What to do if you have no system folder?

moonbase

moonbase

Registered
Hello,

My girlfriends computer is acting a bit strange.
I would appreciate any help I can get thanks...

When trying to install either OS X or 9 all it wants to do is install the new system software on the installation cd itself which it knows it can't.

How do you get a new system on there if there isn't one on there?
It boots up fine from both the 9 and X install cds but like I said it only see's the install cds once it boots up...

it is an iMac 600MHz with 256MB

Thanks in advance :)
 
Wait, what?

Is there something wrong with your current installation of OS 9 or X on your hard drive? You can't install anything onto a CD-ROM because the ROM stands for Read-Only Memory. You should see your actual hard drive when you try to install something.

What happens when you restart the computer and remove all CD's? Does it boot up fine, or does it sit there and hang, doing nothing?
 
Nothing happens it just has a ? and does nothing at all...

I thought that if it had no system folder I could just install one.
But I suppose I am dead wrong huh?

Thanks alot for your reply...

I appreciate it...
 
when you boot from the osx install disk, have you tried running disk utility? there may be something wrong with the directories. if disk utility can see your disk, then the problem is most likely fixable. at the very least you could reformat and start all over again if you wanted to. but if you need to salvage what's on the drive, try repairing it first. it might even take something like diskwarrior to fix.
 
I did try that and the disc utility only found the os x disc...

I guess her computer is screwed...
Possible the hard drive went out?

I appreciate your input...
 
well, i had a similar situation not that long ago. i'm trying to remember how i fixed it. i couldn't even get diskwarrior to recognise it and since it's my internal, there was no way to plug it in after DW was running. have you tried fsck in single user mode?
 
Something tells me the computer won't even get to single user mode.

To try, though, hold Cmd-S (that's the apple key + S) as soon as you start the computer, and when it finishes doing anything and gives you a command line, type fsck -y and push return. Repeat until it says that the system is okay, if you even get this far.
 
ok, here's some things i remember doing, i'm sorry i don't remember what worked.

booting with option held down - looks a little harder for a system folder sometimes

booting with option and a second hd with an os on it - then booting from it and running disk utility on the first one if it's recognised.

just waiting - for some reason problems like this seem to fix themselves after the mac has been off for a period of time.

repetitive restarting - start up, restart when you get the question mark and repeat until it figures out to repair itself during boot. some people are really afraid of this one but i've never permanently damaged a drive from this as far as i can tell.

those are all strategies that have worked for me at one time or another when faced with a questioning folder at startup. if i think of any more, i'll get back to you.

but it may just be time to invest in a real disk repair program like diskwarrior.
 
Tried all of the above and no go...

Now it's got the ball bouncing sound on start up
if I'm not mistaken that's the sound of a dead hard drive...


I really appreciate the info...
 
Like a metal ball bouncing on a metal plate?
Yes, that's not a happy sound !
If a utility won't see the hard drive at all, and you're getting that strange sound, not much you can do (valuable files, not backed up, might be recoverable by shipping the drive to a data recovery service)
Baa-hh-d hard drive :(
 
Can you go to an Apple Store ? They could run software and hardware test utilities.
 
Unfortunately we don't have an Apple store in Louisiana...

I have come to the conclusion that it is a dead drive :(

Thanks to all who helped me with this issue...

Much Appreciated... ::sleepy::
 
Couldn't he have run the Apple hardware test?
it was all on the one CD for me but older computers had a separate CD which you booted from to do the hardware test
 
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