Huge Problem - Please Help

[DeepaSoul]

OK, heres the problem. I have the imac g4. For some
reason, I must have downloaded a pretty bad virus, my
mac won't start up. All it shows is the blink "?/mac os9 icon." I
did the option restart, and the hard drive won't show
up. I put in the hardware detection problem disc, and
it said my hard drive was fine. Then I put in my
Panther install disc just to see what happened, and
when it says where do you want to install it, the hard
drive doesn't show up. I tried using disc utility to
repair it, but it couldn't, saying that one of the
volumes is missing or something like that.
So i'm guessing my cpu can't read or find my hard
drive for some reason.
I also used Disk Warrior to repair and it got to a certain point and just stopped. i left it on over night and nothing.
is techtool pro any different, and do you thing that would work, or should i just take it to a technician and hopefully they can save some of the stuff that was on my HD. I cant use a firewire HD because if my hd is not showing up, then i cant save anything.

If you can help me out, I would forever be in your
debt. Please help me out if you can.

[bobthecar]

try kill disk pro, not to recover but to total wipe, this program will also fix bad sectors good luck

[mesamb1]

all right for starters i have had to date worked closley with five macs and it pretty much is not the end of the world. the official explanation is that your start up disk can not go through the proper sequances to load. or in other turns your computer has lost its self and you need to help it find itself. Now it sounds really dumb i admitt, but i have mac support behind me hear always try something multiple times. If you stick in the panther disk two or three times restarting in between one of the times you do it the problem should ironically fix its self. then the next step if you can get this to happen is to install using the option archive and install this as it should read when you do this keep your hard-drive intact. you do have to reinstall the panther that was the right instinict. now my question for you is do you have a laptop or access to one and a firewire cable? macs have the ingenious idea to allow their whole computers to function as bulky firewire drives and by connecting the two you have a good shot at loading your HD on the other computer as though your HD is the firewire drive and transefer files. and dont discount restarting as a healing remedy!

[Dave Cowen]

try kill disk pro, not to recover but to total wipe, this program will also fix bad sectors good luck

I could not find Kill Disk Pro for the Mac. Do you have a link for it?

Thanks,
Dave

[mesamb1]

i think this is the site bobthecar is talking about http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
personally i dont think you need to earse the hard drive.

[John A]

i think this is the site bobthecar is talking about http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

Yeah, but that's only for Windows. I don't think that KillDisk is even written for Mac...

As for your problem, I'd say try rebooting a few times, and if that doesn't help, either: a) some cables are loose inside, or b) your hard drive is toast. Either way, your Mac isn't recognizing your hard drive, which is the explanation of the flashing question mark.

If you're feeling handy, feel free to open up your Mac, and make sure that the hard drive cables are plugged in solidly in both the motherboard and the hard drive. Then try again. Failure to recognize the hard drive even after that means that your hard drive is probably dead and you should go to a technician to try to recover as much data as possible.