Ok, can any one tell me what will happen if I insert the install CD for my PowerBook, hold down C and restart my computer?

Will my hardrive be wiped?

Here is some background:

I have a gig on thursday night (at the Trafalgar Hilton if you fancy it: its £20 per drink by the way!)

But my PowerBook is screwed. When ever I open any Audio Applications after 20 minutes I get a loud fuzzing noise (quite like the noise you get when you use demo soft synths and the like) but the noise is relentless and only stops if you close the audio apps and restart them. Obviously I cant do this twice in my set as that would really suck.

I have tried repairing permissions (thanks Lepetitmartien) but unfortunately this didn't work. Apple told me to do the install, hold down C thing but I am worried that my whole harddrive will get deleted!

Can anyone help???

The computer must be started from a BOOT CD in order to be able to repair the BOOT SYSTEM on your hard drive. The system and utilities on your hard drive are not allowed to repair themselves - too much chance for corruption and disaster, so starting from the CD is the best way as it is not erasable. One could also start from another hard drive with a system on it to do the same thing.

Once your booted from the CD, it will just sit there. No responsible program, especially a system disk, will destroy anything with no warning!

You then have a choice between installing and erasing the disk, installing and keeping the disk contents, or using Disk First Aid, which is what I think was recommended to you.

good luck.

After the restart from CD, in the install menu you'll have the apple drive utility listed, go for it and repair drive then permissions. See if the system work now.

if in the utility or in the installer you happen to ask for a format of the drive, the utility will warn you . Always read the messages the installer will display especially the short ones.

If not, restart from the CD and choose the option to install a new system without erasing the drive. it's better for someone else to pick up the go through, i have not installed a system for quite some time (a few months are enough to blur enough the procedure not to want saying stupid things).

the quickest thing to try is single-user boot fsck:

startup holding Apple-S until you see lots of text and a command line.

at the prompt type and press return

if all is well type ,

if not keep doing it (up arrow gets past commands back) until it is unless it claims it cant fix your problem.

best of luck

Success!!!

Thanks so much guys, I am now operating normally!!

Cheers.

AM