[What's got Billy so spooked?]

I've got a serious problem on my hands. My 600 mhz ibook (which is my sole computer) will not boot. When I came home on Monday night my machine was off - which was strange because I always leave it on. When I went to turn it back on it was VERY, VERY hot on the left hand palm rest and the bottom left side was also hot. This was also strange as there were no programs running and it was in an air conditioned room so it should have been totally cool. When I restarted, I got the normal chime, the grey screen, and then nothing! Tired it several times and still the same thing.

What's stranger is that I could not get it to boot off a CD, so I couldn't run the drive utility. The CD spins up at startup but doesn't seem to want to load.

I tried resetting the pmu, zapping the Nvram via open firmware, then I tried taking the battery out and the extra ram, but still nothing. If I let it sit with the gray screen after a few minutes I get a flashing question mark/folder icon, which I assume means that it couldn't find the hard drive.

At work the next day I searched these forums and then decided to buy diskwarrior and give that a shot since it sounded like a HD problem. Amazingly, when I went home and tried it, I could boot off the CD, diskwarrior ran, and said that I had some 'invalid node-b structures' or something like that. It fixed everything and when I restarted everything seemed fine. I was still nervous about something being wrong with the HD so I used the hardware check option in diskwarrior and it said that my SMART equipped HD was operating normally. So I figured some data got corrupted and now everything was fine.

Now two days later I have the same problem - it won't startup, and what's worse, no matter how many times I've tried it will not boot off the CD!!!

I don't have Applecare (I know, I know), and Apple wants a ton of money to fix it - which I'm not sure they can do since I thought I had it fixed too. My worst fear is sending it back, have them say it was a simple HD problem, only to have the problem reoccur a few days later. Even if I could get it fixed at a local repair shop since I'm not exactly sure what the problem is I'm afraid it could become a big money pit - it could be the HD, could be something on the motherboard, could be something else.

So before I go out a drop a ton of change on a new ibook does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on what I could do to fix this besides what I've already tried?

[wludavid]

Sounds like a hardware problem if you can't boot off the cd. Looks like you'll have to have apple fix it for you. Before you commit to anything, make sure they warrant the repairs. That way, if the problem re-occurs, you won't have to pay for it again. (But you may have to convince or bully them into agreeing that it's the same problem.) If you bought your iBook less than a year ago, there's still a hardware warranty that should cover it anyway.

Good luck,
David

[rjenkinson]

you may also want to pull any extra RAM out of the machine or try to mount the hard drive on another mac using firewire target disk mode. might help...

-r.

[jokell82]

If you do get it repaired by Apple and it happens again, that is still covered by the original repair, so don't worry about having to pay more than once...

Since it's your only computer, I'd say play it safe and send it in ASAP.

[Gametes]

Do you know anybody else with a mac? Because you could maybe boot from a firewire dive if both are FW computers. Then you could use the other mac to diagnose the first.

Just reaching for straws here since everyone else gave such great suggestions!

[What's got Billy so spooked?]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I did try taking out the ram, and I still had the problem. I also took out the airport card on the off chance that it was the source of the problem. Even with the stock set up it's still not booting.

My machine has a firewire drive, but I don't know anyone with a mac so I don't know if connecting it to another mac would work or not. If I can't fix it tonight maybe I'll drive the hour or so up to the Apple store tomorrow and see if they can help me.

On the repair front I called Apple again today. Last time they told me that since my machine is out of warranty and I didn't have Applecare that if they had to replace the HD or logic board it was a tier 3 repair (whatever that is) and it would cost me over $700! Since I could buy a new ibook for $999, I figured that buying a new one was worth the extra 300 bucks. However this time they told me it was a $300 flat fee and it was only more expensive if i had opened up the machine myself (which I haven't) or there was clear misuse. So now I'm thinking it's worth it to have it fixed for 300 and hope the problem doesn't come back.

Still I'd like to know what the heck is wrong with this thing. If anyone else has any ideas I sure would appreciate hearing them.

[rozwado1]

Originally posted by What's got Billy so spooked?:
My machine has a firewire drive, but I don't know anyone with a mac so I don't know if connecting it to another mac would work or not.

Boot it up in Target Disk and run it over to the Apple Store to do your tests. They may have a problem with you plugging it into a floor model, but it's better to argue with the sales rep than to buy a new iBook!

[What's got Billy so spooked?]

Same problem again! Two weeks ago, I finally got my ibook to boot off a cd, ran diskwarrior again, and everything was fine. Hard drive worked flawlessly. I tested the CD-Rom by importing a few cd's into itunes.

So for two weeks I thought my problems were behind me. Then yesterday night I came home from work and it was locked up again. Spinning wheel of death. No programs were running except for the finder. When I restarted I my nightmare began again. It wouldn't boot off the hard drive nor would it boot of a CD. This is starting to drive me crazy!!!

So I'm back to square one. I did discover that if I try and get it to go into firewire direct mode all I get is a black screen. Even holding down the T key for 5 minutes - nothing. I do know the keyboard works since I can zap the pmu, get to the openfirmware screen, etc, etc.

If it was just the HD then I could understand, but since it won't boot off the CD I have a bad feeling that there may be more problems. If anyone has any ideas on what to do short of sending it back to Apple I'd really appreciate hearing from you.