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mattmarshall · Jul 1, 2003, 03:29 PM

hey all

i went on vacation for a month.....during which my pismo sat in my desk. i booted it up, and it was real slow. there were a bunch of updates it needed, and i selected them all. when i came back, it was stuck, so i forced a restart. now, it won't start, and the hard drive is making some crazy clicking sounds, with an empty white screen. occasionally, starting up produces a question mark over a folder.

what is the deal?

thanks

- matt

tooki · Jul 1, 2003, 03:32 PM

Have you tried running DiskWarrior?

tooki

mattmarshall · Jul 1, 2003, 04:23 PM

i don't have diskwarrior, but i just booted from the 10.2 disk, and tried to use disk utility. however, my hard drive does no show up.

- matt

[APi]TheMan · Jul 1, 2003, 04:40 PM

Originally posted by mattmarshall:
i don't have diskwarrior, but i just booted from the 10.2 disk, and tried to use disk utility. however, my hard drive does no show up.

- matt

Try booting from an OS9 CD.

The Disk Utility on my 10.2 CD didn't recognize a new hard drive I put in my Pismo one time when I tried to reformat before a fresh OSX install. Booting off an OS9 CD and running Disk Setup I was able to see and format the drive.

Hope this helps, man.

mattmarshall · Jul 1, 2003, 05:00 PM

hey

thanks for the suggestion.....but booting from my OS 9 cd didn't do it. "disk first aid" didn't show my hard drive either.

is this drive fixable? i hear it clunking repeatedly. i have other drives i could install, and luckily backed up to .Mac before i left, but there is some less-necessary stuff on the drive that isn't backed up.

-matt

fakeplasticspence · Jul 3, 2003, 02:29 PM

I had this same problem last year with my pismo. I got a new HD. I was happier because it was a 30 gig opposed to the 6 or 8 I had before. I could not get mine to work and getting it serviced would probably cost close to or more than the new HD. as for getting info off. I am not sure. I got lucky and tried several times to boot and finally got it to

. I just quickly tranferred all my files to a hallmates computer over the network and then gave the old drive a proper resting place. sorry to hear your troubles. cross your fingers and hope you dvd drive doesn't puke on you. I am still looking for a replacement for that, that is <=$160 american

rishio · Jul 6, 2003, 02:30 AM

What altitude are you at. Certain hard drives have trouble at higher altitudes and can make clicking type sounds...

Originally posted by mattmarshall:
hey all

i went on vacation for a month.....during which my pismo sat in my desk. i booted it up, and it was real slow. there were a bunch of updates it needed, and i selected them all. when i came back, it was stuck, so i forced a restart. now, it won't start, and the hard drive is making some crazy clicking sounds, with an empty white screen. occasionally, starting up produces a question mark over a folder.

what is the deal?

thanks

- matt

echosphere · Jul 6, 2003, 10:33 PM

Same thing happened to my iBook 366mhz.

The answer is that your HD IS DEAD.

The clicking whiring sounds is it trying to access data and that's why you have the white screen. It's akin to when your home CD player dies, it just keeps clicking trying to "track".

I was able to tap the iBook (over the area where the HD resides) and sometimes it "caught" the tracking and booted, as soon as it did I backed my data to CD.

I then took it apart and replaced the HD. What a pain in the ass, taking apart the early iBooks was not fun.

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

tgrundke · Jul 6, 2003, 10:44 PM

Sadly, it sounds like you have 'the click of death', a fate that befalls many a hard drive, and laptop units especially so.

Should this prove to be the case, your hard drive is dead.

Hopefully you've made plenty of backups...

Rich Jercha · Jul 7, 2003, 12:56 AM

Yeah this just happened to my grandma's 10 gig pee-c... had to swap it, tried about every os known to man (well 2 linuxes, and 4 versions of windows) but they all failed to format it. It's dead dude lol, Sorry

Rich

Xaositect · Jul 7, 2003, 10:07 AM

Don't write that drive off yet.

Unplug the hard drive cable. Then reset the logic board. Plug the drive back in. You have about a 30% chance it will come alive again. Back up as soon as possible. This will only work for a while!

What sometimes happens is the IDE chip on the logic board and the IDE chip on the drive start fighting. If you reset one without the other, sometimes you can reconnect them and work for a while, but eventually they start fighting again. The fault could be with either chip, but it is usually the drive chip that goes bad, not the logic board chip. When this happens, the drive head becomes uncontrolled and just slams back and forth. Each slam cuts life off the drive, so don't run the drive more than neccesary.

Lateralus · Jul 7, 2003, 12:29 PM

I've got two words for you: The drive needs speed holes.

Rich Jercha · Jul 7, 2003, 04:40 PM

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I've got two words for you: The drive needs speed holes.

lol i don't get it...

jasong · Jul 10, 2003, 06:51 AM

Another thing I have done that has resurrected a dead drive is to remove it, put it in the freezer for an hour or so, and then plug it back in. Something about the cold making the parts contract seems to get the thing working again. Again, backup your stuff and throw the thing out.

Also, I have only done this with desktop drives. Whenever I have done it, a lot of condensation has built up on the drive as it rapidly heats up. In a desktop there is enough room that this moisture is not a problem. In a laptop however, this might be cause for concern.

Anyway, I have tried it four times and had success all four times (one drive I decided to leave in the computer to see how much longer it would run, and it was over a year before it started failing again).

Good luck.

-- Jason