[John68]

My daughter clicked the "nag-screen" to update Quicktime, iTunes and a third Apple application on her iMac (G4 1GHz PowerPC w/17-inch built in monitor, 2GB RAM, MAC OS X 10.4.x). She is a graphic artist and is scared that all of her files and software will be lost.

After making the download, the computer said to "restart", which she did. On restart the iMac bootup got as far as a grey screen with the little "working" icon just spinning and the boot process was stuck there.

What is the fix? What tools are needed, software or other? Will the iMac boot from the CD-drive? Why does Apple send out updates that crash Apple computers?

All suggestions and solutions will be appreciated

[antipode12]

You can reboot from the disk. From there, you can run the "First Aid" utility (in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder) and it will tell you if there is a hard drive problem.

Insert the OS disk, and press the power key. Hold down the "Apple" key and the "C" key simultaneously while restarting. You should get a simplified start-up screen -- you have now booted from the disk.

[John68]

Here is what happened: My son-in-law tried to use the 10.4 iinstall disk and it would not work as the HD was bad. The 10.4 disk was an upgrade disk and it needed 10.3 to update, but the computer had reverted to the 10.2 that came on the computer. The computer would not boot even to 10.2 due to HD problems.

The fix was to install a new HD and to use various recovery/repair programs to recover the data on the bad HD. The Apple consultant was able to recover the files and get them on the new HD. I also added a back-up HD to my daughter's system to protect her data if a future crash occurs.

As for the task of replacing a HD, that does not seem to be to difficult, and did not require any special tools. (I have T-10 and T-15 Torx bits just as the repairman had). Since I have built a desktop computer I could have done the HD swap. I just did not have the resore/repair programs that he used.

Now my daughter has 320GB HD instead of the 80GB that came in the iMac and she also has a 500GB firewire back-up external HD. She has to install all of her applications again, but at least she did not loose her personal files.

The bottom line is that the iTunes update did not cause the problem, the HD just decided to crash at that time.

[cmeeks]

Here is what happened: My son-in-law tried to use the 10.4 iinstall disk and it would not work as the HD was bad. The 10.4 disk was an upgrade disk and it needed 10.3 to update, but the computer had reverted to the 10.2 that came on the computer. The computer would not boot even to 10.2 due to HD problems.

The fix was to install a new HD and to use various recovery/repair programs to recover the data on the bad HD. The Apple consultant was able to recover the files and get them on the new HD. I also added a back-up HD to my daughter's system to protect her data if a future crash occurs.

As for the task of replacing a HD, that does not seem to be to difficult, and did not require any special tools. (I have T-10 and T-15 Torx bits just as the repairman had). Since I have built a desktop computer I could have done the HD swap. I just did not have the resore/repair programs that he used.

Now my daughter has 320GB HD instead of the 80GB that came in the iMac and she also has a 500GB firewire back-up external HD. She has to install all of her applications again, but at least she did not loose her personal files.

The bottom line is that the iTunes update did not cause the problem, the HD just decided to crash at that time.

Getting into the G4s are easier than the Intel Imac and working on them is not that bad things are tight and cable routing is important. I think that at one time the Hard drive was considered a user replaceable part, but it is easy to damage some cables and possibly the main board if you are not careful..
More than likely the tech copied the home folders then did a fresh install of OS and software, recreated the users and replaced the home folders from the backup..
OS 10.5 has Time Machine an incremental backup program that can be used to reinstall files, applications and settings as a install option when a system is reinstalled. You can even chose the date you want to install to.