Member Avatar for Stevie Murray

Hi my Ibook G4 froze. After rebooting I get a flashing question mark.
I have ran a hardware test which errors, and have tried to reinstall system software but cannot see harddrive.
Any ideas without going to a specialist?

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Dani AI

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Flashing question mark + hardware-test errors mean the Mac firmware cannot find a valid boot volume and the hardware test has flagged a fault. On an iBook G4 that combination most often points to either a failed hard drive or a failing internal connection/cable; logic-board faults are less common but possible.

Practical triage (in this order):

  • Check for audible drive behavior: a healthy laptop drive will spin; repeated clicking or total silence under power are warning signs of mechanical failure.
  • Try FireWire Target Disk Mode (hold T at startup) and connect to another Mac via FireWire. If the internal disk appears, copy important data first.
  • Boot from the install DVD or an external FireWire/bootable disk and open Disk Utility to see whether the physical device appears and to check S.M.A.R.T. info; run Repair Disk only after an image/backup is taken.
  • Remove the drive and test it externally with a 2.5" laptop-disk enclosure or IDE-to-USB adapter to separate drive failure from an internal cable/connector fault.
  • If the disk is visible but the filesystem is damaged, boot to single-user mode (hold Command-S) and run fsck -fy, or repair from Disk Utility. If the disk shows read errors or noise, make a sector-level image (tools like GNU ddrescue on a spare Unix/Linux machine) before attempting repairs.

As suggested, disk-repair tools can help with directory damage; as noted, imaging or backing up the drive before any repair attempt is essential because repairs on a dying disk can make recovery harder. If opening the iBook is not comfortable or the data is critical, professional data-recovery service is the safest option.

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Member Avatar for MacJunkie

Before running a drive repair tool like or I highly recommend you make a backup of the drive. That will insure that if the drive becomes further damaged by one of these utilities, you will still have an original to work with. For backing up the drive I suggest you look at CopyCatX. Unlike other tools on the market that make backups of the drive, CopyCatX copies everything on the drive including the information found in the free-space of the drive. This would allow you to recover lost information should there be any once you repair the drive using a disk repair utility. Good luck.

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