideas about saving anything?
My home drive can't be validated.

stan wrote:
<rant>Two years of slow response and waiting for TimeMachine backups—what a waste of time—I bought a separate disk just for TimeMachine—what a waste of money. </rant>
That's not normal. It indicates you've been having some sort of problem for two years.
I ran Disk Utility Permissions Repair from the SL install disk.
You should run that from the OSX volume. See [About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452].
A restore using TimeMachine was unavailable according to Disk Utility.
Huh? You don't restore from Time Machine backups via Disk Utility.
"Unused node is not erased."
"Node = 192"
"Invalid key length"
The file system is corrupted. It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party +Disk Repair+ app, such as Disk Warrior, can repair it. They're not cheap, though. DW is about $100.
I made a quick back-up using Disk Utilities—Restore to a newly-formatted disk which failed.
My internal 120GB "disk could not be validated."
Probably because that type of backup copies the corruption.
Try a full system restore from your TM backups, per #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
But in step (c) there, take the time to reformat your internal HD. It will only take a moment.
Since you've apparently had this problem for a while, it's possible it will restore, but not start up. If so, just install a fresh copy of OSX from your SL install disc. That won't affect anything else.
Message was edited by: Pondini

IMac won't boot from internal drive (Disk Ult can't see drive)

Yesterday morning my iMac (early 2006) froze while watching a movie. I figured it was because I was running so many things in the background (Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, iCal and Preview). So I restarted the unit by holding down the power button cause it wouldn't responded to any keyboard prompts, tho it did allow me to use the mouse. So I restarted and got a grey screen showing a folder and a question mark. i unplugged the system for a few minutes and started her up again. This time it showed the gray apple but it had a progress bar on the bottom like it was loading something. The system started and took me to the login screen. Just to be safe i restarted it from the login screen. the system booted up fine and i finished watching my movie. I came back from the gym like 2 hrs later and tried to wake my mac from sleep mode and got the usual prompt to enter my password to unlock the screen. As i started to enter my password the screen froze again. This time tho i was unable to restart the unit. i kept getting that grey screen with the folder and question mark. So iI popped in my 10.6 install disk to see if I could repair the HDD. But no matter how many times i try the system does not pick up my internal drive. I'm not really sure what the problem is. I thought it might be hardware failure, but I didn't have this problem until after the latest software update. And the drive never gave me any indication of problems before yesterday. All i can think is that the system update or safari update corrupted something or is not playing nice with something already on the system. But i guess that wouldn't explain the drive not being seen. Can anybody offer and ideas of a solution? I really just wanna get it up so I can salvage my iTunes folder and transfer it to my Macbook.
HELP

Hi MacBoy84
Sure sounds like the HD is worn out, damaged, failing or failed and needs to be replaced.
Take it to your local Authorized Apple Service Provider and have them put a new WD Caviar Blue or Seagate Barracuda 3.5 SATA HD in it. > http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Given the choice I would choose a WD Caviar Blue, they seem to run a little cooler and quieter than the WD Blacks and most Seagate's. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=3
As for your iTunes Library that depends, some times just before an HD totally fails it is possible to copy the data off of it. Unfortunately most of the time when it's gone it's gone for good and needs to be sent out to a professional data recovery service, you do have a Time Machine backup on an External HD right?
Dennis

Wont boot with internal drive installed

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