Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ericwass · Aug 24, 2003, 11:56 AM

The other day my Pismo froze up completely. When I reset and restarted I got the "no blessed System Folder" icon - the intermittent "?" and "System Folder icon". Couldn't get that to go away. Tired resetting the PRAM. Nothing. Tried to put it in target disk mode to connect to my G4 Quicksilver, but that didn't work. Was able to boot up with my Apple Care CD but it didn't recognize any hard drive. Finally, tried to boot with my Disk Warrior CD and that was just a non-starter. The CD just grinds and eventually gets spit out. What happend?!? What is it going to take to fix this: a new HD? I was thinking of upgrading fairly soon anyway (waiting for the AI 15"!) but would like a few more months out of this thing. Any thoughts, suggestions?

sailin74 · Aug 24, 2003, 04:08 PM

If it's letting you boot from an OS X CD, I'd try a new hard drive. Can you hear the old hard drive spinning at all? You can probably pick up a cheap HD for it if you'd like to hang onto it for a couple months. At least it's not dead, Dead... I'd buy a new HD for it, and an external case for the new drive. That way you can try the bad one externally it get data off of it, if you manage to recover with the new drive. If the new drive doesn't fix your problems, you have a new external for your replacement machine...

rjt1000 · Aug 26, 2003, 10:30 PM

Hi,

I agree: sounds like you just need a new HD. No catastrophe.

You could get a decent used OEM on eBay for about $50 which you should do even if you decide to sell--so you get a fair sale price.

But if you are fond of your Pismo and want to upgrade, the top notch IBM Travelstar 40GNX 5400 rpm 40 gig is yours for about $135 and that could give you a significant performance boost.

Best wishes,

Rich (Pismo G3 500)

ericwass · Aug 26, 2003, 10:58 PM

Well, it turns out my Pismo failed it's logic board test on the Hardware Test CD. I got an ATA4/1/2 error which I take to mean a problem with the ATA controller. So, this could be a logic board problem which sounds pretty expensive. I think I'll take it to the Apple store tomorrow and see if I can get an estimate.

stevesnj · Aug 27, 2003, 08:32 PM

Originally posted by ericwass:
Well, it turns out my Pismo failed it's logic board test on the Hardware Test CD. I got an ATA4/1/2 error which I take to mean a problem with the ATA controller. So, this could be a logic board problem which sounds pretty expensive. I think I'll take it to the Apple store tomorrow and see if I can get an estimate.

Try here.. you may get a better price http://www.pbparts.com/