GUYS I NEED YOUR HELP

haiggy · Dec 11, 2004

OH MY GOSH,

Okay. I am so mad right now.

So I am doing some school project right, and iTunes is playing and everything. Then the music stops just immediately and I get a spinning wheel and I save my document (which takes about 30 seconds). So I get worried, and I go to my hard drive, open applications (which then lags about 30 seconds more) to go to Disk Utility to check the "SMART" status of my drive. Says "Verified" So I think okay, things SHOULD be okay. So then, I restart... try and fix some things. I adjust my power settings like "Sleep hard drives whenever possible" (Which I thought was checked already, wtf?) So I restarted about a total of 3 times today. I would get to the sign in screen, put in my password and it would take 30 seconds again to load. I get so worried. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong and so I disable anything that might be causing problems. I restart once more. This time, the computer shuts down. I think "OH S**T" I try to start it up. Makes some noises, screen lights on, hard drive spins up, hard drive spins down (in a never ending cycle). So I think "Grrrreat wtf am I gonna do now?" I look for my CD's to see fi they will help, well obviously they won't if it is a hardware error. So, I find the hardware test disk and boot from it. When it got to "Mass storage" I got this error basically saying the hard drive is dead. I am just so worried because my 1 year warrant JUST ran out. And to add to this, I live in Canada so I would have to ship it off it I wanted to get Apple to fix it. I could try the reseller which lives 15 minutes away from me (thank GOODNESS) There were NO symptoms to this previously so I have no back up. I am wondering:

I don't REALLY need the info off the drive, but CAN it be retrieved?

Also, do I have to replace the hard drive or can I just buy an external FW 400 drive and boot off of that? Guys, please help me out... I am sooooo freaked out right now - first time soemthign has ever gone wrong with a computer of mine. I'm only like 16 so I'm tight on money. Saving up for this thing took all summer (last year) and I think Apple is GREAT and read all these stories about things happening to other people and I hope "Hopefully this doesn't happen to me" Now it has, and I am just so frustrated. Someone just help me out so I can relieve some steam.

musicpyrite · Dec 11, 2004

There are several things you can do.

Run the hardware test CD, like you said, it gave you an error, which isn't good.

You could try booting the computer up in Firewire disk mode. What you would need would be another Mac with a Firewire port, and a Firewire cable. Connect the two Macs and start up the host machine normally. On your broken computer, start it up holding down the 'T' key. You computer should show up on the host machine like a normal FW or USB HD.

You could take the hard drive out of your Mac, and put it in another Mac or PC and try and copy the data that way. It would be fairly complicated to take apart the iBook (I'm assuming the computer with the problems is the one in your sig) or iMac G4.

haiggy · Dec 11, 2004

musicpyrite said:
There are several things you can do.

Run the hardware test CD, like you said, it gave you an error, which isn't good.

You could try booting the computer up in Firewire disk mode. What you would need would be another Mac with a Firewire port, and a Firewire cable. Connect the two Macs and start up the host machine normally. On your broken computer, start it up holding down the 'T' key. You computer should show up on the host machine like a normal FW or USB HD.

You could take the hard drive out of your Mac, and put it in another Mac or PC and try and copy the data that way. It would be fairly complicated to take apart the iBook (I'm assuming the computer with the problems is the one in your sig) or iMac G4.

Thanks for the quick response, but I don't have access to another mac or a firewire cable (unless I took a trip to my cousins) but that would do nothing because he has an iBook with 30 GB and it is full. It might be good just to check and see if things are recoverable.

Just an additional question: What type of hard drive am I looking to buy if I am going to replace it? What sizes do they come in? Can I geta bigger one than I have already? (60 GB) I am thinking I might take it apart myself, but if I don't I would have it repaired by the reseller. And the question which is still left unanswered: Can I boot from an external firewire drive?

Gokhan · Dec 11, 2004

as far as know the answer to the question can u boot off a firewire disk ?

i think it is not possible if the harddrive in the machine is busted but i do know if u hold down the option key on boot u can select what to boot up from whether the machine sees ur firewire disk or not is another thing

haiggy · Dec 11, 2004

Okay guys, well thanks for the help but here's something VERY strange.

I was going to plug in my iPod (willing to wipe my songs) and load up Panther, but - as I was going upstairs to my room I decided to tell my sister that my computer was broken.

She, being 12, was like "Yeah right.. you're lying"

Me: No joke.. come look

So we go to my room, I take out the disk after I left it in the hardware test mode for about half an hour.

I press the power button.

The screen stays black for a few seconds, then the screen lights up. I see the loading wheel start spinning and I'm thinking "WTF IS GOING ON?!"

Sister: Ha, I KNEW you were lying

Me: OMG NO SERIOUSLY I SWEAR IT WAS BROKEN!

So, right now I write to you on my iBook. I thank you for your help, and I haven't heard any strange noises AT ALL. Good thing. My cousin has offered to back up my stuff all on DVD's. (Gotta love him) So now I guess I will back up and hope for the best. Again, thanks for the help. Do you think it just over heated or something? It didn't seem too hot (it's probably been hotter) and it was on my hard wood desk.

musicpyrite · Dec 11, 2004

Well the iBook is fairly complicated to take apart, or so I've heard. Most people wouldn't reccomend it.

Yes, you can boot off an external Firewire hard drive. If you want to assemble your own, you can get an external enclosure from here and hard drive from here. If you want to buy one, I highly reccoemnd LaCie's D2 drives.
You could also just replace the internal hard drive, there is no point it having a notebook of your going to always be carrying around an external hard drive.

musicpyrite · Dec 11, 2004

Just saw your post, good for you. I'd recommend running a full hardware test on it to see if there really is something wrong. And check the SMART status in Disk Utility.

Sweetfeld28 · Dec 11, 2004

another thing which you could of done is to go into the utilities folder>the Activity Monitor. In the utility program you will be able to see what process is taking a lot of CPU usage, or determine what program is using/hogging a lot of RAM.

I think that if you would do this next time it happens that it will give you a better idea as to what maybe causing it, and by using the hardware cd too.

For example here are my Processes:

haiggy · Dec 11, 2004

Okay, so I checked the SMART drive before, and it says verified. I ran the hardware tests again and the hard drive passed. Although, the test took 24 minutes instead of the 4 to 8 estimated :S I think I am just going to back everything up over the network (now that I can do that) and maybe install Panther on my iPod incase I get into troubles. The weird thing is I was planning on buying an external hard drive earlier ('cause I only have 8 GB left)... maybe my iBook got jealous.

Edit: Oh yeah, and btw I used "top" in terminal and "top -u" to see any unnecessary processes. That's the same thing as "Activity Monitor", correct?

musicpyrite · Dec 11, 2004

The top command is similar to the Activity Monitor. The Activity Monitor just gives you a little more information, and puts a gui interface on it. Basically the same thing.

haiggy · Dec 11, 2004

Hmm, I'm kind of stuck on what to do:

Are there 80 GB drives I can put in my iBook?

If there are I can either

1) Install that and for now forget about an external drive
2) Install a small drive (like 20 GB) and get a bigger external drive (I guess that depends how much space I need on the go)
3) Keep my drive (as it seems to be working fine now) and get an external drive

What do you guys suggest? Could you post any links for me?

I'm thinking about whether or not I want to do this myself. I am pretty confident I could infact do it myself with one of the online guides, but I don't want to risk anything. I am thinking I will check how much it'll cost me at my local reseller.

Right now I am copying files to my network (on the PC drive) and I plan on installing Panther on my iPod incase I need to boot up my iBook.

Rocksaurus · Dec 11, 2004

I've always hated external drives, though a lot of people on this forum recommend them so, I dunno. My thing is I hate having things tethered to the computer, especially a laptop. Installing a bigger hard drive by yourself would be a huge huge huge task, so you'd likely have to pay to get it installed. I'm pretty sure they have 80 GB drives for the iBooks since the PBs have 'em. Saw an ad the other day where a PC laptop had a 100 GB drive, but those PC's are like bricks so who knows... The easiest thing is just getting an external drive if you need lots more space... If you only need 20 GB's more space then just due to my hatred for the external I'd at least look into prices on internals + Apple installation, which after selling your 60 GB would probably come out to being cheaper than a big external drive - but you get less space of course. I rambled a little, sorry.
In sum:
Just buying an external drive is easier and will give you more combined space but will require you to carry it with you if you're a mobile user and will always need to be tethered to your computer once you exceed your 60 GB internal and (maybe) will be a little more expensive.

Getting a bigger internal HD is more mobility friendly, but requires more work, might cost a little less, though I don't honestly know, and would result in less overall space.

I hope that helps....

musicpyrite · Dec 12, 2004

Yes, you can get an 80 or 100 GB hard drive that will fit in your iBook.

For the price of an 80 or 100 GB 2.5" hard drive, you could get a 160+ GB external 7200 RPM w/ 8 MB cache. The internal will be limited to 5400 RPM.

It really depends on what you want. Do you want to spend a little more and get large internal drive? Or spend a little less, get a bigger hard drive, but always be tethered to it?

haiggy · Dec 12, 2004

musicpyrite said:
Yes, you can get an 80 or 100 GB hard drive that will fit in your iBook.

For the price of an 80 or 100 GB 2.5" hard drive, you could get a 160+ GB external 7200 RPM w/ 8 MB cache. The internal will be limited to 5400 RPM.

It really depends on what you want. Do you want to spend a little more and get large internal drive? Or spend a little less, get a bigger hard drive, but always be tethered to it?

See that's a tough decision. I think I could just move files to the internal hard drive that I want to take with me (and keep the external one with a back up of my internal drive) and then I have some extra space as well. Musicpyrite, thanks for all of your help with this post.

soulreb505 · Dec 24, 2004

lacie is not readind my finalcut files?

can anybody please tell me why my lacie fw 400 external HD is not letting me save my files from final cut it just wont let me and i have all this storage just sitting there THANKZ

Col. Panic · Dec 24, 2004

I read your post an almost the exact same thing happened to my TiBook (30 GB HD). Periodically on restarts I would get the spinning beach ball or the flashing HD icon. Hardware tests, however, showed that things were ok. Hmmph!

So I wound up buying an 80 GB internal HD and an external firewire case. I installed the 80 GB in the external case. Started up my PB. Luckily it started. Then I installed OS X on the 80 GB and copied all my files. Next I installed the 80 GB in the PB and put the old 30 GB in the external case.

Now I have a larger internal drive and the 30 GB works in the external case. It sometimes gets really hot and starts to get a little wonky. So when that happens I just turn it off.

Also, I never put anything critical on the external. Just in case.

atif.muhammad · Dec 25, 2004

hey guys, this might be a stupid question.
but when you buy an iBook or PB or something like that, do you get the OS CD with the computer
i know you can opt for a W2K/XP Pro CD with a PC but what about a mac?

5300cs · Dec 25, 2004

Col. Panic said:
...I read your post an almost the exact same thing happened to my TiBook (30 GB HD). Periodically on restarts I would get the spinning beach ball or the flashing HD icon. Hardware tests, however, showed that things were ok. Hmmph!

...

Now I have a larger internal drive and the 30 GB works in the external case. It sometimes gets really hot and starts to get a little wonky. So when that happens I just turn it off. ...

Sorry, which model TiBook do you have? I have a 550Mhz and it gets REALLY hot sometimes.

GUYS I NEED YOUR HELP

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