Powerbook just died :-(

[mark88]

So so annoyed right now. Today my 12" G4 powerbook started to become slow, lots of spinning wheel, delayed menus etc. I checked file permissions, rebooted and it just kept on getting slower. Eventually it wouldn't get past the white apple screen.

I booted off the Tiger DVD and ran disk utility to fix and repair permissions again. It wouldn't let me repair the disk as I kept getting this error:

'Repair volume failed with error could not unmount disk'

I had to reboot again, and eventually my hard disk no longer appears in Disk Utility. I tried to boot into safe mode and get this:

'"I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus"

So now I pretty much can't do anything with it. Failed Hard Drive?

 

[psychspirit]

Uh oh. And that's a BIG uh oh. This happened to me before. My powerbook G4 was so slow that it was impossible to work with. Soon after, I heard an ugly processing sound - I hope I never have to hear it again. It was frozen for 24 hours. So I called apple. They couldn't fix it. They thought it was a hard drive failure. Used my Applecare. And lost everything. Thankfully, I had most files backed up. Had to part with my laptop for 1 week. Not bad - but since I didn't register my Applecare when I bought it, it took 2 weeks for them to process it in their system. So total time for this issue was 3 weeks. Not good at all. But now my hard drive is replaced. (not sure if it was a new one though).

I hope you g'luck. But definitely call Apple and get some help.

(Also, the option I had was to connect using firewire to another mac or pc to transfer the files. But even That didn't work because my hard drive was not detected.)

 

[thequicksilver]

I have heard - and this is a pretty wacky experiment, but nevertheless - that heat exacerbates issues on failing hard drives. Try putting it somewhere cool (I am not suggesting the fridge or freezer) for a few hours, and then try it.

Worst case scenario, you lose some time. Best case, you get your data back.

 

[mark88]

I have heard - and this is a pretty wacky experiment, but nevertheless - that heat exacerbates issues on failing hard drives. Try putting it somewhere cool (I am not suggesting the fridge or freezer) for a few hours, and then try it.

Worst case scenario, you lose some time. Best case, you get your data back.

Anything is worth a try. I'm gonna leave it stood up against the side of the freezer overnight. Thanks

 

[jocool5]

Anything is worth a try. I'm gonna leave it stood up against the side of the freezer overnight. Thanks

I have had this work twice, but I only had the HD in the freezer, and then popped it into an enclosure immediately. The only problem is if you don't get the data off the HD the first time there usually is no second time. Hope all goes well for you. A week is usual for apple care, I have had my laptop in twice for display issues, first time was 7 days, and the most recent was 9.

 

[mark88]

Man, you never guess what. Today I went to London to buy a macbook(I need a mac) and left my dead PB at the side of the freezer all day.

When I got back, turned it on and it booted, currently backing up all my stuff.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

 

[_Matt]

Man, you never guess what. Today I went to London to buy a macbook(I need a mac) and left my dead PB at the side of the freezer all day.

When I got back, turned it on and it booted, currently backing up all my stuff.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

THAT'S WICKED!

Holy crap that was excellent advice thequicksilver!

 

[rafifreak00]

One word...

Wow.

 

[gman71882]

I can vouch for the Freezer method,
A good friend had a Hard Drive fail, after many failed attempts to revive it for backup, just put it IN the Freezer for a while.
It booted up and he was able to backup data.

 

[LoveMacMini]

misleading title

your hard drive died, not your entire notebook lol

why are you going to buy a mac when all you needed was a new hard drive?

 

[mark88]

misleading title

your hard drive died, not your entire notebook lol

why are you going to buy a mac when all you needed was a new hard drive?

I was going on a business trip and needed one. Besides, I had to have some other mac to backup to. Windows machines don't recognise the HFS disk.

Anyway, regarding the freezer thing. The drive only works for a short time after it's been in the freezer. So basically I've been putting it in the fridge, waiting a few hours, backing up till it dies again, waiting a few more hours and repeating the process.

I removed the drive from the powerbook and put it in an external caddy, this helped alot. My powerbook has a few extra scratches on it though and the keyboard is a bit bent due to the fiddly process of taking the thing apart. Kinda scarey.

 

[thequicksilver]

I've only just revisited this thread - but wow, I am very pleased that my advice proved so useful. Hope you managed to get everything backed up that you needed.