Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Underdog · Jul 13, 2003, 08:55 AM

My Wallstreet Powerbook G3 is displaying the dreaded flashing question mark on start up, and no attempt via hard drive setup or by Tech Tool Pro is able to locate the hard drive. Is there any chase of resurection short of purchasing a new drive?

iWrite · Jul 13, 2003, 09:20 AM

No. www.transintl.com

Good luck.

The Placid Casual · Jul 13, 2003, 10:47 AM

Yep, I concur, it unfortunately sounds like a
dead drive

However, on the bright side, these days replacements aren't that expensive, and easily available... You could put a faster cavernous drive in there and give the machine a new lease of life!

Peace,

Marc

P.S. Welcome to the forum!

Underdog · Jul 13, 2003, 12:26 PM

I've been lurking around here for a few weeks. This is the best forum that I've found. I don't want to put a lot of money into my present laptop, I just need ye ol' wallstreet to last for another few months. That will give me enough time complete pocketing enough cash for an upgrade and enough time for the folks on infinite loop to release the 15.4 powerbook.

But since they just dropped the price of the TiBook by $300, its replacement might be (hopefully) just around the corner. Want to wait for the G5 to be ported to the powerbook, but I just can't.

urrl5201 · Jul 13, 2003, 06:23 PM

Hope you have the patience for the new revision 15". I think the G5 is more like
'just around the canyon" than just around the corner. But the new 15" may come any time now. Anticipation can be half the fun.

romeosc · Jul 13, 2003, 06:44 PM

Originally posted by Underdog:
My Wallstreet Powerbook G3 is displaying the dreaded flashing question mark on start up, and no attempt via hard drive setup or by Tech Tool Pro is able to locate the hard drive. Is there any chase of resurection short of purchasing a new drive?

If all else fails before you give up and trash it, it you remove drive & shake it vigourously, for 10 seconds, you might get it to work again. "Stiction" is the begining of a dying drive, If it works you can use it again but be aware it could die again. This maybe worth it to get you by until you buy a new PB or a replacement drive. DON'T STORE ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN'T STAND TO LOSE.

I have known drives to work again error free for many months more.

rozwado1 · May 1, 2004, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by Underdog:
My Wallstreet Powerbook G3 is displaying the dreaded flashing question mark on start up, and no attempt via hard drive setup or by Tech Tool Pro is able to locate the hard drive. Is there any chase of resurection short of purchasing a new drive?

I'm having the same problem with my ex's iBook, but no flashing ? I already backed it up (Target Disk Mode), but it isn't noticed as a boot drive when I hold opt at startup. iBook won't boot, unless off the Diskwarrior CD. DW recognizes that the drive is there, so I tried to rebuild it, but it stops after about 50% and locks up. Drive doesn't make any weird noises but I fear that it's dead/dying. I keep trying DW to see if I can zero it out, but always freezes up. Please help. Nick

romeosc · May 1, 2004, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by rozwado1:
I'm having the same problem with my ex's iBook, but no flashing ? I already backed it up (Target Disk Mode), but it isn't noticed as a boot drive when I hold opt at startup. iBook won't boot, unless off the Diskwarrior CD. DW recognizes that the drive is there, so I tried to rebuild it, but it stops after about 50% and locks up. Drive doesn't make any weird noises but I fear that it's dead/dying. I keep trying DW to see if I can zero it out, but always freezes up. Please help. Nick

Your problem is system is messed up ... not hard drive. Reformat & reinstall OS X.3 and you might be ok. Check DW after initializing.

urrl78 · May 1, 2004, 05:17 PM

I agree with romeosc. I got a flashing file question mark on my 17" just recently. I could boot from the install CD but disk first aid did no good. After erasing the HD all is well. Note while holding the option button only the CD icon would show up; the computer could not find the HD, although hardware test said there was one.

rozwado1 · May 1, 2004, 05:22 PM

Originally posted by romeosc:
Your problem is system is messed up ... not hard drive. Reformat & reinstall OS X.3 and you might be ok. Check DW after initializing.

I try to erase in Disk Utility, but come up with this. Any other software I could use to erase and reformat the drive?

romeosc · May 2, 2004, 02:57 PM

Tty reformating drive using OSX install disk.

rozwado1 · May 2, 2004, 04:54 PM

After a little UNIX work last night (I'd like to thank proton for helping me on the IRC channel), I found out that the HD is in fact dead. I ran a dd command on the disk to try to erase the first few blocks, but it kept giving us errors. Some kind of mechanical failure, but not with the read heads (no clicking). When the new HD gets here, I'll take apart the old to see if I can figure it out. Nick

urrl78 · May 3, 2004, 07:05 AM

Disk utility erase did not work with me either but the install disk erased and reformatted.