This is a MAJOR farking DISASTER. I repaired my permissions using Optimizer X when I realised after an hour of chewing that I didn't have time for this, so I pressed cancel.

Everything normal.

I restart - boom! It now stays put on that grey screen with the Apple logo before the login screen, just spinning and spinning.

I tried:
1) Booting it up as a Firewire unit to a second computer
2) Tried the disk utility while booting up on the installation disk, and it recognizes the HD in there but it's greyed out. Hard drive repair failed.

What else can I do? Booting up in safe doesn't help.

If all else fails - I do have a Tiger CD here but the computer currently runs Leopard (I can't find that disk). If I install Tiger on it - will all the files still be there??

 

And now it doesn't even go all the way to the grey Apple logo - it's just grey.

I'm seriously going to jump out this goddamned building now. I don't have a backup.

 

Then you're probably going to have to pay a data recovery shop big bucks to get your bits back. Take it to an Apple VAR and see what they can do for you.

Do not use third-party utilities to mess with disk permissions. Ever. Use Disk Utility, that's what it's there for.

You can try and do an archive and install WITH LEOPARD, NOT TIGER and see if that fixes it, but I strongly suggest you use that as a last option as it will make data recovery much harder if it doesn't work.

 

Oh boy, I'm afraid I can't give you any helpful advise so I'll stick to seriously wishing you the best of luck.

 

Thanks guys. Wow, it sounds like I am royally screwed with this one. I was hoping for a "Oh, that. Just hold down the x-button and it will work again"



Looks like I am in for a rough week without ANY of my files - and no freakin' calendar.

Well, I guess it could be worse. I could have been creamed by a bus or something . . .

 

I'm really feeling the pain Jox! I don't have any ideas of what would help reinstalling, just go to an Apple Center and see what they suggest.

J

 

Do you have disk warrior? DW is a utility used by the genius bar.

 

 

The day isn't over yet.

 

Now is not the time to be joking . . .