What you said is what I would like to believe, but I was able to get into the HD and scan through it — the boot block structure was readable but the content was zeros, and the PhotoShop files were readable — so the head had not died.I have received email warnings about the “Postcard” trojan that does this to PC’s — if you click on the link, it downloads and executes. I thought Macs were immune, but now I think that trojan or a similar one has been modified.
Sorry, Zot, I thought you said the data was not recoverable. Yup, you did:
"The hard disc is not useable and the data is not recoverable.
If it is the case that the Photoshop files are readable, then most likely all your data should be recoverable.
Converting a Windows PC executable to run on and impact a Mac, especially an old PowerPC Mac, is not a trivial task. They share no code. The file systems are completely different.
Zot, I find it very odd that anyone would deign to design a virus for OS 9. It seems an exercise in futility. That OS has not been updated significantly since eight years ago, and it now represents less than 1/10th of a percent of users out there. As I told you, simply clicking on an email attachment in a Mac will not infect it... even an OS9 Mac... and certainly not an OSX Mac. Something else has happened to your church's Mac.
I have just completed a Google search and nothing new impacting OS 9 or prior has come up.
It has been many years since I worked on OS9 and older... but my recollection is that OS 9 and earlier did not rely on a boot sector. Any drive can boot a Mac OS. It looks on the hard drive for the System Folder and in it must be a Finder and a System file. Once it finds them, it will boot. If either file gets corrupted, it will not boot but the data and apps on the drive are OK. Since you say you CAN read the files, then this is most likely what has happened. The System Folder on an OS 9 Mac can be literally just copied to a formatted disk with no writing to a "boot sector" necessary to have a bootable disk. I did it many times. Ergo, No virus.
Usually, if the drive is readable, all you have to do to recover an OS 9 or older Mac drive as a bootable drive is to replace those two files with ones that match the OS. In this case, System and Finders for OS 9. A clean install from the original disks takes about 10 minutes and will boot.
The upshot is that I believe your system files were corrupted. These are opened and closed every time you start up a Mac of that vintage.
What did your church buy to replace that venerable old Mac?
When I went through the HD with Norton Utilities, I saw the icons for PhotoShop files, which meant the head was working, but the files are not recoverable.
“Usually, if the drive is readable, all you have to do to recover an OS 9 or older Mac drive as a bootable drive is to replace those two files with ones that match the OS. In this case, System and Finders for OS 9. A clean install from the original disks takes about 10 minutes and will boot.”
I and a computer expert from NASA who is a member of our church spent about 20 hours trying to do this, to no avail.
He donated a clean G3 with OS-9.1 to replace the one we had, and we had most of our data through January backed up on a thumb drive, so now I’m trying to get the applications we use working again.