More powerbook woes...

[AlBDamned]

You could try these, personally you shouldn't have a problem replacing the HD yourself, if you can live with the chip and dent of course.

I don't know - I had a look at the PBFixit guide and I was sweating just looking at it!

I'm going to give the iPod another go this evening when I get back.

As for sending it back to Apple and claiming it got busted in shipping - I've thought about this. At least if they have it there I have some more options.

revisionA> Not sue if the rest is still covered in warranty. presumably they could say any fault that arises from here on to the end of the warranty is due to that damage?

Again, my thoughts would be, if they replace the HDD, they could run a hardware check, verify the rest of it's ok and re-validate the warranty. But who knows if they'll do that?

 

[AlBDamned]

The iPod isn't doing it. I startup hoding down option, and it comes up with a blue screen, which has two icons, one is an arrow going clockwise, the other is an arrow pointing right. But, when I click on them, nothing happens.

Which one indicates the firewire drive?!

Also, the iPod switches on when Iboot the computer, at first says "do not disconnect" and then goes to the tick and "ok to disconnect."

 

[ic1]

You have my full sympathy. I knocked my PB off a table onto a concrete floor at the age of about 2 months. Dented the lower case to the extent that the seal between the lower and upper halves of the shell was broken. Had the case replaced at Tekserve (Cert Apple reseller in NYC). Had no effect on the warranty. Nothing else was damaged.

Why not take it in and have it looked at. You'll pay for replacing the dented case, and the hard drive, if it's faulty, but the machine will be back in warranty.

What other diagnostics have you done regarding the hard drive by the way?

 

[discoforce]

The iPod isn't doing it. I startup hoding down option, and it comes up with a blue screen, which has two icons, one is an arrow going clockwise, the other is an arrow pointing right. But, when I click on them, nothing happens.

Which one indicates the firewire drive?!

Also, the iPod switches on when Iboot the computer, at first says "do not disconnect" and then goes to the tick and "ok to disconnect."

Here's what the advice I've read says to boot with your ipod:

Open the Finder, connect the iPod, and install any other disk repair utilities that you have. To boot from the iPod when an emergency actually happens, plug in your iPod and hold down the Option key during a reboot. You see a list of connected, bootable devices. Click the iPod icon and click the right arrow to continue the boot process.

But that's not what you're seeing huh? Maybe uninstall/reinstall OSX on the iPod?

 

[AlBDamned]

You have my full sympathy. I knocked my PB off a table onto a concrete floor at the age of about 2 months. Dented the lower case to the extent that the seal between the lower and upper halves of the shell was broken. Had the case replaced at Tekserve (Cert Apple reseller in NYC). Had no effect on the warranty. Nothing else was damaged.

Why not take it in and have it looked at. You'll pay for replacing the dented case, and the hard drive, if it's faulty, but the machine will be back in warranty.

What other diagnostics have you done regarding the hard drive by the way?

The case isn't a major concern, it's a small dent. To be honest, the chip the dent caused in the dark grey plastic moulding round the keyboard Alu is more unsightly, but I can live with it.

If you're saying that you took yours in and the warranty was re-validated, that's something I really want to hear!

Here's what the advice I've read says to boot with your ipod:

Open the Finder, connect the iPod, and install any other disk repair utilities that you have. To boot from the iPod when an emergency actually happens, plug in your iPod and hold down the Option key during a reboot. You see a list of connected, bootable devices. Click the iPod icon and click the right arrow to continue the boot process.

But that's not what you're seeing huh? Maybe uninstall/reinstall OSX on the iPod?

The ipod is fine as far as I know. I installed OS X on it from my work eMac and when I plug it into that it's recognised and I can boot from it (pretty cool actually )

The thing is, if I can't get the powerbook to boot from this, then it may very well be something other than the HDD...

 

[XIII]

I think the PBFixit guide to taking your PB apart is pretty comprehensive. If it were me, I would try the sending to Apple thing.. and then (having pushed for blaming the dent on shipping) if it didn't work, have a go at replacing the HD.

 

[AlBDamned]

I just finally got round to speaking to AppleCare.

I went the honest route because basically, I don't feel they'd accept it happened in shipping and they we're good enough to replace it before. Call it Karma, call it being a sucker - I'm not sure yet.

So, my warranty is indeed completely stuffed. Void. Finished.

What should happen when you boot from an external, is the two icons I saw come up, and a list of available drives can be seen. I couldn't see the external, which means there's something else wrong as well as the hard drive.

My options are: get some quotes for a new HDD/fit one myself and hope it is just the HDD and the repair holds or, scrap it.

What a choice. This is simply bad luck. A new, replacement top of the range laptop, effectively trashed within 20 minutes of its life. So, I'm smiling because I'm sort of over the whole thing and what else are you to do on this - the most depressing day of the year "officially".

In future, I'm going to buy a crap laptop for a few hundred pounds. If it breaks I won't care!

 

[maverick808]

I just finally got round to speaking to AppleCare.

I went the honest route because basically, I don't feel they'd accept it happened in shipping and they we're good enough to replace it before. Call it Karma, call it being a sucker - I'm not sure yet.

So, my warranty is indeed completely stuffed. Void. Finished.

What should happen when you boot from an external, is the two icons I saw come up, and a list of available drives can be seen. I couldn't see the external, which means there's something else wrong as well as the hard drive.

My options are: get some quotes for a new HDD/fit one myself and hope it is just the HDD and the repair holds or, scrap it.

What a choice. This is simply bad luck. A new, replacement top of the range laptop, effectively trashed within 20 minutes of its life. So, I'm smiling because I'm sort of over the whole thing and what else are you to do on this - the most depressing day of the year "officially".

In future, I'm going to buy a crap laptop for a few hundred pounds. If it breaks I won't care!

Now now let's not get carried away here. Yes it sucks your HD died and that you are out of warranty... can't argue with that. However, a new laptop HD will cost you under £100. In the UK I recommend overclockers.co.uk. You can get 80GB laptop drives there for around £80. Then all you have to do is pay someone to put it in for you. Just find an Apple Reseller (NOT an Apple Store) in your local area and ask them how much it would cost. Go to at least a few so you get a good price. Replacing an HD should be well under £50.

So for £130 (max) you can get your machine working perfectly. You can then either keep it since it's still a great machine or sell it. If you sell it after fixing the drive you'll get loads for it.

 

[Applespider]

In future, I'm going to buy a crap laptop for a few hundred pounds. If it breaks I won't care!

nope...in future, you're going to speak to your home contents insurance company and make sure you get your laptops covered for accidental loss or damage in and outside the home. Should add about £20 a year to your premium.

Good job on doing the right thing... sucks that it happened. I suspect that rather than calling I'd have thrown myself on the sympathy of a real life person at the Apple Store though; the manager there probably has a little more empowerment to fix things than the guy on the end of the phone.

Any point in getting an external drive (that you can use as a backup afterwards) and seeing if you can run from that (at least at home) in the short-term while you investigate whether there are any other issues and before you spend cash on an internal drive and fitting costs?

 

[AlBDamned]

nope...in future, you're going to speak to your home contents insurance company and make sure you get your laptops covered for accidental loss or damage in and outside the home. Should add about £20 a year to your premium.

Good job on doing the right thing... sucks that it happened. I suspect that rather than calling I'd have thrown myself on the sympathy of a real life person at the Apple Store though; the manager there probably has a little more empowerment to fix things than the guy on the end of the phone.

Any point in getting an external drive (that you can use as a backup afterwards) and seeing if you can run from that (at least at home) in the short-term while you investigate whether there are any other issues and before you spend cash on an internal drive and fitting costs?

The external drive option doesn't appear to be a goer as there's something else wrong with it other than just the HDD. I had thought about simply getting a proper 100GB external but it just doesn't boot with one plugged in. This is why it's more than just an HDD problem. I could get the drive fixed and it's likely it still won't work.

I'm being a little overdramatic I know. A replacement drive is the first thing to try so I've got some numbers for some quotes. I'm also going to call the 'dead Mac' centre to see what they make of it.

I couldn't be stuffed with going to the Apple store and going through the whole process again. I am 100% sick of the place.

Regarding insurance - if it had happened in the house, no problem. If it had been stolen outside - no problem etc etc. So, yes, next time if (I ever bother with something like this again) I'll ensure it's covered properly.

Also Maverick, it was a 100GB drive. They up-specced the whole system due to the previous trouble I'd had.

Anyway. Enough. There's no point crying over a spilt Mac (at least not anymore today anyway).

 

[maverick808]

Also Maverick, it was a 100GB drive. They up-specced the whole system due to the previous trouble I'd had.

You don't have to replace it with the same size drive. Overclockers do 100GB drives too for a little more anymore so it's not a problem.

It still might just be the internal drive that's gone. Failure to boot off an iPod isn't concrete evidence. If possible I would recommend attempting to boot off a proper Firewire external hard-disk.

I have successfully boot Tiger off an iPod Mini in the past but it's just not a reliable test. Even when I had it working it would still fail to boot 50% off the time. Try a proper external drive before you assume there's more at fault than just the internal drive.

 

[AlBDamned]

You don't have to replace it with the same size drive. Overclockers do 100GB drives too for a little more anymore so it's not a problem.

It still might just be the internal drive that's gone. Failure to boot off an iPod isn't concrete evidence. If possible I would recommend attempting to boot off a proper Firewire external hard-disk.

I have successfully boot Tiger off an iPod Mini in the past but it's just not a reliable test. Even when I had it working it would still fail to boot 50% off the time. Try a proper external drive before you assume there's more at fault than just the internal drive.

Been looking at this Toshiba 100GB drive. It's got a 16MB cache and is a good price too.

The iPod drive isn't a perfect test I know, but it works perfectly on my work Mac so in theory it should work ok with the PB.

What happened when it "failed to boot" for you?

 

[maverick808]

What happened when it "failed to boot" for you?

Several different things happened. All of these on the same installation without formatting the iPod between. It was exactly the same data on the iPod each time...

* PowerBook just failed to detect iPod and show it as an option
* PowerBook started to boot from iPod but failed during white screen that shows the Apple screen
* PowerBook successfully booted into Tiger. Everything was really slow but it worked fine

It just appeared to be totally random which of these three it would do. One time it would fail to boot and I restart and it would boot fine. Other times I'd hit restart and it would just not detect the iPod.

By the way in case you think I'm nuts doing this the reason I was booting off the iPod was because I was trying the first ADC Tiger betas way back at the start of 2005 and knew they weren't stable. I didn't want to install on my main drive so I used the iPod.

 

[gauchogolfer]

Nope to both sadly. I rang my insurance company and it's not covered for accidental damage outside the home. If it had been stolen, set on fire or something like that it would be fine but sadly, that's not the case.

So, if it was stolen....or set on fire......

I'm not condoning any form of insurance fraud here. Carelessness with one's belongings in a high-crime area should not be considered.

 

[AlBDamned]

So, if it was stolen....or set on fire......

I'm not condoning any form of insurance fraud here. Carelessness with one's belongings in a high-crime area should not be considered.

There's no inference of fraud. All I'm saying is that the PB would have been covered against fire or theft, outside of my home. It's not covered for accidental damage outside the home.

Believe me - I'd rather a broken powerbook than get mugged for it.

 

[gauchogolfer]

Sorry my sarcasm didn't come across right...I was just suggesting your Pbook might have gotten 'lost'. Not that I recommend that, of course

 

[AlBDamned]

Sorry my sarcasm didn't come across right...I was just suggesting your Pbook might have gotten 'lost'. Not that I recommend that, of course

Gotcha.

Then, however, you've gotta go through the police, get a crime number, tell plenty of lies. Not worth it.

Several different things happened. All of these on the same installation without formatting the iPod between. It was exactly the same data on the iPod each time...

* PowerBook just failed to detect iPod and show it as an option
* PowerBook started to boot from iPod but failed during white screen that shows the Apple screen
* PowerBook successfully booted into Tiger. Everything was really slow but it worked fine

It just appeared to be totally random which of these three it would do. One time it would fail to boot and I restart and it would boot fine. Other times I'd hit restart and it would just not detect the iPod.

By the way in case you think I'm nuts doing this the reason I was booting off the iPod was because I was trying the first ADC Tiger betas way back at the start of 2005 and knew they weren't stable. I didn't want to install on my main drive so I used the iPod.

Not crazy at all, but at least you got somewhere with your iPod! I'm thinking because the PB may have such serious issues, it's basically sticking two fingers at the iPod.

I'm trying Target disk mode and a proper external drive, at work tomorrow and we'll see what happens.

 

[penguinman]

You should've told them that you dropped it when you slipped on the stairs, I would've.



Cheers fella, I'm going to push for a replacement too... after 3 years, come the end of my warranty tomorrow, my repair tally will look something like this.

• 3 SuperDrives
• 3 screens
• 3 logic boards (PCBA, MLB)
• 2 bottomcases
• 3 secondary cooling fans

And there's not a scratch, or a dink or a dent... it's a minter. *sighs*



That's seriously sh*tty luck mate...

Applecare covered those? how could two bottom cases "go bad" and it not be customter abuse?

 

[AlBDamned]

Applecare covered those? how could two bottom cases "go bad" and it not be customter abuse?

Warping maybe?

 

[AlBDamned]

Oh boy...

Target disk mode didn't work.

 

[AlBDamned]

Guys,

Here's a question.

Is it it vital to have the same OS version on the external firewire drive, as it is on the powerbook?

Also, would it be better to format the Firewire drive with a full OS X or the Powerbook restore discs version of the OS?

 

[AlBDamned]

Ok, my apologies for multiple posts.

A genuine external drive, with 10.4.4 on it does not work either.

Does anyone have any tips on further diagnostic tests I can do or is it time to bite and take it in somewhere.

There's no point in buying a new internal HDD if it appears that's not going to work. There must be something wrong deep inside this machine...

 

[maverick808]

Ok, my apologies for multiple posts.

A genuine external drive, with 10.4.4 on it does not work either.

Does anyone have any tips on further diagnostic tests I can do or is it time to bite and take it in somewhere.

There's no point in buying a new internal HDD if it appears that's not going to work. There must be something wrong deep inside this machine...

Yes, it does seem like very bad news. You may be looking at a motherboard replacement which is nearly as expensive as the laptop itself.

Can we just verify the steps you went through in testing the external drive. I assume they would be...

1) Insert OS X install CD and boot off it by holding down C while booting.
2) Once the install GUI appears select Disk Utility from the tools menu
3) The external drive should visible in Disk Utility. If it is then format at and install OS X on it.

Is this what you tried? If not what did you try and what happened?

 

[AlBDamned]

Yes, it does seem like very bad news. You may be looking at a motherboard replacement which is nearly as expensive as the laptop itself.

Can we just verify the steps you went through in testing the external drive. I assume they would be...

1) Insert OS X install CD and boot off it by holding down C while booting.
2) Once the install GUI appears select Disk Utility from the tools menu
3) The external drive should visible in Disk Utility. If it is then format at and install OS X on it.

Is this what you tried? If not what did you try and what happened?

Nope.

I formatted an external drive using my Mac at work.

I tried booting directly off that but it doesn't even come up.

So, I tried booting off the actual 10.4.1 disc that I have and it gets to the screen with the Apple on it and the icon whirring round. Then after a few minutes of the DVD going round, the apple turns to a faded circle with a diagonal line through it (aka a warning) and the icon just keeps whirring round.

I can't believe a small knock could kill this thing so badly...

 

[maverick808]

If it won't boot off the internal hd, external hd or even the CD drive then yeah I think we can assume the bus or something else on the motherboard is busted.

Hate to say it but I think we just have to accept you have been really unlucky here. If I were you I would just claim it on my insurance saying I dropped it in the house or that it was stolen. It is a little dishonest but you are paying the insurance company money each year for this type of thing and I'm sure them paying out a couple of grand won't hurt them much at all.

There's a chance if you took it to a shop they'd find an obvious fault and be able to fix it but I suspect it might end up costing a lot to diagnose it and if it does turn out you need a whole new motherboard then you are looking at a very expensive bill.