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jim mezz · Mar 21, 2005, 03:33 PM

Help...I recently purchased a 2001 Quicksilver G4 Power Mac on ebay. It is the single processor 867 model. It worked great until this morning--I turned it on, and instead of the usual "whirring" sound, I got a continual clicking and beeping sound, and the screen stayed gray and blank.

I'm not much of a computer person, but my first guess was the hard drive. The person who had it before me used it as a server in a network of various Macs (live and learn--if I'd known, I wouldn't have bid on it), and he said the hard drive had been, in his words, "a workhorse." (not a word you want associated with the used computer you have purchased) The hard drive is an IBM deskstar, 60 GB, 7200 rpm model. I know there's been some reliability issues with these hard drives.

Then again, I'm not sure if it is the hard drive. All I know is this: yesterday, I hooked up a Linksys router (wireless, but I'm using ethernet cables and I disabled the wireless), linking my PC and my Mac, so I could have internet access for both computers. Everything worked fine last night, on both computers. Then I woke up this morning and discovered that the Mac appears to be dead, or dying. Any advice or insight would be sorely appreciated...

MM-o4 · Mar 21, 2005, 05:03 PM

That sux.
To see if it is the harddrive and not the mac, use the 'restore' CD that came with it or a OSX 10.3 CD to start from. Put the CD in and hold down C when it starts. If it does start then yep it's the drive. Otherwise try removing some of the ram.

Good luck

MM-o4

Captain Obvious · Mar 21, 2005, 06:21 PM

Disconnect the hard drive, boot from CD and if the noise goes away then you have your answer if it the HDD or not. Run it though some of the utilities on the CD just to be sure.
If it is you can pick up a 80-120 gig drive for about $60 (though rebates might be required) - A dead or dying drive on a tower is not the worst thing in the world. It happens and is probably the most likely to fail because of the parts expected lifespan.

jim mezz · Mar 21, 2005, 06:54 PM

Thanks for the tip, MM-04--I put the first restore disc in and it did indeed start up and ask me if I wanted to continue by erasing the hard disk and reinstalling. I just ejected it that point. So...I guess it's time for a new hard drive! Thanks, though...

Okay, so anybody have thoughts on hard drives? I don't intend to put a whole bunch of stuff on it, so I figured 80 GB is enough. I was thinking of the Seagate, with the 8MB buffer. Does anyone know how much of a speed difference there is between 2MB and 8MB buffer?

And as long as I'm asking questions--my computer had Panther 3.8 installed, but I only have the install and restore discs for OSX ver. 1.
So...I assume I'll need to get the Panther upgrade, and install it after I reinstall ver. 1?

Thanks to anyone who can help...

Captain Obvious · Mar 21, 2005, 07:11 PM

All drives made today are going to last you about 3-5 years depending on the use but beyond that I would say that the big three brands are pretty much the same (Western Digital/Seagate/Maxtor)- just make sure its a 7200RPM drive.

Don't buy a new version of Panther.
Tiger is coming out in the next 90 days and you are better off waiting.

discotronic · Mar 21, 2005, 09:31 PM

I had a 40GB Deskstar that I thought went bad. It was doing the exact same thing that yours is doing. IBM/Hitachi has a little program called Drive Fitness Test that I used on it to bring it back to life. That was almost 2 years ago and it has been going almost non-stop and trouble free. The problem is you would have to have a PC with a floppy drive in order to use it. Here is a link

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm