[DM-MUG] why will restore from backup not complete?

[Matt W]

You say it froze? I've seen Disk Warrior take hours to run on badly  
damaged disks. DW does have a scavenge mode that uses a more thorough  
algorithm, and also takes longer. If you hold down the Option key at  
the main window, the Rebuild button switches to a Scavenge button.  
I'd let it run overnight. You may be surprised to find it finished by  
the next morning. If you let DW run, it sometimes gives you more  
hints as to why it has failed. If it truly freezes (no mouse  
movement, etc.) then you should target other hardware, namely RAM.

If your iBook boots into Classic, NewerTech's old utility GaugePro  
(a.k.a GURU) has a great memory tester in the menu. If you want to  
stick with OS X, get memtest here: <http://www.memtestosx.org/>

Not to say that it's not the drive, but if you've installed Disk  
Warrior 3 on the boot drive (which you should do before you sense  
trouble!), you can set it to check the mechanism's SMART status which  
will notify you of impending HD failure in some cases. If you can  
format the drive with zeroes (and utilize DW's SMART checking ability  
from the boot CD), you may want to test the RAM. There's a minor  
problem with iBooks, though. If there IS bad RAM, pray that it's not  
soldered to the board or you'll have to replace the whole logic board.

Matthew