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Powerbook just went down, please help!

A

Ashapalan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 17, 2005
543
0
England
Hi,

I have a rev D 12" powerbook which is coming up to 2 years of age.

I was on it just before and it randomly disconnected from the internet. I restarted after i couldn't fix the problem through system preferences.

Many issues have arised...

It now takes about 6 minutes to get past the white screen with the apple logo.

It now boots in 'safe boot' mode

It now no longer recognizes the airport card in the laptop, basically saying there isn't one there

Spotlight no longer works.


I really am at a loss for why this has suddenly happened, they seem such unrelated issues to have happened all at once, but they have.

I really need help, and was wondering what i could try and how to do it. i have restarted many times but its always the same. If my airport card suddenly broke, why would that effect spotlight?

and why has it suddenly decided to take 6 minutes to get past the initial apple screen?

I don't have any restore cd's with me as i have returned to my parents home from uni for the weekend.

Any help would be much appreciated - i have been cut off.

Thankfully, my brothers macbook is working, which is all that is stopping me from crying at the moment...

edit:

itunes is accessable but when i choose a song to play, it just doesn't start.
 
Well, all those problems are not necessarily related in a specific way... you might have something very general like logic board failure.

But almost everything on the list could be explained by a hard drive with either a serious lower-level error or in physical failure.

What you should do:

1) Open Disk Utility and check the SMART status. If it's not Verified, you need a new hard drive ASAP, and move every piece of important information off this drive as soon as humanly possible.

2) If it is verified, it's still possible the drive is failing, but harder to positively identify that as the issue. Click the Verify Disk button in Disk Utilities (need to select the drive first -- and do "Verify" and not "Repair" as the latter is not available while the system is normally booted). It should end with a statement that the verification was a success. If anything else happens, then....

3) Boot the computer holding down the "S" key. You will go to a text-based interface and may be asked to login (I can't remember now). When you get to a command line, type:

fsck -fy

This should produce text similar to what you saw in the Verify Disk window, and this time, it should keep going until it "succeeds." When it succeeds, you can type "reboot" in the window to reboot.

4) If none of this has yielded an explanation for the funny disk behavior, the last step is that you either have to purchase something like DiskWarrior or have to find restore discs and reformat the drive.... If you reformat the drive, install the system from the restore discs, and immediately have these problems again, it's probably a bad drive or other bad hardware.
 
mkrishnan said:
4) If none of this has yielded an explanation for the funny disk behavior, the last step is that you either have to purchase something like DiskWarrior or have to find restore discs and reformat the drive.... If you reformat the drive, install the system from the restore discs, and immediately have these problems again, it's probably a bad drive or other bad hardware.
Click to expand...

Step four it is. The Smart status was 'verified'. I then clicked verify which ended in 'volume passed verification'.

Really am baffled as to why this just 'happened'.

Thank you for the quick response mkrishnan

Guess my only option is to reformat the drive. I have a bootable backup back at uni, i guess i could try booting into that and seeing if the problems still exist. Maybe it is the logic board?
 
Ashapalan said:
Guess my only option is to reformat the drive. I have a bootable backup back at uni, i guess i could try booting into that and seeing if the problems still exist. Maybe it is the logic board?
Click to expand...

If you have one of these, absolutely. If the PB behaves normally running off it, it's worthwhile exploring reformatting or ultimately replacing the drive. If it continues to be wonky on the backup HD, however, then you have a much more serious issue....
 
The problems seem to have (touch wood) gone... just as mysteriously as they arrived...

All i did was hold down option during startup. Took me to a weird screen, just clicked this right arrow. And then all was well.

Does anyone know what just happened, and what the problem might have been now that it has been fixed by holding down option?

I hope this lasts.
 
Okay, i think this is a development of the previous problem so i will keep it in this thread.

The other day my hard drive just 'lost' 10GB, dunno where it went or why. But anyway, i verified the disk again and it now says (in red)

'Volume header needs minor repair'
'Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit'

'1 HFS volume checked'
'Volume needs repair'

Can anyone tell me what this means? Is it possible to repair this or is my hard disk just in need of retiring?

If the hard disk is at the end, apple have told me £200 to have it replaced with a 120GB HD, is this around the right price? I don't think i want to pull everything apart for a DIY, i'm not so good at that kind of thing.

But back to the point, can anyone tell me what this disk utility message means?

Thank you in advance for any help.
 
If you feel confident you can replace the HD yourself. It's very easy, I did it for my 15" PB when the drive went.

EDIT: Just read the comment about not pulling it apart.
It's a lot easier than you think, it's just a lot of screws to undo.
 
bartelby said:
If you feel confident you can replace the HD yourself. It's very easy, I did it for my 15" PB when the drive went.
Click to expand...

I'm going to second this advice. It will be cheaper to buy and replace the drive yourself, and as bartelby said, it is very easy. Do a Google search and you will be able to find a tutorial.
 
Thanks for responses.

After what you've said and doing some background reading (thanks for link to ifix thing) i have decided to go at this hard drive myself.

My final hurdle is buying a replacement HD that works with my laptop. 2.5in - no taller than 9.5mm,

do i want SATA or EIDE (i dont know what such terms mean)

My friend recommends WD scorpio drives, can anyone shed some light here?!
 
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