Dead Powerbook? ...tell me the inevitable

I have a G4 1.67 Powerbook running Leopard 10.5.6. In October of last year, I had a 250g hard drive installed. It's been running like a dream. AppleCare ran out in early February, of course.

It froze during normal use on Sunday, the 5th, yesterday.

It finally booted up later that night. I used it for an hour with no problems, so I backed up some important data.

This morning it froze again.

Here are the results of other boot attempts, in no particular order:

1. It sometimes won't even get to the gray screen.
2. It sometimes gets to the gray screen, then the circle with a line through it appears.
3. It sometimes gets to the user login, but the neither the keyboard nor trackpad will not respond so I can't attempt to type in the password.
4. I found my Leopard DVD tonight (finally), but it won't get to the gray screen.
5. It made it to the language selection screen of the DVD Install, but, again, neither the keyboard nor trackpad would respond so I could make a selection.

Is this more apt to be the logic board than the hard drive?

I think I just need to hear it from someone - she's a goner...

p.s. I have a G4 iBook running Leopard. If there's a way to try to access the PB disc for maintenance, please let me know.

Great info - something I didn't know and haven't tried. Thanks!

Thanks for the replies. I was able to mount the Powerbook via Fireware and run a Repair Disk from the iBook's Disk Utilities program. It ran a couple of times and indicated some errors were found. I restarted Repair Disk a couple of times and let it run as I went to sleep. It says the hard drive on the Powerbook was fine.

I wanted to reinstall OSX on the Powerbook from the iBook. However, it says it's not possible, and that I need to partition the drive on the Powerbook.

I restarted the Powerbook, held the "C" down, and for the first time in a day it booted to the Leopard install DVD AND the mouse and keyboard responded, allowing me to attempt to reinstall OSX on the Powerbook. HOWEVER, there was an error message saying it was not possible. When I quit Installer, the Powerbook drive does not appear as a boot option. I was going to type the exact wording of the error message, but I quit the installer too hurriedly.

As I type, I'm waiting to see if it will reboot to install disk, which it seems to be doing.

OK, here's the error message I get when attempting to reinstall OS X:

"You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. To enable installation on this volume, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and repartition this disk as 'Apple Partition Map'. Note: You will lose all data on this disk by repartitioning it."

I'm amazed that I can even get to it to boot to a workable menu this morning. It's a step further than I was yesterday.

EDIT: I'm repairing permissions from the Disk Utilities on the install disk.

EDIT: Repair Permissions complete with A LOT of repairs!

EDIT Three: able to boot to Open Firmware, then successfully booted up Powerbook. Put Install DVD back in to attempt reinstall, and the same error message asking to partition disk appears.

Any more ideas?

Eric S. said:

I'm a little confused. Did you install OS X on this disk originally, or did it come already installed? If it isn't already partitioned as Apple Partition Map, does Disk Utility tell you what it is partitioned as?

Click to expand...

This is an upgraded, 250g hard drive. It was installed last October with the same OS (Leopard) that was on the original hard drive.

There is no partition on the current drive that I can tell.

I'm now able to boot my computer to regular use. This has been consistent over the past couple of hours. However, it still won't allow a reinstall of Leopard. If I want to restart the computer while it's working off the Leopard DVD, the hard drive won't appear as a boot option. I have to boot to Open Firmware to eject the disc, then it will boot to the hard drive successfully.

I want to avoid erasing the hard drive, but was going to try an archive and install first. I did find the original DVD that came with the computer and am trying that. However, it's still giving me an error message that won't allow me to choose the hard drive.

I'm now talking to the company that did the hard drive upgrade. It's still under warranty, thank goodness, so they're helping me out.

Thanks to everyone for getting me this far. I'll keep you updated.

clyde2801 said:

What kind of hard drive did you have installed in your powerbook?

Oh, have you tried putting your original hard drive in an external firewire enclosure and booting off of that?

Click to expand...

250g Western Digital. It was done by Macservice.com

Update: I sent the PB to Macservice to check the hard drive since it's still under warranty. The kernel panics are coming from the logic board. Another $550 or so for a PB that's two months out of AppleCare. *sigh* Just spent $300 on the hard drive, which (as stated) is still under warranty. I'll probably go with the repair instead of buying a new Mac. I wish they made a 15" MacBook!

Thanks to everyone for your help!!

The hard drive has been running normally, no sounds or any other issues. I believe it's the logic board. I pay people for things I am not able to do myself. Plus, I get a warranty on their work and the piece of machinery in question. They are trained professionals, and I gladly pay for their work.

Thanks again.

I seriously considered calling Apple. It happened when AppleCare was not quite two months out of warranty.

California said:

That said, if you kept your original hard drive, I know there was a mac program for powerbooks that I used once... three hundred dollars and they will repair replace anything outside of accidental damage to bring your PB back to new. I did it on a then top of the line 1 ghz Titanium Powerbook.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm taking it to the Apple Genius Bar in Metairie LA this week sometime. I declined the $550 price MacService wanted to repair the logic board.

California said:

That said, if you kept your original hard drive, I know there was a mac program for powerbooks that I used once... three hundred dollars and they will repair replace anything outside of accidental damage to bring your PB back to new. I did it on a then top of the line 1 ghz Titanium Powerbook.

This program was in force a couple of years ago don't know about it now.

Click to expand...

You were right, California! I took the PB to the Genius Bar in Metairie LA today. After a few diagnostics, the G agreed it was the logic board. He quoted over $600 for a new board. However, he then said since the Powerbook was so well taken care of, they had a program that would fix anything to get it working for $310. He even mentioned how good it looked before he started working on it. It pays to baby your stuff!

I'm now on the phone with Apple Repair. They want $900 to replace the non-Apple hard drive, stating that it won't mount. The company that installed the hard drive checked it out, as it was under warranty, and indicated that it was fine. They said the logic board is in need of repair. The Apple Genius also stated it was the logic board. Now the repair division indicates differently.


I'm calmly disagreeing with their diagnoses, saying I've been mislead.

I continue to be on hold.



EDIT: now talking to supervisor. Very nice. He says there are situations where certain hard drives shouldn't be used with Powerbooks. It may work for awhile, but may also quit working down the road. He has me on hold again to verify information.

EDIT TWO: Apple won't repair under the quoted $310 program saying they can't diagnose properly with the third party hard drive. This despite: 1) Apple originally saying they would not upgrade a hard drive, but using an Apple Certified tech to do so would not void warranty. 2) Apple Genius and MacService (who installed hd upgrade) both diagnosing current issue as logic board.

I was told two different stories about the upgrade. One supervisor said the upgrade was incompatible and would wear down quicker. Another said you can't install an upgrade over 120g. Again, this despite manufacturers selling and advertising 250g hd's all over the web. And despite MacService's techs being Apple certified. I hardly believe these companies would be in business if their hard drives were breaking with every installation into an Apple machine.

I finally got a supervisor to tell me that the techs did attempt to diagnose the machine. It sounds as though they wouldn't go beyond diagnostics once they saw the third party hd.

this sucksdasdoroooorzzzzz!!!1111!

Update: Finally had the computer returned to me unrepaired. The manager at the Apple Store listened to my story and gave me a ten percent off coupon for in store use. I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point.

I can reinstall the 80g hard drive, and return it to Apple to take advantage of the $310 repair option. This would seem the sensible thing to do.

Reinstalled original 80g hard drive, called AppleCare and a repair order has been initiated. Installation was much easier than I thought.

I may sell it when it's returned. It should be like new!

Apple didn't charge me for the repair. I guess there was a note in there about my dissatisfaction. They replaced the logic board, a mem stick, and the battery.

I'm selling her to buy a newer model.