frown mad
Well it looks as though my underlying problems have come to light.
I'll give you a clue - I'm typing this from my wife's computer.
7 hours ago I started re-backing up my laptop (with my rebuilt, new optimized directory). I thought it was taking a long time - it even gave a message about a quarter of the way through that there had been an error and stopped temporarily - but after about 6 hours , very nearly at the end, the Silverkeeper (the back up software I have used without any problems for many years) window flew of the desktop, replaced by the spinning beachball.
After several minutes of watching the beachball I got bored and switched off and restarted the computer. After several minutes of the grey screen with Apple icon and spinning thingy I again switched off and tried to reboot holding down alt key to see what options (excuse the pun) I might get. I thought the external drive might get detected, but it didn't, just the internal, which when chosen only, again, took me as far as the grey Apple icon, spinning thingy screen.
Again, I eventually swiched off (by the way, using the power button) and started up with the DiskWarrior disc - it detected the internal and external drives. confused I proceeded to check out the internal drive with the "Hardware" option, but this simply confirmed SMART verified.
I then rebuilt the internal drive, during the process of which came up a message "speed reduced by disk malfunction : 3". I googled this message, the upshot of which is in the last paragraph of an Alsoft Support Database" "Answer", advising the need to "backup your files from the DiskWarrior Preview window (accessed from the DiskWarrior Report window) to another drive. This is what I am in the middle- well, about one sixth way through - of at the moment.
But, the real crunch comes in the last sentence - "Once you have a backup of your files, you will need to install a new hard drive to replace the damaged hard drive."
So, there it would appear to be - unless anyone has any other suggestions. laugh
Just as a last thought, do you know of a good, reliable hard drive for my G4 Ti 867 MHZ laptop. No worries if you can't as I shall open a new topic asking for recommendations, as I remember trying, not very successfully (I can't remember why), to source a new HD some time ago when the 40 GB was getting too small for my iTunes music - eventually I transferred the music to an external drive. cool
Hope you're still paying attention. grin
Regards. Mike