Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

The Benjamin · Apr 11, 2005, 09:11 AM

I have a clamshell iBook G3/366 firewire that has these problems: most of the time, when I turn it on, it turns on to a grey screen. If I leave it on long enough, ultimately it will start flashing system folder icon with a blinking question mark. If it does actually start up, I have to make sure that the hard drive doesn't go on standby, or I'll get an eternal pinwheel of death. Finally, I can't ever put it to sleep, because it won't wake up again.

These problems used to be described on the Applecare website under document
#50988, with the helpful instructions to send the computer in for repair. Apple deleted this document from the database about two years ago. By the way, Hardware Diagnosis, or whatever that program is called, doesn't find anything wrong at all.

I'm not going to spend $350 for repairs on a machine that isn't even worth that much. However, I'd like to get the machine working, as my laptop needs are so modest that even a G3/366 pretty much takes care of them. I've noticed cannibalized parts showing up on ebay, so I've thought perhaps I'll just swap out the parts myself.

Which leads me to my question: Does anybody here know what exactly is causing my problem? How realistic is it that I could swap the parts myself?

discotronic · Apr 11, 2005, 12:33 PM

Have you tried to reinstall the OS? You could do an Archive and Install that way you retain all your information. You might want to back up all your important information while you still have time. Have you tried a program called Disk Warrior? It could be a bad hard drive but the whole not waking up from sleep has me wondering.

Parts for the older clamshell models are overly expensive. You would actually be better off finding a newer model iBook.

jamil5454 · Apr 11, 2005, 12:46 PM

I say hard disk or corrupt OS X installation.

The Benjamin · Apr 11, 2005, 02:34 PM

I had the problem with the original OS9 install, and have done two installations of OS X. I've had the same problems every time. I've also done the hard disk integrity scan on the OS X install disk like ten times and it's never helped.

discotronic · Apr 11, 2005, 03:26 PM

Originally posted by The Benjamin:
I had the problem with the original OS9 install, and have done two installations of OS X. I've had the same problems every time. I've also done the hard disk integrity scan on the OS X install disk like ten times and it's never helped.

I have always found that the hardware test CD that Apple supplies doesn't catch anything. It sounds to me like the HD is going.

When you boot the system off of a CD does it have any problems? Does it still have the problem with OS 9?

The Benjamin · Apr 11, 2005, 04:03 PM

The system does function when I boot off CD. Unfortunately, every time I've done that, it didn't detect the hard drive at all. A friend of mine had an OS 9 boot disk that had (I'm gonna say) Norton system utilities on it, but I couldn't run any kind of hard disk scan, because as far as the computer knew, there was no hard disk at all.

Nevertheless, I would consider changing the hard drive, just to give it a shot. But aren't the hard drives rather expensive, too? As in a couple of hundred dollars?

One thing I did consider was getting a firewire drive and installing system software on it. Kinda a bust for portabillity, but at least I could get a little work done.

discotronic · Apr 11, 2005, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by The Benjamin:
The system does function when I boot off CD. Unfortunately, every time I've done that, it didn't detect the hard drive at all. A friend of mine had an OS 9 boot disk that had (I'm gonna say) Norton system utilities on it, but I couldn't run any kind of hard disk scan, because as far as the computer knew, there was no hard disk at all.

Nevertheless, I would consider changing the hard drive, just to give it a shot. But aren't the hard drives rather expensive, too? As in a couple of hundred dollars?

One thing I did consider was getting a firewire drive and installing system software on it. Kinda a bust for portabillity, but at least I could get a little work done.

Does your system support booting from firewire? For some reason I was thinking that you model doesn't support it. I could be wrong of course.

If your hard drive doesn't even show up at all when you boot from a CD it is most likely a bad drive.

As far as getting a hard drive goes, what size are you looking for? You can get one for under $100 new. Check out these links:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-.../2.5-Notebook/

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...asp?CatId=1277

If you are looking for a used one try eBay or post in the Marketplace forum. You never know what kind of deal you can come up with there.

Check this link out also. It will take you step by step with taking the iBook apart.

http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/49.0.0.html

The Benjamin · Apr 12, 2005, 08:46 AM

Discotronic and Jamil5454,
First of all, thank you for your suggestions. You've got me rethinking my assumptions in a very useful way.

I thought back and realized that the startup problem got worse and worse as I continued to use the computer--this would suggest that it is indeed the hard drive, wouldn't it?

So, some followup questions: Considering that I never had any problems with data integrity etc., could it be possible that it's just a few (unfortunately crucial) bad sectors on the drive, and that something like diskwarrior could do the job? Maybe that's pointless anyway, since diskwarrior costs more than a new drive.

Firewire booting: I actually just assumed it could. I did a little google searching and I'm still not entirely sure. I'm trying to think of a way to test it. If I connected a firewire drive and then used the installation CD and the installer detected the drive as a place to install, would that alone indicate success? Seems like it would.

Thanks again for all your help.

Big Mac · Apr 13, 2005, 02:14 AM

Originally posted by The Benjamin:
Nevertheless, I would consider changing the hard drive, just to give it a shot. But aren't the hard drives rather expensive, too? As in a couple of hundred dollars?

Well, the first thing you should do is run Disk First Aid (a.k.a. fsck from the command line). The next thing, which I heartily recommend, is to buy a copy of Alsoft's Disk Warrior. And no, hard drives actually are cheap. Installing them into laptops is difficult, though, and usually you'll want a professional to handle it; that's where the expense comes in. Here are some companies that specialize in the service:

TechRestore
MCE Tech
pbparts.com

Since I am running out of space on my iBook's 10GB drive, I am seriously considering getting an upgrade from one of these companies. So if you decide to do it, let us know how it turns out.

tooki · Apr 13, 2005, 06:48 PM

All iBook models support booting from USB and FireWire, if present.

tooki

The Benjamin · Apr 14, 2005, 01:47 PM

Well, I gave in and ordered a new hard drive. 40 GB instead if the paltry 10 GB originally installed. I'll share with the forum my experiences installing it when it arrives.

Just for giggles, I downloaded the first install disk of Yellowdog Linux and used it to boot up the machine. One of my theories about what was/is wrong with the machine is that the hard disk controller was/is bad. But the Yellowdog installer found the controller no problem--it just said it couldn't find a hard disk.

So: everyone who suggested it's the hard drive: (so far) it looks like you are right.

The Benjamin · Apr 20, 2005, 03:06 PM

It turns out that it was in fact the hard drive. I spent yesterday afternoon installing the new drive and then last night installing OS X. Everything seems to be working great. The machine even wakes from sleep no problem--it used to just crash. Discotronic: Thank you again for your help.

Big Mac: The instructions for installing a hard drive at pbfixit.com are excellent. (Thank you, pbfixit!) The task isn't very hard, just time consuming. I recommend planning at least a couple of hours for it.

Now then: anyone have any idea how I can recover data from a drive that was so corrupted/broken, the machine couldn't recognize it at all. (I'll start a new thread about this somewhere else.)

jamil5454 · Apr 20, 2005, 05:09 PM

I had the same problem on an old Compaq Armada laptop. SMART was detecting a disk controller failure, but the hard drive would work fine. Then, I started getting imminent disk failure warnings, and sure enough, 3 days later my hard drive was hosed.