Please help me with my problem!!!

Try booting in single user mode (startup while holding command-s) and follow the on-screen prompts to run fsck.

thanks for this.
unfortunately i am absolutely newbie with this.
so i have no idea with all the entries....... :-(

now i am trying to use diskwarrior.
under toast 5.1.4 i try to burn a bootable cd.
i select: mac os standard.
but toast gives error message:
please use mac os extended --> but this means no bootable cd.

i am absolutely down.....

now i try to burn diskwarrior on cd normally and after it i want to
try it to burn it with nero on a pc. i think this will not work cause of data fork or whatever......

i also have a mac laptop but it seems that i cannot connect the laptop with my emac if the finder on the emac does not found the harddrives....

i am getting crazy.
i only need to backup less than 20mb.

is it also possibile to make a partition without deleting my current osx system?

please help...
thanks

First: reboot while holding down apple-s. (also known as command-s) This will boot you into single user mode, which will be a black screen with text.

There will be instructions on the screen, type:
fsck -y
fsck will attempt to find disk damage and repair it. If it *does* find damage, you will need to run it again, until you get "disk ok" or "no errors found". (this could take multiple runs)

After you've done the fsck -y, you will need to type:
mount -uw /
(as it says on the initial screen with the fsck instructions)
then type: reboot

This runs a basic diagnostic/disk repair program. If the fsck allows you to boot your system, I would recommend you immediately backup your stuff, and reinstall from scratch.

good luck.

If the fsck does not find anything wrong it could be a user issue since you are getting to your desktop. The trick may be to get rid of your Preferences. If you can try this:

Boot the emac to an OS 9 CD. You boot to a CD by inserting it and restarting the computer with the "c" key held down while the computer boots. After booted to the CD, double click on the hard drive icon on the desktop.....double click on the Users folder....double click on yourusername folder....double click on the Library folder.....double click on the Preferences folder. Now in here you want to move all these to the trash BUT before you do create a new folder on the desktop and option - drag all these files to the new folder. Then move all the files from the Preferences folder to the trash. Leave the empty Preferences folder in place and restart the computer without holding any key down. It should boot back to the hard drive. See if it boots normally. If so one of those plist files is corrupt. You can gradually move them back into place a few at a time and log out and back in to see if everything is fine until you find the bad one or you could just reset all your preferences manually.

Originally posted by AKcrab
After you've done the fsck -y, you will need to type:
mount -uw /
(as it says on the initial screen with the fsck instructions)
then type: reboot

You don't need to mount the HD to reboot.

you cannot create a partition on the drive without erasing it. Does you laptop have a firewire port? If so, with both computers powered off connect the laptop and emac via a firewire cable....Power on the laptop and let boot all the way up. Then power on the emac holding down the "T" key on the keyboard until you get a firewire symbol on the emac screen. Shortly thereafter the emac will appear on the desktop of the laptop. It will be as an external hard drive. you can then copy anything from it to your laptop etc to back up what you need before you continue to troubleshoot the emac...

...geeesh.... I didn't know that with the Firewire....

but I got another solution :)
Connect your Sony cyber shot to your not working emac and
boot it in OS9... then you can transfer all your files to your
camera memory stick bit by bit... too bad the cam does only have
32MB memory ;)

But! It worked.... until the cam got out of battery power and I just couldn't find the recharge cable.... (Murphy's law?):(

Well... just too bad I didn't see your post before all that... :rolleyes:

Thank you very much for all you help!

Next time my emac crashes so badly, I will sure be equipped with a Firewire cable :cool:

Take care!

Cheers