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krove · Jul 11, 2003, 04:04 PM

Just within the last few days, my iBook has been dramatically slow, giving me the spinning beach ball in virtually all apps. I checked CPU usage and it is below 5% in all cases. Oddly enough, my hard drive has been making loud clicking noises since this began and makes them quite often.

Just to note, my iBook's hard drive is journaled. I used Disk Utility to verify the disk (by booting off my external firewire HD). The internal iBook HD showed numerous file extent allocation errors. Upon trying to repair the disk it gave me some error, probably related to the disk being journaled. So I disabled journaling on the drive and tried to repair the drive. No luck...wouldn't finish.

As a last resort I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my important stuff to my external firewire HD. I'm now in the process of erasing the disk. Just in case this doesn't work, does the clicking sound mean something to someone? Is the drive failing?

My trusty iBook has been in excellent condition for just over a year. Having purchased it in Europe and then moving back to the US, I missed the deadline to purchase the AppleCare. So I'm hoping if the drive is bad, it truly is just the hard drive.

Any ideas?

ibook_steve · Jul 11, 2003, 06:49 PM

Clicking hard drives are usually very indicative of impending hard drive failure. It's good that you've backed up your stuff. It's time to replace that drive.

Steve

The Placid Casual · Jul 13, 2003, 02:23 AM

My first advice would have been BACK UP NOW!!

but I was beaten to it!

A clicking hard drive does not sound too healthy... For me, it has often been the start of worse things to come.

I would take everything important off the machine and install a 'gaming' and 'music' only set-up... This way you can give it a thorough workout for a few weeks and see what happens.

It could be that the noise is a 'characteristic' of the drive *cough*IBM*cough*, but if it didn't do this originally, I would be tempted to count this out...

Either way I would err on the side of caution, and look at replacing the drive.

Peace,

Marc

Mastrap · Jul 13, 2003, 03:56 AM

I am with Marc and Steve on this one. A clicking hard drive is generally considered a very bad thing�

The good news is that it is not all that difficult to replace should you need to. I upgraded my iBook from 20 to 40GB after dropping it (ouch). I've never done anything like it before and the operation went well.

krove · Jul 13, 2003, 05:20 PM

Well, I figured as much. fortunately, I was able to clone all the contents of the drive as I stated in my first post.

I reinitialized the drive (even zeroed it out) and restored it from the backup I made. I am not experiencing the clicks any more, but I notice that the drive's speed and performance are not what they used to be (still get spinning beachball in apps like Mail during HD read and writes). As such, I'll look into a replacement. (I've been wanted to get a bigger internal drive anyway.)

Thanks for all the feedback!

krove · Jul 18, 2003, 01:37 AM

Whew! What a job replacing an iBook HD!

30+ itty, bitty screws, nail-biting removal of both sides of the base of the computer, yikes!

Well, it worked, though. I'm typing from my iBook with a brand new Hitachi/IBM 40GNX (40 GB, 8 MB Cache!), and it appears to have alleviated all of my previously mentioned problems.

The Placid Casual · Jul 18, 2003, 02:06 AM

Originally posted by krove:
Whew! What a job replacing an iBook HD!

30+ itty, bitty screws, nail-biting removal of both sides of the base of the computer, yikes!

Well, it worked, though. I'm typing from my iBook with a brand new Hitachi/IBM 40GNX (40 GB, 8 MB Cache!), and it appears to have alleviated all of my previously mentioned problems.

Glad to hear you have got it all sorted!

shatten22 · Aug 19, 2003, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:

Glad to hear you have got it all sorted!

Anyone know where I can find instructions on how to replace a hard drive in a 14.1 inch LCD ibook?

thanks,

geoffrey

Cipher13 · Aug 20, 2003, 05:51 AM

Originally posted by shatten22:
Anyone know where I can find instructions on how to replace a hard drive in a 14.1 inch LCD ibook?

thanks,

geoffrey

I've only done 12" iBooks, but it can't be that different. I might be able to walk you through it on AIM or ICQ or something if you like.