ok, so I had safari, and iChat open, went to the bathroom, and when I returned, the machine was frozen. So, I rebooted, and I got the apple logo, and the spinning circle. I took a listen to the hard drive, and it was doing this skipping noise. So, I boot off the OS X CD, and run disk utility. What I got are both a "invalid volume directory count" and a "invalid volume file count". Both are plus one of what it says they should be. I attempted to repair it, but after three tries, it said it could not repair the disk after the three atempts.
So, I reboot into single user mode, and run fsck -fy, and it did the same thing disk utility did.
Then, I reboot off the OS X CD, and choose my 9.2.2 install to boot. It boots flawlessly.
Then I ran the disk first aid. it as well found the invalid volume and file counts. It says it repaired the disk, but after verification, it finds the errors again.
so, is there any thing I can do besides backup, format, and restore?
-digital 
DiskWarrior maybe?
sorry, I just can't justify spending that much on non misson critical data. I have made a backup of as much data as I could on to my B&W's hard drive, which took me the majority of the night just getting through all the bad file messages.
cleaning up and about to boot off the OS 9 Cd now to zero the hard drive...
Posting from iCab 3.0.3 in Mac OS 9.2.2 by the way.
-digital
OK,formatting did fix the disk errors, and I have 9.2.2 back on there. Then I attempt to install OS X. It gets done, then I run software update. I walk away to go do something (I need to stop leaving this machine alone), and when I get back, something fscked up (get it?). The machine was asleep, which I do not remember setting up, and when I wake it up, I have this lovely power symbol on my screen, telling me to reboot. I do, and all is going well, until it gets at the end of the loading bar. It just sits there. the ripples are moving, but the disk stops being accessed, and no login window.
I am attempting another install now, only this time I have it set to upgrade the install, and see if that fixes the beast.
Why am I having such bad computer luck all of a sudden? Good thing I got the old PI Dell running again on a clean copy of Windows 98 SE, or this post would have to wait until I get the pismo back online, as my B&W is currently headless, waiting on a power supply for the LCD.
-digital
well, things keep going from bad to worse, and from worse to downright awful, and from there, I guess you hit rock bottom.
during the course of the upgrade process, my machine performed an awesome little hard freeze. So, I decided to reboot into OS 9.2.2, and delete the OS X files. I did, and even after the fact, there was 1.18gb used, more than the less than 300mb my OS 9.2.2 install takes up soaking wet. So, I figured what the hey, and am now performing a zero format of my paultry 6gb HD. Once that is done, I am shelving the unit for a few days to concentrate on other things, then pick it back up to start again.
what a horrid rainy day.
-digital
I used to have the problem of it getting all the way near the end of the install and then it would get stuck at the Chinese installation stuff and go nowhere. I make sure that my installation disks are super clean before doing installs. I'd get those kernel panics too sometimes. I can't remember exactly, but I think I would reformat using OS 9 and do both the low level format and zero all data and then format for X journaled when I went to install X to overcome the problem. Whatever happened to low level formatting with OS X? Why is that no longer an option?
Are you using an Apple ROM optical drive? I wonder if that plays into successful installations in any way.
when I booted off the OS 9 CD, the only initilization option availible was to write zeros. the low level option was greyed out.
well, I tried installing OS X again, and it worked, but when I was updating (I was watching it like a hawk this time), it was making a "chu chu chu chu chu" noise repeatidly on the 10.4.9 update. Now it won't boot, and Disk Utility on the X installer has it in red saying it has a fatal hardware error.
I am just going to get a new drive. Maybe one of those nice 32gb SSDs. I know I only need about 30gb of space, maybe 40gb. My mother also needs a new HD in her notebook, since her 1 year old seagate bit it (defective, I assume). good thing it's got the 5 year warrenty.
-digital
You're lying, because Macs never crash.
the pismo has been put to sleep.
I got a new 80gb HD, put in in my desktop, installed OS X, popped it into the pismo, and the ROM fried. So, I am parting it out. the IDE cable, battery, logic board, and 256mb of ram have been spoken for.
In it's place, I bought a $200 icebook from wegner media.
-digital
lol i just got done hoseing my install of tiger 10.4.9 updating to 10.4.10
i ran the update and rebooted it did a double bood and started i got into the Os and ren disk utility to repair permition's like normal. it went threw and found nothing wrong and then the system froze. i did a force restart and it started to boot and got to where the loading bar was and i seen the loading bar was going really really slow. and after a minute it reached the end and that is where it stayed.
i tryed rebooting about 5 times ans the same happened again
so i booted the OS X tiger install cd and repaired permitions and allot was wrong so i tryed to reboot again and the same happened. so i booted back with the tiger instaler and verifyed disk and a few things was wrong so i fixed it and it all got repaired. so i tryed it again and the same happened again.
so i formatted the partition and went to reinstall i opened disk utility's and checked to see if the disk was fin, and it was 100% ok. so after the install and the OS running i updated now everything is up to date 10.4.10 and everything and now its back to normal.
boy does it ever suck to have that happen. i had that install since 10.4.3 and it alway's updated flawlessly. maybe since i didnt disable PCI extreme the update got hosed during reboot.
but my problem wasnt as bad as IADM's pismo's rom fragging.that alway's pains me to see a computer die. some tomes there is hope to bring it back alive