Computer fuckage
Aug. 14th, 2009 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avramTyping this from Chris's computer (Windows Vista, MSIE -- oh, the pain!) because my laptop is fucked.
Last night I was getting a barred circle on startup, an error message I'd never even heard of before, and I thought it was well and truly, deeply, permanently fucked, to the point of needing to buy a new one (which I can't even come close to affording right now), or at least a new motherboard (which I can't afford either). It was refusing to boot off a Leopard install disk.
This morning, after zapping the PRAM, I'm getting the question-mark-folder icon, which I at least recognize. I managed to get it to eject the Leopard disk, so I figure it's only moderately fucked, and I'm getting ready for another go at it. With any luck, a full hard drive wipe and reinstall, followed by restoring from my (fortunately recent) backup will put things right.
But I dunno. I've been fighting with this thing since Tuesday night. This isn't the first wipe-and-restore. So we'll see.
Update: Nope, it's hosed. Won't boot from the system install DVD. This will probably take a visit to an actual professional to even try and fix, and I just don't have the money to spare. Fuck. I don't suppose anyone's got a 15" PowerBook G4 that they were planning to throw out...?
Last night I was getting a barred circle on startup, an error message I'd never even heard of before, and I thought it was well and truly, deeply, permanently fucked, to the point of needing to buy a new one (which I can't even come close to affording right now), or at least a new motherboard (which I can't afford either). It was refusing to boot off a Leopard install disk.
This morning, after zapping the PRAM, I'm getting the question-mark-folder icon, which I at least recognize. I managed to get it to eject the Leopard disk, so I figure it's only moderately fucked, and I'm getting ready for another go at it. With any luck, a full hard drive wipe and reinstall, followed by restoring from my (fortunately recent) backup will put things right.
But I dunno. I've been fighting with this thing since Tuesday night. This isn't the first wipe-and-restore. So we'll see.
Update: Nope, it's hosed. Won't boot from the system install DVD. This will probably take a visit to an actual professional to even try and fix, and I just don't have the money to spare. Fuck. I don't suppose anyone's got a 15" PowerBook G4 that they were planning to throw out...?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 07:37 pm (UTC)Have you checked whether it's the memory?
And if there's anything on the disk you want to recover, see if you can get it to boot into target disk mode.
(And it may be too large or too old to be useful, but I've got an old G4 tower I'm no longer using.)