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PowerBook HD or logic board problem :@

hobbbz

hobbbz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2005
605
4
I have a 17" PB, 1.33 ghz with 1.76gb ram. In September it gave signs of the hard drive failing. It would crash right after booting and then not boot at all.

If I booted into target disk mode i could still access the files. I backed everything up and did many versions of trying to reformat / reinstall my OS to no avail. When Leopard came out I went through the process again to see if that might help but it didn't.

Today I replaced the HD and now it still won't boot at all. It goes to the grey apple screen with the rotating loading icon and stalls. I've let it sit there for 10 minutes or more.

I have leopard installed on the new drive (using target disk mode) and I can use my PB's HD as a boot disk in target disk mode on my GF's MBP .

I don't know what I can do. I had the thing all apart to replace the HD and nothing looked out of the ordinary. I get the normal startup sound and there aren't any POST codes. Has anyone seen this type of behavior?
 
also, I saw a post on apple's support forums about doing a hardware test from the restore disks. i'm not sure i have those available so where might i find a copy of the hardware test application i can burn onto a disk?
 
hobbbz said:
also, I saw a post on apple's support forums about doing a hardware test from the restore disks. i'm not sure i have those available so where might i find a copy of the hardware test application i can burn onto a disk?
Click to expand...

The leopard discs don't have the apple hardware test on it.

Use the discs that came with the computer, you'll see it on there.

Hopefully everything will be fine.
 
I'm quite certain I don't have those disks anymore.

Also I just realized that it won't boot off the leopard disk. It will go to the grey apple screen and stall forever, i had to install leopard over Target Disk mode.
 
Then you will have to borrow a set of install discs (perhaps from your girlfriend) in order to run the test.

I think it may still be a bad install of leopard. I had to install it twice to get it working.
 
But if he was having problems before the install it might be another issue.
 
I just had the same problem with my 12" Powerbook G4 1 Ghz. It would stall on the Apple Symbol( if it gets there at all) and refused to go to the Leopard and Tiger DVD and crashed when tried to access the hardware test. The genius and I thought it was the LB. Sent it in and got it back yesterday and repair order said they replaced the HD. It is working like normal again. But, since you already replaced the HD and it still does it, sounds like LB then.

On an interesting note, the new HD is a Toshiba unit which is far noisier then the original Hitachi that was in it before.
 
Yeah I've reinstalled leopard probably 5 times over 2 different HDs, my GFs MBP restore disks won't work for my PB though will they?
 
More questions...

is Logic Board a synonym for Mother Board?

And what is a guess on failure rates of LBs (as in how long do they last in a heavily used laptop)
 
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