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John123 · Mar 7, 2005, 10:57 AM

I have a PowerBook G4/667 DVI that is giving me fits, so I am hoping someone out there can help me.

For the past couple weeks, it has had intermittent problems. You would hear a "clicking" noise, shortly after which it would freeze up and require a restart. This happened quite a bit. Sometimes, it wouldn't even restart, instead bringing up a gray screen, or the Mac OS folder with the flashing question mark.

Finally, it just didn't see the drive altogether (exemplified by starting up from the OS CD and going into Disk Utility and the drive not being listed).

So, assuming that it was a hard drive on its last legs, I went to a friend's and took the drive out of his PB G4/500 and slapped it in. Worked perfectly, leading me to conclude it was the drive. So, I went to CompUSA yesterday and bought one of their Samsung 60GB 5400 rpm notebook drives. (Yes, Hitachi Travelstars would be nicer, but this met the urgent need and it was 90 bucks after rebate.)

So I put the Samsung drive in, start up, and the computer doesn't see that either. ARGH. This makes me start to wonder if it might be the ribbon that connects the drive to the motherboard. I disconnect everything, reconnect it all, and restart.

Finally! It saw the drive. BUT, now I occassionally hear a "chirping" sound coming from the machine, and it's not coming from the speakers. And on the reinstall of the OS, it crashed a couple times. Now I have the OS on there and it seems to be working OK, but it still chirps.

I'm at a loss. I've run the Apple Hardware Test CD, memory testers, and some of the typical hardware diagnostic tools out there, and nothing detects any problems. (On the old drive, the Hardware Test CD detected errors in "Mass Storage" on about the 19th loop in the Extended Test, but nothing since then.)

Any ideas? Could it be that ribbon? IDE controller? Motherboard?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!

Detrius · Mar 7, 2005, 05:33 PM

The better test would be to stick your hard drive in your friend's machine to see what happens. If it's the same machine, try the cable too, but independently of the drive.

BTW, it's incredibly unlikely that you would have a bad cable unless it was damaged in this process. I have seen them separate, though, so it is possible.

John123 · Mar 10, 2005, 02:17 PM

I put it in an enclosure. I don't even hear it spinning up. Should I? It's a Hitachi 30GB...never take a laptop HD out before, so I'm in new territory here.

Detrius · Mar 10, 2005, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by John123:
I put it in an enclosure. I don't even hear it spinning up. Should I? It's a Hitachi 30GB...never take a laptop HD out before, so I'm in new territory here.

Technically, you introduced a new piece of hardware into the equation, so you need to verify the new piece of hardware. If you put another hard drive in the enclosure and it works, then your non-spinning drive is bad.