Edit: My PB has been fixed! There is no need to read this first post. Please scroll down to post #19 to see the conclusion.
Hi, first of all, my name's Rachel and even though this is my first post here on the MacRumors forums, I assure you that I am no stranger to the forums. I browse through the forum when I have time, but shyness and a lack of time/too much schoolwork has prevented me from actually becoming a member. However, I am at wit's end with my Powerbook, and decided to see if anyone had any solutions to my problems before I contacted Apple Support. So without further ado, here goes.
I have a 1.33 ghz 12" Rev. C Powerbook with Tiger installed, bought back in January. About two weeks ago, right after I installed the iPod Photo software, the computer began crashing. I really have no idea if the two things are related. And it wasn't those crashes force quit could end. No, I had to reboot the PB. This kept happening, and eventually it stopped booting up, getting stuck on the grey intro screen with the apple and the little spinning thing below it. I repaired the permissions, repaired the disc, and checked the hardware. Still, nothing helped. Took out the third party RAM, but again, nothing. I bought Disk Warrior, and after running that, my PB began to boot up again. It worked well for a couple of hours and then began crashing again. Luckily, it would always be a little while before it crashed again. The crashes usually seemed to happen when I was using iPhoto or iTunes, but would also sometimes happen when using other applications. Also, after the initial crash it would usually crash again right after I rebooted it. After another reboot it would be fine for a few hours. I should also mention that whenever it crashed, the hard drive would make funny noises, repeating patterns of sort. The best way I can think of to describe it is a stuck/repeating record. As I said though, nothing seems to indicate hard drive problems, at least according to the Apple Hardware Test and additionally, the S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
Finally I decided it was time to erase the hard drive. Luckily, I back up religiously, so I didn't lose anything of importance (Besides an iPhoto book I was working on). I tried to do the option where the data is written over with zeros; however it kept failing halfway through and I'd have to do a hard reboot. I tried this about five times without success, finally settling for the regualr erase (which of course doesn't truly erase the data). I reinstalled everything, and for a while things were going fine. Then, as I was messing with a picture I'd grabbed from the internet on Photoshop, I heard the dreaded noise coming from the hard drive, and seconds later, the spinning beach ball appeared. Of course, I did another hard reboot. When I turned the computer back on, it got stuck at the grey startup screen, as it had initially done. The hard drive was also making the repeating pattern noises. I again repaired permissions, repaired the disc and made sure nothing was wrong hardware wise, but it still didn't go past the startup screen. When I tried to run Disk Warrior, after about 15 minutes I got a screen that said something about Kernal, Darwin, and the very last line of it said something to the effect of "we're hanging here panic". I'll put the disc in again later and post a picture of the screen, but at the moment I'm very frusterated and don't feel like messing with it.
As much as I would like to solve this problem myself, I'm thinking I'll probably end up having to send it in to be repaired. However, if anyone has any ideas as to what may be wrong, or even anymore tests I can run, I'd love your help and input. Just knowing what's wrong with it, even if it's not something I can fix would be nice. By the way, I'm just a typical teenage home computer user: I'm more knowledgeable than my parents when it comes to computers, but I'm not savvy enough to be a programmer or even understand anything related to computer programming, so if your reply is really technical, I probably won't understand what you're saying.
By the way, I am now forced to use my B.A. (Before Apple) computer, a Dell laptop. It feels like a piece of junk compared to my PB, and is nowhere near as pleasant to use. Never before have I appreciated my PB so much, and I really can't wait to use it again! Up until this incident, I had no problems with my PB besides the occasional force quit. I'm actually disappointed that I will no longer be able to brag to all my Windows user friends how I never have to deal with crashes and major problems.
Thanks in advance,
Rachel
Edit: Here's a picture of the screen I get when trying to load Disk Warrior. The part that seems of most interest is the top line: "Unable to find a driver for this platfrom"
I would put the picture in this post, but I'm sure it's too big, so I hosted it at imageshack: http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7528/img39079lc.jpg
Hi, first of all, my name's Rachel and even though this is my first post here on the MacRumors forums, I assure you that I am no stranger to the forums. I browse through the forum when I have time, but shyness and a lack of time/too much schoolwork has prevented me from actually becoming a member. However, I am at wit's end with my Powerbook, and decided to see if anyone had any solutions to my problems before I contacted Apple Support. So without further ado, here goes.
I have a 1.33 ghz 12" Rev. C Powerbook with Tiger installed, bought back in January. About two weeks ago, right after I installed the iPod Photo software, the computer began crashing. I really have no idea if the two things are related. And it wasn't those crashes force quit could end. No, I had to reboot the PB. This kept happening, and eventually it stopped booting up, getting stuck on the grey intro screen with the apple and the little spinning thing below it. I repaired the permissions, repaired the disc, and checked the hardware. Still, nothing helped. Took out the third party RAM, but again, nothing. I bought Disk Warrior, and after running that, my PB began to boot up again. It worked well for a couple of hours and then began crashing again. Luckily, it would always be a little while before it crashed again. The crashes usually seemed to happen when I was using iPhoto or iTunes, but would also sometimes happen when using other applications. Also, after the initial crash it would usually crash again right after I rebooted it. After another reboot it would be fine for a few hours. I should also mention that whenever it crashed, the hard drive would make funny noises, repeating patterns of sort. The best way I can think of to describe it is a stuck/repeating record. As I said though, nothing seems to indicate hard drive problems, at least according to the Apple Hardware Test and additionally, the S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
Finally I decided it was time to erase the hard drive. Luckily, I back up religiously, so I didn't lose anything of importance (Besides an iPhoto book I was working on). I tried to do the option where the data is written over with zeros; however it kept failing halfway through and I'd have to do a hard reboot. I tried this about five times without success, finally settling for the regualr erase (which of course doesn't truly erase the data). I reinstalled everything, and for a while things were going fine. Then, as I was messing with a picture I'd grabbed from the internet on Photoshop, I heard the dreaded noise coming from the hard drive, and seconds later, the spinning beach ball appeared. Of course, I did another hard reboot. When I turned the computer back on, it got stuck at the grey startup screen, as it had initially done. The hard drive was also making the repeating pattern noises. I again repaired permissions, repaired the disc and made sure nothing was wrong hardware wise, but it still didn't go past the startup screen. When I tried to run Disk Warrior, after about 15 minutes I got a screen that said something about Kernal, Darwin, and the very last line of it said something to the effect of "we're hanging here panic". I'll put the disc in again later and post a picture of the screen, but at the moment I'm very frusterated and don't feel like messing with it.
As much as I would like to solve this problem myself, I'm thinking I'll probably end up having to send it in to be repaired. However, if anyone has any ideas as to what may be wrong, or even anymore tests I can run, I'd love your help and input. Just knowing what's wrong with it, even if it's not something I can fix would be nice. By the way, I'm just a typical teenage home computer user: I'm more knowledgeable than my parents when it comes to computers, but I'm not savvy enough to be a programmer or even understand anything related to computer programming, so if your reply is really technical, I probably won't understand what you're saying.
By the way, I am now forced to use my B.A. (Before Apple) computer, a Dell laptop. It feels like a piece of junk compared to my PB, and is nowhere near as pleasant to use. Never before have I appreciated my PB so much, and I really can't wait to use it again! Up until this incident, I had no problems with my PB besides the occasional force quit. I'm actually disappointed that I will no longer be able to brag to all my Windows user friends how I never have to deal with crashes and major problems.
Thanks in advance,
Rachel
Edit: Here's a picture of the screen I get when trying to load Disk Warrior. The part that seems of most interest is the top line: "Unable to find a driver for this platfrom"
I would put the picture in this post, but I'm sure it's too big, so I hosted it at imageshack: http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7528/img39079lc.jpg