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I think my Mac is dead - help! It was frozen, so I held down the
power button to reboot. Now when I try to start it up again I just
get a grey screen with a flashing folder with a question mark in it.

So I put in the install CD and held down C for the Disk Utility. When
I go into Disk Utility and then First Aid, when I choose my hard drive
the only option I can click on is Verify Disk Permissions - Repair
Disk is greyed out. Then when I click on Verify Disk Permissions it
says:

"First Aid failed

Disk Utility stopped verifying permissions on "Mac OS X Install Disk
1" because the following error was encountered:

No valid packages"

And this is despite me having the hard drive highlighted (not the
install disk) in the menu.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Shaun

shaunism <>, the shabby-old-fart and limp-wristed
arse-master who likes demented rhubarb rubbing with walruses, and whose
partner is a hurry-whore with a soggy pootnanny, wrote in
<f9bf192c-f2c0-4f5a-8213->:
>I think my Mac is dead - help! It was frozen, so I held down the
> power button to reboot. Now when I try to start it up again I just
> get a grey screen with a flashing folder with a question mark in it.
>
> So I put in the install CD and held down C for the Disk Utility. When
> I go into Disk Utility and then First Aid, when I choose my hard drive
> the only option I can click on is Verify Disk Permissions - Repair
> Disk is greyed out. Then when I click on Verify Disk Permissions it
> says:
>
> "First Aid failed
>
> Disk Utility stopped verifying permissions on "Mac OS X Install Disk
> 1" because the following error was encountered:
>
> No valid packages"
>
> And this is despite me having the hard drive highlighted (not the
> install disk) in the menu.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Shaun


Remove the hard drive and test it in a proper computer. It appears the drive
is rooted.


--
For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down
in words with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived
it. There is, however, a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy which
are not thoughts, and to which as yet I have found it absolutely
impossible to adapt to language. These fancies arise in the soul, alas
how rarely. Only at epochs of most intense tranquillity, when the
bodily and mental health are in perfection. And at those weird points
of time, where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of
dreams. And so I captured this fancy, where all that we see, or seem,
is but a dream within a dream.

> I think my Mac is dead - help! It was frozen, so I held down the
> power button to reboot. Now when I try to start it up again I just
> get a grey screen with a flashing folder with a question mark in it.

The hard disc with the OS X system partition has probably failed.

> So I put in the install CD and held down C for the Disk Utility. When
> I go into Disk Utility and then First Aid, when I choose my hard drive
> the only option I can click on is Verify Disk Permissions - Repair
> Disk is greyed out.

The Verify Disk and Repair Disk buttons are normally greyed-out until
you select a volume on the disc. If there is no volume listed, it means
that OS X is not compatible with it, the volume has been corrupted, or
no volume exists on that disc.

> Then when I click on Verify Disk Permissions it says:
>
> Disk Utility stopped verifying permissions on "Mac OS X Install Disk
> 1" because the following error was encountered:
>
> No valid packages"

That indicates that Disk Utility cannot find the OS X system files.

I recommend reinstalling OS X onto a new hard disc. It is possible that
your current system disc is bad. Do not rely on that disc anymore.
Check your warranty label on that hard disc, too. It may still be under
warranty and you can get a replacement from the manufacturer. I hope
that you backed up any important data on that disc.