I was making a simple one level computer game for a school project. I was almost done, and it was look'n pretty sweet, when my computer decided not to start up.
I need the game finished by 1:00 PM tomorrow, should only take me half an hour or so to finish the map, maybe less, but the soonest apple store time I can get it fixed is 2:00 PM.
Symptoms:
When it starts, it shows a flashing question mark
After about 5-10 minutes it just turns off
When I start from install cd to try to set it to restart from the correct HD, it only gives me 2 choices: CD startup, or network startup
If anyone can help, I'd be very gratefull.
Uh oh...that isn't good.
I think that means that it has a failing HD. Connect another computer to it and be ready to get the stuff off and keep restarting because it will probably work for a short while, every-once in a while, so you can get the game stuff off and work on it on another computer.
Good luck!
Kyle Mist Wrote:Uh oh...that isn't good.
I think that means that it has a failing HD. Connect another computer to it and be ready to get the stuff off and keep restarting because it will probably work for a short while, every-once in a while, so you can get the game stuff off and work on it on another computer.
Good luck!
Wow, sorry ccccc. I'll second this -- your first job is to get your data off the hard drive the next time you can. Do you have an external hard drive? If you can boot from that you can transfer out your files.
I hope you teacher will give you a break because of a hardware failure.
[>] Brian
@Kyle: I've tried like 200 times, no luck. :P
@Brian--If I can boot from the external one thats awesome--I have another mac I can finish it on then!
If that works, every-things fine.
[EDIT]How do I boot from an external hd? I tried cmnd shift option delete but it still booted from the install cd (which is stuck in the computer as there's no way to eject it).
ccccc Wrote:@Kyle: I've tried like 200 times, no luck. :P
@Brian--If I can boot from the external one thats awesome--I have another mac I can finish it on then! If that works, every-things fine.
[EDIT]How do I boot from an external hd? I tried cmnd shift option delete but it still booted from the install cd (which is stuck in the computer as there's no way to eject it).
You can only (I think) boot from external firewire hard-drives, is it firewire?
[>] Brian
Do you have DiscWarrior? If you do, put the CD in and hold down C and restart. I had a computer with a failing HD a while ago.
Yup, it's firewire. I found an apple store that I can get it fixed at in like 20 minutes from now, actually, so I might be able to get it fixed intime.
(This is a science project, I'm having people rate how scary the game is with different vars like lighting turned off, and everyone was coming at 1:00 but I called them and changed it to 2:30 so I'll hopefully be home before they get to my house. :P)
I'm going now....
Okay, I went to the apple store and they can't fix it.
(luckily I mostly use my other comp)
They can take it apart, sell us a new HD, therefore loosing the game completely (don't worry UNSEEN's on my other comp and I back it up regularly), but this means I'd have to make
the whole game again, my teacher said she'd give me an extension but I really don't wan to start over....
My parents are going to pay some company to try to recover the files before it gets wiped--but before we spend like $700, any recommendations of who to send it to?
Did you even try booting up on the OS X CD and using disk utility to repair it? I didnt gather that from what I have read above. And if you plug in an external you should be able to use disk utility to copy everything over if possible.
Yeah, I tried, but when I boot up from the cd and use disk utility, there's no HD to copy from as far as disk utility knows.
Same for an external HD, the guy at the mac store tried that.