[P1] Friend has dead ibook (*yipes*)

[Richard McKay]

Good point Allan, 

I guess I was going along the lines of an unfamiliar user with such points
as he first mentioned that when he started it up the next morning that he
received the flashing OS folder which I assume! (not sure!) only indicates
that the disk was recognised but had no valid starting system? Because of
this he then tried using various tools to diagnose the system only to find
that the OS (I am hoping that he misquoted HD with OS and data here) didn't
exist as it was deleted. (bit of sherlock holmes guessing here! Joe can you
be more specific about the conditions, please?)

I am hoping that he didn't do any serious damage to the OF, (thinking happy
mac thoughts here) as he could start with an external system and it also ran
long enough to find out that the OS didn't exist. Hopefully it is only the
description that needs clarification. Joe, excuse the obvious question but
when you started up in the backup system and used Disk Utility did you see
any disk drives in the left hand side of the window? The right hand side is
blank until you manually highlight a disk in the left...

AFAIK, you need to boot into the OF to be able to *play* with it (and
therefore mess it up)...but I could be wrong.

Didn't think of the HD failure...could be...


Lets hope and wait for more details...

Richard
--

Allan Hise wrote the following:

> I seem to recall Joe saying that the drive can't be seen by any disk
> utilities. That makes it difficult to re-install...
> 
> I don't know much about the open firmware, but is it possible he did some
> wacky open firmware thing. I've heard that removing RAM will reset open
> firmware. Perhaps he should try that... But I will admit, this is just a
> guess.
> 
> Or the hard drive could have just died then.
> 
> Is the iBook still under warranty? If so - call Applecare.

from the original post:

>>> The next morning it won't start up. (I get the Folder/"?"
>>> Icon blinking at me)
>>> 
>>> I managed to start up with a backup Zipdisk and Firewire Drive. My
>>> Normal HD isn't showing up. At all. not in disk warrior, or norton, or
>>> First Aid, or even Apple System Profiler. IT doesn't have an ATA drive
>>> listed.