[KANYON527]

I own a 12" PowerBook G4 and yesterday I believe the hard-drive must have gone bad. I left it running for a few minutes, and when I came back, it was frozen, and when I restarted it, it sounded like the hard-drive was making sounds and the computer wouldn't run correctly. It would sometimes boot up and the OS would start, but every few seconds, it would make some clicking sounds and the computer wouldn't respond for a moment or two.

I have my receipt, but it was purchased on April 10th, 2004. I don't have AppleCare, so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions about what I should do. Can Apple still service my laptop for a charge or am I on my own to get it repaired? Is there any chance Apple will service it under warrany despite the fact that it is two months beyond the warranty period?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[rocky2]

I have heard that click of death in a 12" PB 1.33 too. If you can, boot off an external FW disk and run Disk Warrior 3.0 thru 3.03 (for Tiger) on the dying disk and then get off all the required data if you don't have a backup already. Then take it to an AS (don't forget to book a Genius first) and see if they will be kind enough to replace the disk free of charge (very unlikely but you never know). If not, they will likely want to charge about $600, which is a complete rip off. Buy yourself a nice 5200 rpm 9.5 mm 60 GB hard disk from Seagate or Hitachi for about $150 (any 2.5 inch HDD with a thickness of 9.5 mm will do) and do the job yourself with the help of a local mac geek. There are plenty of well documented procedures on the web. Print one with pictures and stick double sided tape down the side of each printed sheet and then stick the screws removed one by one on the tape in the sequence they are removed next to the pictures. This will make reassembly easy. Go at it steadily with patience in good light and a good tool set and it is doable in about 60 minutes. The hardest part is gently easing the top and bottom parts of the case apart around the edge and near the track pad. There are plastic clips that need releasing with something thin and flexible like cut pieces of a credit card.FG
Good luck is not necessary—patience and care are.