[HM] Disk permissions won't fix the problem-- update

[janesprando at comcast.net]

janesprando at comcast.net wrote:
> I have a G-4 iMac (the one whose base is half a basketball) and am running 
> 10.3.9. I have an external Firewire drive with a duplicate of the hard drive 
> connected to the iMac.
>
> Yesterday my computer was acting erratcially and kind of slow. (I have lots of 
RAM.) SO I decided to run Disk Permissions.  The Verify Disk permissions reached 
a certain point and would not go any further. So I tried the force quit 
(command/option/escape) ---- just got that %&$#@ spinning beachball! So I turned 
off the iMac with its switch. It was very slow to boot up ----- first the 
dock......then menu on left side.......then desktop..... then menu stuff on 
right side...... finally date and clock. Then I tried to just Repair 
Permissions. It got so far and stalled.  Repeated this procedure about 3 times!
>
> Tried Disk Warrior and it said there was an error and couldn't fix it.
> Tried using the Panther install disk to Verify Disk and got this message: 
Error: the underlying task reported failure  (-9972)
>
> Can anyone tell me what might be wrong and and how to fix it?
>



Well, I have been working on my iMac problem between check fraud problems (We 
are now convinced of banking online!) This is what I have done so far:

1. duplicated my hard drive on to a LaCie external firewire drive using 
Retrospect. The LaCie starts 
    boots up and it will repair disk permissions. (It keeps repairing the same 
ones over and over again,
    like library/colorsync; What's up with that? )

2. started up in single user mode (it is COMMAND and s key) with these results:
    diskOs9:I/Oerror
    invalid key length
    (4, 10217
    Volume check failed

3. Apple Hardware Test (I could not find Loop Mode --- where is it?)
    Logic Board, Mass storage, Memory, Video Ram: all passed; No hardware 
problems

4. Tried verifying disk permissions again on the iMac and it froze.

5. Disk Warrior did not complete the test. I stopped it after 20 minutes of 
doing nothing. It said disk     
    error affects speed or something like that.

So I am thinking that I will totally erase the drive and restore from the LaCie. 
Or does anyone have any other suggestions?

Jane