Dropped Powerbook 13inch G4

[Brutus Rex]

My wife dropped her powerbook on the carpetted floor. It fell flat and not on a corner or anything. We did not think it was too bad of a fall. However, the laptop will now not power up. The screen remains dark, no chimes, nada. The hard drive sounds like it wants to power up but doesnt.

Can you guys help me? I suspect it is a hard drive issue, but is there a way to confirm prior to opening it up? I have replaced the drive before so I know I can do it again.

 

[thegoldenmackid]

You Have A 13" Powerbook???

 

[iBookG4user]

You could try this. Although, if it were the hard drive the computer would be able to boot up and would show a flashing question mark on a folder icon. I suspect that it is unfortunately worse than the hard drive if the above link doesn't solve it.

 

[Brutus Rex]

12 incher

 

[Z06jerry]

Can you guys help me? I suspect it is a hard drive issue, but is there a way to confirm prior to opening it up? I have replaced the drive before so I know I can do it again.

Have you tried booting from the install disc or an external hard drive, or connecting it to another Mac in Target mode?

 

[iBookG4user]

Have you tried booting from the install disc or an external hard drive, or connecting it to another Mac in Target mode?

that would be impossible, I would think, because they said that there wasn't even a start up chime.

OP, did you try the suggestions on the Apple support page that I linked?

 

[vela0026]

Dropped Powerbook 12inch G4 - frozen blue/grey screen

I also dropped my powerbook g4 (aluminum). It fell on the corner where the power cord attaches. At first, it froze the screen where I was last working. Then I rebooted. I heard the chime and the fan and the screen turned grey/blue, but nothing happened after that. Now the screen is frozen grey/blue. My brother has the exact same powerbook, so I swapped only the hardrive with his and it does the exact same thing on his powerbook. So I assume the hard drive is the only issue.

All I am interested in is recovering the data from the old/damaged? hard drive. Is it possible? Can I use the transfer function with the 6-pin to 6-pin firewire?

Thanks,
Nick

 

[fabian9]

I also dropped my powerbook g4 (aluminum). It fell on the corner where the power cord attaches. At first, it froze the screen where I was last working. Then I rebooted. I heard the chime and the fan and the screen turned grey/blue, but nothing happened after that. Now the screen is frozen grey/blue. My brother has the exact same powerbook, so I swapped only the hardrive with his and it does the exact same thing on his powerbook. So I assume the hard drive is the only issue.

All I am interested in is recovering the data from the old/damaged? hard drive. Is it possible? Can I use the transfer function with the 6-pin to 6-pin firewire?

Thanks,
Nick

Provided that the HDD didn't get damage in the fall, you'll most likely be able to get all the data off it using an external case which you can then connect to the USB or firewire port of another (eg your brother's) mac. it'll be the same as using it as an external hard drive.

Fabian

 

[vela0026]

Dropped Powerbook 12inch G4 - frozen blue/grey screen

I tried using the bad g4 in "target disc mode". It allowed me to view the hard drive on the good computer, but then froze unable to access any files. I reboot both systems and tried it again, now I see even less files on the bad computer. I think I can safely say the hard drive is bad and all my data is lost.

Thanks for the help Fabian.

-Nick

 

[Arisian]

depends, you can always find a similar hard drive and switch out the heads and the disks (read: pain in the ASS!).

There are tons of very good software suites out there, some for cheap, some for not, that would more than likely allow you to recover most of your data.

It really depends on how bad you want it back and how many hoops, and late nights, you are willing to jump through.

There have been very few hard drives that Ive encountered that have been truly unrecoverable.

Good luck!