Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

PacPerson · Nov 14, 2003, 10:37 AM

My harddrive (10 gig) inside my Pismo, which I had for about 3 years has decided to retire it seems like.

Just last night, it's making sounds like there's a midget inside the drive, tapping it with a tiny hammer. Clank....Clank....Clank.....

It's no big deal, cause I had my stuff backed up, but anybody have a similiar problem ? What did you do ? Just buy a new drive and throw the old one in the garbage ?

Judging by the sounds of it, I'd say it's beyond repair. I tried reformatting last night, and reinstalled my OS, but it seems dead now, it won't boot.

When I inserted my Powerbook Hardware Test CD, it didn't mention anything about a drive test, is this common, or did the Test just not recognize/see the drive ?

Is the clanking noise common among 2.5 drives after some years ?

fisherKing · Nov 15, 2003, 08:19 AM

mine starting making a lot of clicking noises after about 2 years.
so i replaced it with a 20g ibm travelstar (5400rpm!), which made a nice difference.

not expensive these days...go for it!
(also a great opportunity to up your ram...)

anaphora68 · Nov 15, 2003, 09:09 AM

Your hard drive is going to die soon, you need to replace it.

PacPerson · Nov 15, 2003, 02:20 PM

Thanx for the replies.

I'm currently typing from my Pismo, without any internal drive, I pulled it out last night. I started up from a firewire drive right now.

I had already upgraded my ram (768) , but yeah, I guess this is a good opportunity to get a larger capacity/faster drive. I'd love to get the 7200 rpm one with 8 meg cache, but that's too much dineros for me at the moment. I'll get a 5400 one for around $100 or something.

Here's an ecological question - Do old harddrives go in the regular trash ?

SEkker · Nov 15, 2003, 05:00 PM

HDs have a circuit board with solder (a lead derivative). Please do not throw it away, it needs to be disposed of like any other computer component.

And I echo the 5400 rpm drive recommendation, really made a difference in OSX for my Pismo 400.

nate_02 · Nov 15, 2003, 06:11 PM

That's how mine sounded in my 15" Albook before it died (after 4 days of having it).

You can either pay a lot to have apple or someone else replace it, or attempt to do it yourself.

Good Luck!

tooki · Nov 15, 2003, 07:56 PM

I put an IBM TravelStar 40GXP 40GB 5400RPM drive in my Pismo. It's noticeably faster.

Installing a drive in a Pismo is easy, if you have any technical ability at all. (It's a 5 minute operation.)

tooki

poocat · Nov 15, 2003, 08:27 PM

i just wanted to throw in my yi jiao (about a penny) and say that replacing the pismo hd is cake. no worries, just remember to put the processor board down firmly.

it really does help your pismo out.
those sounds are worrying alright.

go go gadget backup.

poocat.

Lateralus · Nov 15, 2003, 08:31 PM

The HD in my Pismo died one day. I put it in a zip-lock baggie and threw it in the freezer for a few hours, put it back in the Pismo straight out of the freezer and it worked.

The thing died back in August and it has worked ever since I revived it in the freezer, though the clank-clank noise is now a constant.

anaphora68 · Nov 15, 2003, 08:48 PM

That clank clank noise, at least from a tech support standpoint, is really bad news. Even if your hard drive is still running it will more than likely die very soon with noises like that being made.

Just my two cents.

bmhome1 · Nov 15, 2003, 09:13 PM

The processor doesn't even need to be removed to swap a drive in a Pismo, you just have to gently hold the cabled drive backing out the screws. Instructions at xlr8yourmac.com data base.

You do need a non-magnetic Torx 8 driver (Sears) for the screws. Don't tighten the new drive's screws beyond light torque.

Lateralus · Nov 15, 2003, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by anaphora68:
That clank clank noise, at least from a tech support standpoint, is really bad news. Even if your hard drive is still running it will more than likely die very soon with noises like that being made.

Just my two cents.

Yeah, my original intention when freezing it was to get it to run for long enough to allow me to back up my stuff to CD-Rs, which I did. When it kept running, I decided to stick with it. And the clicks have been getting gradually quieter and occuring less often too... Very odd.

anaphora68 · Nov 16, 2003, 12:23 AM

That is interesting. Maybe I'll try that with the next Dell with a dead hard drive I see. javascript:smilie('

')

If it's still working stick with it, but just make sure you have your critical documents backed up.